Reflections After The Critic

Reflections after the premier – and the critic 2.12.09

”Empty space is full of possibilities”, says Naohm in our play Saari (The Island).

Right now I’m feeling empty. And full of possibilities? Well, maybe, and sure;) Mut on the top of the feelings I feel empty.

Of coarse. What else can a human being as director be, after a premier. In my opinion, the performance called Saari became to be a delicate, small big performance in which many things I believe in theatre become true, and which suites well to this time and place. The performance will run until Dec. 13th on Espa.

The running of the premier was theatened by a small catastrophe, when the lights got dim on the minute the show was to start. It was a rainy day, people came with umbrellas and water drops from unbrellas got into the dimmer and ruined the lights. But that accident made us on the powers of the Nature to bring along candles to able the audience to see something, and somehow this suited perfectly to a performance that has chosen its name to be Saari – The Island.

The public opinion in the national newspaper was published, too. It wasn’t praising the work done. It was an opinion of an experienced theatre watcher and somehow I do understand his point of view. Our critic seemed to long for more drama to the performance. And in his opinion the characters didn’t meet in the level of their expression.

The inspirator and role model for the performance has been a real island in the most westerly point of Europe, by the Atlantic ocean, where I have often spent my time and lived many peaceful and silent as well as many kinds of dramatic moments. I have also met extraordinary people there; people from different angles of the world, found their ways to this remote island with no electrycity. People who have fallen in love with the island’s green and bare hills against which they look at themselves and their lives. And little by little, only the hills of the island.

This rough and frustrating island requires a lot from a human being – like any place with rough conditions. However, it is a very rich place. One can loose him/herself there, and find him/herself there. As always as a man goes to the Nature. And as always as a man confronts a piece of art.

The majority of the people do not see the point on going there, to the bare island, to make it there, to walk there around, to stare at the hills and the rough sea around the piece of land. The majority of the people that kind of thing just does not seem necessary, quite the opposite, it feels the most stupid thing to do. Then there are the people who somehow want to participate the rough beauty of the island, its magic and remoteness, and they bring along the pump and the shower, a generator and a tv, a box of bear and a football. It is allowed sure, but in the opinion of us puritans it is odd, because we ask: why can they not be one place in the world which is free from this kind of luxury and entertainment? When such a big area on Earth is filled up by a man with so much stuff and entertainment, why not let this remote and rough island stay as an empty space which one can listen to and look at?

Our critic seemed to long for more drama to the play. ”There wasn’t any conflict, not even in mixing up languages, the Finnish, the English and Japanese.” He is right. There wasn’t much drama in there, not in using the different languages, ultimately neather between the characters. The drama was in using the space, in the character meeting her own memories, fears and other emotions.

For theatre can be done of anything. Yuko who is playing Naohm in the play said: ”Think how much theatre can be!”
And it can. Any subject matter can be made into theatre. And of coarse drama is part of theatre. Tensions and conflicts. And much else.
But I also want to ask: how wide question can drama be?
When the sea is splashed against the shore and breaks the stone, there is certainly drama.
When the sun goes down every night, from the human perspective, there is a a great drama every day.
When a human being is in the space and the other does not notice the other, we see drama. When the other needs the other and the other doesn’t notice it, then there ceratinly is a drama.
And when the other is physically expressing differently to the other – there isn’t a conflict but there is a contrast there.
The drama in the performance called Saari – The Island is this kind of drama. The kind of drama that there is in Nature. Slowlier, more compact.
Beautiful images. The hearing of one’s breathing. Human energy compressed. Looking at a creature called a human being. Looking at an empty space that is left in between the human being and the wall or window.
That is the kind of theatre we have been wanting to create, and where I think we have succeeded.

When some years ago I left the Island and was looking back towards the island from the boat, my friend said: ”Don’t worry. It will always stay there.” And that is true. It can change, and human beings change and have changed that place. Nowadays there are the showers. Yet the Island is strong and it stays.
Our Island we have created of coarse doesn’t stay always: it stays only for two weeks on Espa.

In the play Ohma says: ”Why a man has to want to difficult places? Why doens’t one just live peacefully, change clothes and stay?”
Naohm says: ”The place is empty on the surface. But empty space is full of possibilities.”

Such is also the Stage. And a human being. As full of possibilities as are the hills of the island. Yuko said, not in the play but outside it: :”The most delicate things in the world are impossible to analyze.”

The crew which wasn’t mentioned in the critic: Johanna Storm, sound design; Jani-Matti Salo, lightning design; Johanna Juhola, music composing; Paula Koivunen, dresses and visuality of the stage; Kaisa Niemi and Yuko Takeda, actor’s art; Jan Liesaho, producing; Heli Sorjonen: photos; Miira Sippola; script and directing.