“It feels human to follow a person’s good and weak sides up close.” – Interview with director Milja Sarkola
Bolla has made director Milja Sarkola think about fate.
In the play, based on the bestselling novel by Pajtim Statovci , Arsim, a newly married Albanian man, falls in love with a Serbian man, Miloš, in Kosovo in the 90s. Love is a shocking experience for both of them, but happiness and time together only last for a moment. As unrest and violence escalate, Arsim is forced to flee the country with his family.
Forbidden and hidden homosexuality in the run-up to the approaching war and the refugee status of Arsim’s family touched Sarkola. “I can relate to the fact that my own life could have gone very differently if the circumstances had been different.”
Sarkola says that he strongly empathizes with Arsim, who is a very complex character. After falling in love, Arsim experiences deep loneliness, keeps his distance from the people around him, and treats his family coldly and his wife violently.
“It feels human to follow a person’s good and bad sides closely. That the same person can be so sensitive, caring, cruel and nasty.”
The tragic fate makes us stop to think about how long a person can survive on short-term happiness if everything else is suffering. And on the other hand: how can something as beautiful as love become so ugly?
Charged dialogue
In Tuomas Timonen’s play, the situations between the characters play a bigger role than in the novel, which depicts a lot of the characters’ inner voices. The challenge is that the stage interpretation can be something completely different from the viewer’s presuppositions. You can’t get everything from such a complex novel.
“The mood and priorities can be different,” Sarkola says. “And the sound and visual design brings a whole new dimension to the story.”
On stage, Arsim’s wife, Ajshe, rises on an equal footing with Arsim and Miloš, while the novel is written with male voices. Through Ajshe, a new kind of female perspective opens up in the play.
Sarkola considers Ajshe’s starting point to be the narrowest in the play. “When Ajshea looks at it from a contemporary Finnish, feminist perspective, it seems quite unfortunate.”
But Ajshe does not necessarily feel that his position is fundamentally miserable, but defends his own place and values. Even though she loses her homeland and her husband, she keeps herself together, perhaps by retaining her dignity.
For Sarkola, what is special about Bolla is the contradictory nature of the characters and how little is used to tell so much. “Timonen’s dialogue is loaded. Between the lines there is good drama and a huge amount of emotions. It’s interesting to embody and show it.”
As a director, Sarkola has always been interested in psychological acting: the things under the surface, subtlety and subtlety in emotional expression.
Getting to know the culture
at Bolla has been plenty of work not only in terms of the saturation of the story but also in getting to know a foreign culture.
“We have had to do a lot of background work to understand what the performance represents and deals with,” Sarkola says.
New things in Albanian culture have included, for example, the importance of dignity even in difficult circumstances, the importance of home cleanliness, and hospitality, which differs from Western urban culture. Perceptions of the patriarchal order, gender roles and the experience of homosexuality have become more specific.
In addition, many small details related to customs have come to light, such as how something is served or how to greet in a certain situation. Statovci has helped Sarkola and the actors with questions related to culture.
“Pajtim has helped and followed the trainings, as he is not only an expert in the fictional world but also in the cultural world,” Sarkola says.
The play does not deal with immigration on a general level, but as part of the fate of Arsim and Ajshe. After fleeing the country, they settle in an unnamed but recognizable city. The play’s cultural clash fits well with Finnish culture.
However, Sarkola does not want to mystify the cultural difference. “It’s not so far away that it can’t be understood or that there are no factors that unite humanity. In the stage adaptation, the situations are mundane and recognizable.”
Sarkola has directed a lot of his own texts and dramatizations during his career. Directing Bolla has been different, as this time there has been no textual responsibility. “It has been liberating and inspiring to go into someone else’s text. And it’s lighter when you don’t feel ashamed of your own text.”
Text: Ida Henritius