Review: Paavo 1,5

PAAVO CAME TO PASILA

The Swedish author’s story has been inspired by an advertisement in the newspaper of the Social Welfare Board, which revealed that at least one of the members of the people’s home, which was otherwise considered so happy, was without an everyday home at the time. A man in his thirties who lived in a nursing home was in the same position as many summer cats in the autumn. Where can I find a good family for a proper tom?
Druker, a versatile theatre man, created a kind of fictitious background for the advertisement. It became a story of its own, the play Patrik 1.5, which has been well received in theaters and has also inspired the filmmaker. Ella Lemhagen’s film of the same name recently premiered.
In the Finnish translation, Patrik turned into Paavo. Jari and Martti, who live in a registered partnership, want to have an adopted child, and I wonder if a stork will emerge from somewhere that throws boys around with a wide age range. He had to be one and a half years old. I turned fifteen years old.

The mutual consternation is a nice opening point for the comedy. In the waves of clichés and prejudices, Paavo and, presumably, to some extent also the theatre audience, who nevertheless have a lifebuoy of laughter to protect them.
The duo, on the other hand, who want to be parents, have largely adapted to society’s attitudes, but the protective equipment threatens to break when the newcomer attacks, mainly in words. Paavo is a social case, a little boy who has already slipped into homicide, but now above all a disappointed and insecure little boy. Shuttling from family to family is not necessarily a guarantee of happy growth.
Of the men, Jari is softer, more understanding, more motherly and recognizes something in Paavo’s situation that he himself has experience of. Her empathy is thresholdless, unlike Martin, who, as a social worker, has had enough of the role of an understanding.

It is a light-rolling comedy that does not need to seek justification. At the same time as it tickles the nerves of laughter as it directs the spotlight of mockery at both attitudeal statements and many small everyday things and problems familiar in any family, it also appeals strongly to emotions and a desire for protection. Love and caring for each other are the big themes of a small play, which is not ridiculed.
No direct counterforce to the story has been written, unless the narrow thinking that remains outside the center, its social dimension, must be interpreted as such.

Drama thus works on the individual and on this particular case level. The strongest in the community turns out to be “little Paavo”. He has energy and activity, and he hides his insecurities with tough gestures that act as shields. Petja Lähde does a generously lively acting. Jaakko Saariluoma as Jari is appealingly kind and empathetic, and Tommi Auvinen – who at the premiere filled in for the ill Eero Saarinen’s role as Martti – is more abrupt and neurotic, but expresses eternal boyishness.
All the characters have their own special moments of glamour, the situation comedy bites. Auvinen’s direction does not play gimmicks, but believes in the story as it is. That way, it’s easier for the audience as well.