Review: Punaorvot

Forgotten children finally get their story “We didn’t choose a subject, the topic chose us”

The subtitle is a statement by director Lauri Maijala. The subject chose him – luckily he was the one who directed the KOM Theatre’s impressive Blood Roses in 2018.

Now Lauri Maijala directed and partly also wrote the script together with Anneli Kanto for the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. It is downright incomprehensible that almost nothing has been written about the children orphaned after the Civil War of 1918, let alone talked about in history. Not about how the Homes for Homeless Children organisation was born after the war, which was led by the later First Lady Ester Ståhlberg. Nor was it told at the end of the 1970s, when my second major at the University of Helsinki was Finnish history…

Perhaps the idea of the organisation was originally a good one. Prosperous Ostrobothnia had food for the hungry and large houses that were happy to take children to live. As Anneli Kanto writes in the programme, the intention was also ideological: “Children had to be taken to the care of patriotic people away from their mothers, so that such monsters would no longer be allowed to raise children and instill in them their gnawing hatred, which would contaminate the child’s soul.”

Some of the children were given a loving home, but older children in particular were shamelessly exploited as free labour. Some were also sexually abused.

Lauri Maijala says that the innocents of our civil war are already gone. Most of the red orphans were so ashamed of their background and experiences that they did not tell the next generations about them. They took their secrets to the grave.

Now the story is told, and it is told in an impressive and shocking way. The mother, whose husband is shot, whose infant dies and whose two daughters are forcibly taken into custody in Ostrobothnia, is magnificently played by Ella Mettänen. His every expression, his collapse and finally his ability to gather the last remnants of his strength are transmitted to the audience, where the spectators, of course, are sitting with respirators on their faces these days.

The roles of the daughters, who were forcibly taken to Ostrobothnia, are played by Wenla Reimaluoto and Anna Böhm. Their fates are different, one wants to return to their mother, the other wants to stay in their new home. I was reminded of the fate of war children deported to Sweden and the film The Best of Mothers, based on Heikki Hietamies’ autobiographical novel.

The entire ensemble directed by Lauri Maijala does a magnificent job. It is a pleasure to see the strong performances of Riitta Havukainen and Kari Mattila, who are part of the theatre’s regular cast. Satisfied with her fate, but steadfast, Elli is like the epitome of a Finnish woman with perseverance. I haven’t seen Kari Mattila in such a startling role for a long time as he is as the White Guard, the Fine Gentleman and the shuddering Santa.

The set design created by Janne Vasama for the small stage works great, and Tiina Kaukanen’s costume design does not disappoint this time either. The only thing I was left thinking about after the intermission was the peculiar transition to absurd expression with dances and glitter costumes. Is it needed in the middle of a strong story?

This story carries without anything extra. In the words of Lauri Maijala: “Because as long as there are untold stories, silenced mouths and shame taken to the grave, theatre has a mission, a place and a meaning in this society.”