Together in the waves
The young mermaid Ariel falls in love with Prince Erik at first sight and does everything she can for her love. The love between Sonja Pajunoja and Martti Manninen also flares up outside the stage.
Sonja Pajunoja and Martti Manninen are used to working together. They met seven years ago when they were engaged in the musical Les Misérables at the Tampere Theatre. Both agree that it was love at first sight.
“There were no more two words in it,” Manninen laughs.
Although they have had several productions together, The Little Mermaid is the first in which this real-life couple gets to show their feelings for each other on the stage of a theatre.
“It’s really exciting when you’re not yourself on stage, but you’re playing a role. In that situation, you have a completely different personality, so you are nervous about whether the emotions will also be visible on the outside,” Pajunoja ponders.
“This work is a constant balancing act and finding how much of yourself you give of yourself and how you make the difference between the character and yourself,” Manninen continues.
From the beginning, the couple, who work together, have had to think about how to reconcile work and leisure. When we share both working days and everyday moments at home together, it is important to be able to discuss things openly.
“Sometimes you want to get excited about something personal at work or, correspondingly, about a work matter at home. In those moments, the other person can gently say that now is the time to focus on this work matter, for example, let’s talk at home. We also have the right to say if we don’t feel like discussing something at the moment,” Pajunoja says.
“On the other hand, we have both learned that you can’t always take a break when you get home. Sometimes there are work matters that need to be taken care of. It also helps that we can solve things together – and in an inspiring spirit,” Manninen adds.
The Little Mermaid has enchanted theatergoers since last autumn, and this season the actors will still have the opportunity to show off their special skills in the kingdom of the sea. Pajunoja praises Manninen’s jumping power, which viewers have also been able to admire in Humming Ridge, and even flying – i.e. swimming Ariel – which seems easy to the viewer’s eyes, is in reality a demanding special skill.
“The audience has to go home thinking that it was easy. Creating that illusion is part of our craftsmanship. It’s an awful lot of work to bend your own voice so that it suits different roles,” Manninen says.
“We have also been told about these roles that we are like Ariel or Erik. Basically, we are very different from the character in the role. It’s actually the best praise you can get, because it means that you’ve been able to take the role as far away from yourself as possible,” Pajunoja sums up.
How does it feel to work together?
Martti: I’d like to say that it’s really easy, but if it were terribly easy, it wouldn’t necessarily make sense. Sonja is also a really enthusiastic person, and you can’t ask for that enough. It’s terribly easy to be ironic and cynical, but it always takes dedication and sacrifice to be able to be enthusiastic and accept the enthusiasm of others.
Sonja: It’s incredibly good to work with Marti. It has to do with Martti’s positive, easy-going and active basic nature. Working together, especially in a musical, is great, because we also get to sing and dance together, not just acting.
What have you learned from your partner?
Martti: Sonja learns the choreographies and lines much faster than I do. Through Sonja, I have learned different skills related to it, but also to tolerate my own slowness. I’ve started to be more permissive of myself.
Sonja: Martti is a multi-talented person and knows how to use his good qualities by applying them. I’m prone to compartmentalisation myself, but I’ve learned from Martti that skills can be cross-applied in absolutely everything.
What else would your partner like to achieve in their career?
Sonja: Martti’s goal is to have as many diverse challenges as possible. It can be an insane tenor role in a musical or a drama role on a small stage, where you can really show your acting skills.
Martti: Sonja would like to be able to do a drama role that is completely opposite to her own personality or a musical theatre performance, where you get to play an instrument while expressing yourself through acting. It also applies to both of us that we want to get to performances where you can learn a new special skill, such as flying in The Little Mermaid.
What is your partner not yet known for?
Martti: Sonja has told about this on social media, but she is insanely good at handicrafts. Sonja knits and crochets. In addition, Sonja makes puzzles with perseverance and patience, the kind of large and difficult art images that I would not be able to do myself.
Sonja: I believe that the general public doesn’t know how good Martti is at making jingles. At home, she constantly makes all kinds of miniature compositions about everyday things. Martti would be a pretty great composer and lyricist.
How does your partner make you happy?
Sonja: Martti buys me flowers because he knows that I love flowers. Martti is not a big flower lover, but he can see how much buying them affects me. She is the most thoughtful person in the world, cheers me up in every possible way: she makes breakfast and pays attention to me terribly beautifully every day.
Martti: We may both bring each other some snacks at work without asking. We have such a surprise banana tradition that a banana may appear in the mask as a surprise. Sonja also has a habit of sending a cheerful voice message or message when I go somewhere – even if it’s just for a run. Sonja does everything in her power to make the journey there and being there as comfortable as possible for Sonja.
Do your partner and their character have something in common?
Martti: Enthusiasm, positivity, amazing singing voice and also the sense of purpose that Ariel has. In my eyes, Sonja has always been aware of what she wants. It doesn’t always happen the way you want, but the starting point is that Sonja is true to herself and her goals.
Sonja: There is a lot of Erik in Martti. Martti, for example, is really a gentleman. On the other hand, Erik and Martti have a bit of the same traits as Ariel: Martti is adventurous, brave and enthusiastic.
What about the difference?
Martti: Sonja has even more prudence and she takes others into account better than Disney’s Ariel. Sonja is also never late. Ariel is late for the first concert, and Sonja would never be late.
Sonja: Erik has a desire to get somewhere far away from here and escape reality, but luckily Martti doesn’t have that. Erik is also naïve, unlike Martti. You can be excited, positive and dreamy without such naïve thoughts that you have to live in those dreams and not in the moment.
A special spring is behind us. What did it teach you about each other and your relationship?
Martti: We had each other all the time and we were able to share both our personal feelings and work matters together. When you were away from work for a long time, you really noticed that a good person is a good person even without the pressure created by the profession. We are professionals, but to each other, above all, we are just human.
Sonja: We’ve been working a lot for six years, and even though we’ve seen each other both at work and at home, we’ve been really busy. Because of the situation in the spring, we spent more time together than usual, and it was wonderful to notice that it is terribly good to be with Marti. I learn new things from him and about him every day. Even though we have gotten to know each other through work, we do not define each other through our professions.
Text Maarit Krok