PLAY REVIEW
Director: Anne Mäkinen
Written by the working group of the project Tuulta purjeisiin
One free evening of mine I accidentally came across this play. For a long time I had been tempted to go and watch it. The idea of it was so interesting and I had heard so many praises about it that I knew I had to see it. Fortunately I did.
The basic idea is simple but brilliant: the script is written by a group of young people involved in this project, Tuulta purjeisiin. The project is for unemployed young adults who in some way or another need guiding in their lives (http://www.pori.fi/kulttuuri/tuultapurjeisiin-hanke.html). The script consists of stories from their own lives. The fascinating part is that an actor never performed in his own story.
Because of the extremely different kinds of stories in the play, the plot was not unambiguous. However there were some clear unifying factors between the scenes. There was some kind of a crisis in every story and all of them contained an attempt to criticize the society for the people’s unequal chances in succeeding in life which depend so strongly on the basis in which a person is born. I personally think they managed to share the thought very well. The crises in the stories varied between drug addictions, depressions, severe harassments and many other sad incidents.
Some stories stood out more than the others. The ones that got stuck in my head were Laura’s and Kaneli’s stories.
Laura was a sweet little girl whose parents got separated and her dear dad left her alone with her irresponsible mother. Six months later the dad was found dead lying under a tree. This story really touched me deeply because I couldn’t imagine losing my own dad in an accident. But this made me realise that world is a cruel place and these kinds of things can happen to anyone, anytime.
Kaneli, on the other hand, was a reckless rebel who just had a bad luck – and company. She had a habit of getting in strangers’ cars during a party night. Because of that habit, she unfortunately had to experience for instance a violent car crash and a ruthless rape. I think this was the most outrageous story of them all. I had a hard time trying to internalize that it is a true story, meaning that it actually happened to one of these amazing actors, these normal people with vulnerable minds.
Though the play was filled with sad storys, it had glimpses of humour here and there. I was especially delighted by the scene, where the actors were impersonating souls (but actually looked more like sperm cells!) in a programme called Soul of Finland. They were dealt different features like prizes even though they were something like ”drinking problem” and ”mentally ill parents”.
Focusing also on the technical aspect of the play, I noticed that the costumes of the actors were remarkably plain but effective. They were wearing only pure white clothes. This way they all seemed so innocent and equal. The lights were inventive and handled professionally. The set was almost nonexistent, but more would have been unnecessary. There was just the right amount of everything.
One thing that I realised as late as after the show was the fact, that the play consisted almost entirely of monologues. That sounds very boring, but I didn’t even notice it since the storyline was so intriguing all the time. It didn’t bother a bit.
The acting was suprisingly high quality considering the backgrounds of the actors and actresses. I know from experience that it isn’t easy in any way to express and empathise those kinds of heavy emotions, and that’s the thing I valued the most in this performance. It fealt real in my heart. It made me laugh and cry and fear many times. And most of all it made me think.
Lähteet:
http://www.pori.fi/kulttuuri/tuultapurjeisiin-hanke.html