Review: Punaorvot
Piupali paupali, red orphan
I empathize with the play so that the mascara runs down my face. Time passes quickly, the intermission is almost instantaneous. The play Red Orphans is underway at the Helsinki City Theatre.
The Finnish Civil War of 1918 is a national trauma with plenty of room for healing.
Author Anneli Kanto and director Lauri Maijala are a working couple whose mission is to highlight the horror of the civil war (civil war, rebellion) and its biggest losers, children.
The war left 25,000 children orphaned. The story of the Johansson family at the Helsinki City Theatre shows what life was like on the Lines in the aftermath of the war. The father has been killed, the depressed mother is trying to survive with her four children. The youngest, an infant, dies. The neighbor is helpful, even though his life is not bad either.
Poor relief is a straw that you don’t want to grab onto. Poor relief takes away the right to vote and children are taken away from those who rely on it.
In the story of the Red Orphans, two children are taken away from the mother. The Homes for the Homeless organization has wisely decided, with the support of the state elite, that the “Punik puppies” should be moved to Ostrobothnia, where more prosperous conditions and the right kind of ideology await them. One girl gets an abundant home, the other ends up in slavery and abuse. The child’s voice is not heard and his or her longing is not seen.
The play evokes a huge amount of thoughts. What is guilt? What should a person feel guilty about? What is maternal love? When is motherly love wrong?
Whose ideology is right, whose is wrong? Miina Sillanpää is a hero to some, anything but to another. The play brings things up from many angles and the accusing finger doesn’t really hit anything.
When watching the Red Orphans, discussions about immigrants, ISIS mothers, talk about human trash and marginalized people come to mind. Many of his own encounters as a journalist on story gigs in developing and developed countries also run through his head as images. As a child, I read Aili Konttinen’s book Inkeri returned from Sweden at least ten times. I cried to break the harrowing fate of the war child Ingria. That also springs to mind in the middle of the performance.
Tolerance? What was it in 1918 and what is it now, in 2020? Does tolerance really exist?
Red Orphans is a shockingly impressive play. It’s sad: I don’t remember ever crying so much in the theatre. I like that art provides me with building blocks for my thinking. Of the red orphans, there was a large house, a two-year-old Ostrobothnian house.
A friend of mine who was born in Ostrobothnia says: I have lived and grown up in Ostrobothnia and heard all sorts of things, but I did not know that red orphans had been brought there, there was talk of Karelian evacuees.
He laughs and wonders if he dares to speak the childhood dialect used in the play after this play – in a funny, authentic way, at least to the ear of a non-Ostrobothnian.
The Helsinki City Theatre’s Red Orphans has an amazingly good set design, which is the work of Janne Vasama. The cast is competent. Anna Böhm’s role as six-year-old Ilona was particularly memorable. In Ostrobothnia, Ilona of the lines became an obedient schoolgirl who spoke Sivi, a broad Ostrobothnian dialect. Böhm’s Ilona-Siviä is genuine in her role.
The lullaby of the shoemaker’s mistress accompanies the play. An interesting choice that carries a message, lightens and comforts.
Piupali paupali, piupali paupali, as long as I don’t know you.