HATRED WILL NOT MAKE US FREE

Minna Tawast, Teatteri & Tanssi + Sirkus -magazine, 6-7/ 2018

Tuomo Railo has been combining speech and movement in his works in a creative way for long already, looking for the common force of language and movement. In Omnipotens, which premiered in 2016, Railo seemed to take the use of speech to the extreme; it was there more than in a traditional theatre monologue. The lates work Valkoisten vankina (Imprisoned by the Whites) works with the same principle, but the relation between movement and speech is less provocative, smoother. Narrative monologues and dialogues that carry the storyline change or are organically united with movement. Sometimes one forgets totally which one is in question.

Besides Railo, the story is told by Sanni Giordani, Kaisa Leppänen, Jukka Tarvainen and Jussi Väänänen, who are outstanding. They act skilfully, too, from a little distance.

It fits the story’s dispassionate narration, which feels especially valuable because Valkoisten vankina is based on the memoirs of Railo’s grandfather’s brother by the same name. He 

recounts his experiences as a Red prisoner at the prison camps in Kokkola and Tammisaari in 1918. Out of the memoirs, Railo has dramatized, choreographed, directed and staged with drawings an appropriately paced, breathing work.