Review: little_star95 – ooksä online?

little_star95 — Are you online? is an amazing nostalgia trip

I’m fourteen again, with my whole life ahead of me and my days full of such a whirlwind of emotions and experiences that make me weak. Or is it? litte_star95 — the online Studio Pasila stage is such a nostalgia trip to my own youth that there is no limit.

Essi, brought to the stage by Hilma Kotkaniemi , is a basic teenager, a teenage girl, a young person of the early 2000s, whose wall is lined with topical posters of TV stars, musicians and cute animals. Just like I did at that age. Essi tries on outfits in front of the mirror and tries to pose as attractively as possible, as I remember doing. You communicate with your friends in the IRC gallery and in the midst of gossip, the wrong words end up on the wrong ears. The relationship drama is powerful, genuine and deep. Just like fourteen-year-olds have.

Hilma Kotkaniemi is an amazing Essi

Kotkaniemi, who initially takes the stage as an adult, skilfully transforms into Essi, who lives in the turmoil of adolescence, and who feels big and a lot. And the viewer will feel it all with him, because it is impossible not to remember what it was like. The insecurity, the desire to fit in, to be good and liked, even though your reflection in the mirror says everything else. When a cute boy showed attention and when you notice your friends talking behind your back. On the side, the mother dares to ask for help with the laundry, as if there was time for something so insignificant in the middle of everything else.

The internet has revolutionized the world and changed the way we grow. It has created a new reality in which offline and online worlds are intertwined and challenge us to think about what kind of self-images, identities and relationships are created and shaped online. Digital everyday life raises questions about what is “real” and what is only built through the screen – and how these two worlds are ultimately intertwined into one.

On stage, the teen drama takes place from the school environment to digital communication arenas, and with a sensitive and precise touch, it highlights the painful hierarchies and insecurities between girls.

One actor is seen on stage, who is in contact with characters outside the stage. How appropriate when you consider the virtual world and communication through mechanization. Essi belongs to the generation that has had access to the internet through slow connections. Essi has a website, an irc gallery, virtual horses. Essi is a charming and sympathetic mix of a little girl and a teenager, right in the painful borderland where the two are rapidly separating from each other. When as an adult, you start to know how to look at this time with gentle eyes, Essi doesn’t know yet. Everything is only true here and now.

little_star95 — Are you online? is definitely worth watching. The play, which lasts about 1.5 hours, hits the nerve and the core, and reminds us how wonderfully awful it is to feel things to the fullest.