Review: Vain parasta minulle

The three parts of Only Best for Me are different and of suitable length, which makes for an interesting evening.

Helsinki City Theatre’s Only Best for Me is a delightful three-course meal that goes from the believable drama of the arc to absurd cotton candy. Authors Sofi Oksanen, Elina Snicker and Maija Vilkkumaa have been given free rein, and each of them offers a look at their own world and a woman’s life in a very different situation.

Oksanen’s I Love You Already Now offers two perspectives on the fertility treatment business. For Daria (Aurora Manninen), a poor Ukrainian woman, donating eggs or acting as a surrogate uterus is an opportunity to earn well, although becoming a donor is a difficult process and, in the worst case, a high mental and physical cost. For the Finnish Marja (Vappu Nalbantoglu), a child acquired in this way may be the last chance.

Snicker’s Cry for a Stranger quickly progresses from ordinary to unusual and even horror movie atmosphere. The crying woman (Riitta Havukainen) that Lieutenant (Manninen) encounters in the changing room of the swimming pool is like a witch. Havukainen’s transformation into a fragile grandmother is phenomenal and only accentuated at the end as her personality and whole being change.

Rome burns, champagne flows

Vilkkumaa’s Merisää then jumps to an even more absurd level. It seems to me as a brilliant fantasy or even dystopian depiction, where some of the passengers are still dressed in neon colors and drinking champagne when the Titanic sinks – or as the script defines it, it’s “a fantasy of the future written from the perspective of the 90s, i.e. VHS punk”. Helsinki’s Market Square has been flooded and Henna (Nalbantoglu) and Matilda (Merja Larivaara) are making money on a ferry business, where Henna, dressed as a mermaid and spouting aphorisms, rows people across the water.

However, not everything is as it seems. Mysterious maritime weather reports interrupt the news broadcast whenever there is a threat of sensitive information. There is also something rotten in the company’s finances. Matilda is like Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games in terms of style and attitude, and in general, Merisää is visually like steampunk candy, including the smoking officials.

Vilkkumaa has composed a new song for the performance, which he would have liked to have listened to more. The song and the whole story seem to run out a bit, which is of course the intention of these miniature plays to some extent.