Apu, 09.02.2012
Review
Liisa Talvitie
Kekkonen’s womenThe theme of the play Sylvi and Anita is intriguing, because the main characters represent our recent history and the pinnacle of power.
The spouse of Jaakko Hallama, a civil servant at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and later a long-time ambassador to Moscow, was assigned to accompany Sylvi Kekkonen to President Urho Kekkonen’s visit to Yugoslavia in 1963. During the trip, a passionate love affair between the president and Anita Hallama was ignited, which lasted for years.So did the friendship between Sylvi Kekkonen and Anita Hallama, even though the drama involving four people was complex and extremely sensitive. The relationship was once an open secret.
Panu Rajala has written a play on the subject, Sylvi and Anita, for the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. The role of Sylvi Kekkonen is interpreted wisely and sensitively by her niece, actress Eeva-Liisa Haimelin. You couldn’t imagine a better interpreter for the role of the bloody and strong-willed Anita Hallama than Heidi Herala. She makes one of the most impressive roles of her career as the woman who ran both Kekkonen and the embassy in Moscow.Kari Rentola’s direction skillfully shifts the spotlight from Sylvi to Anita, and only Ville Sormunen, who plays several minor roles in addition to them, is seen on stage.
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Kauppalehti, 08.2.2012
Review
Asko Karttunen
Kekkonen loved in a disgustingly realistic wayThe two women finally understood that jewellery is more permanent than love Many legends were told about President Kekkonen , some true, some not. Some were able to tell that the president had a small affair with a lady, some did not believe this. Over the years, the number of wise men grew, and a picture of a triangle drama began to take shape, in which the President himself, his wife Sylvi Kekkonen and, as the third wheel, Mrs. Anita Hallama, the wife of Ambassador Jaakko Hallama , began to form. Between the three of them, a play was played with “knowledge” and “love” as the watchwords and which never led to any final solution, the parties hanging on to it as if on a loose log. From the ingredients of this story, Panu Rajala has put together a play called Sylvi and Anita, which premiered at the Helsinki City Theatre last Thursday.Let it be said at the outset that the story would have had the ingredients for all kinds of fabrications, but Rajala has not grabbed this hook, but the result is a subtle story about how love ignites, burns and goes out. A formula that the chemists of love have followed from side to side of the world and that has almost always resulted in a zero-sum game, so it is now. Only in Hollywood can love stories end happily, but luckily Rajala is not a Hollywood man, but to use Simo Penttilä’s vocabulary, he could be called a “disgusting realist”. In addition to Rajala, the play is made into a fine performance by its two main characters, Eeva-Liisa Haimelin in the role of Sylvi and Heidi Herala in the role of Anita. Kekkonen hovers over everything, Sylvi’s love has already burned out, but the flow of information works. Anita is not based on information, now we proceed with emotion. Haimelin has conjured up an expression on Sylvi’s face that does not bode well, it has the crooked smile of a winner, a winner that is only revealed at the end. Heidi Herala’s roars have strength and despair at the same time, “Don’t you old man already decide something”. Jaakko Hallama knows, if he knows, that his serious illness did not give him a visible place in real life, nor in the play. And he is not needed for the play, there is no division of four in three. Hallama was necessary for Kekkonen, especially in the direction of the East, he served his principal, whether Anita was his wife or not. The plot and solutions of the play are as old as the man himself. If there had been one Adam in paradise but two Eves, the result would be the same. In this particular struggle, Sylvi Kekkonen was a winner, at least in the sense that she had an impact over time with her knowledge. The brooch given to Anita by Sylvi before her death may have been a symbol of something that should have remained only known to Urho Kekkonen. When it appeared around Anita Hallama’s neck, it broke something that was supposed to be a secret from here to eternity. By donating the jewelry to her contestant, Sylvi showed that she knew more than UKK had anticipated. Was it so that happiness was not a gift of any kind, happiness was only a loan – because so much belongs to love.
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