Review: Sydänmaa

PEOPLE ARE LONGING FAR FROM THE PLAINS OF KOKKOLA


At the end of the play Heartland, a brother and a dead sister fumble for the words of a familiar tango. Gradually, the song grows stronger: “Somewhere beyond the open sea there is a land where a wave lapps to the distant shore of happiness.” My throat is choking, because a person’s longing for real life goes deep. Tango is an interpreter of the most sensitive emotions of Finnish longing – as are many other songs.

Playwright Ari-Pekka Lahti’s warmth and tenderness are impressive as he weaves his family’s story onto the stage. If a young man under the age of thirty has such compassion and understanding for the troubled journey of past generations, there is no doubt that he will find the meaning of his own life in newspaper interviews.

Directed by Heidi Räsänen, Heartland is an airily beautiful and harrowing family story from the Kokkola region. The family has included a pious great-grandfather (Jari Virman) who languished in a Red prison camp and a grandfather (Jarkko Rantanen) who believed in communism and was disappointed. The father (Martti Suosalo) succumbs to alcohol and wishful thinking, while the son (Jarkko Lahti) pushes from shaky foundations to Helsinki in search of a better life. In order for him to move forward, the only option is to seek reconciliation with family tradition. Father and son together would be an invincible couple. Impossible?

The role of the women in the family is not easy either: a sister (Laura Birn) with cerebral palsy has been hammered to the ground both at school and at home. But the power of life has not been eradicated from him. There is enough strength to try to start. The mother, played by Heidi Herala lushly, cuts her daughter’s wishes with quick words and belittling, and springs from the quagmire of her own life to the path of a scrap dealer (Jari Pehkonen). Everyone acts wonderfully, sometimes only Suosalo’s alcohol-soaked speech is inaudible.

The play alternates between hilarious comedy and the desolation of life, getting close and distancing. In order to see beyond the oppressive clearings of Heartland and the circles burdened by the shame of one’s own life, one has to climb up on stage, get to Helsinki or at least to the roof of a barn. And above all, you have to want change.

What is particularly interesting in the play is the deliverance offered by faith. Would that be a way to break the “curse”? Sydänmaa seems to leave the question open. The melodies of the hymn and the Satumaa tango blend into each other.

It will be interesting to wait for Ari-Pekka Lahti’s next texts. Thank you for this experience.