Saari @ Zoo

An inhabitant of a remote, waveswept island is wracked by loneliness and despair, forlorn, driven even to talk to the birds to interrupt the emptiness. The arrival of a newcomer, tense and neurotic, speaking a different langauage, intent only on demarcating territory and staying apart, seems to promise little.

Yuko Takeda and Kaisa Niemi are powerful and captivating in communicating solitude, effort, despair and cooperation, interest in others, trust and joy in this piece written and directed by Miira Sippola. Everything is elemental and simple, emphasised by the monotones of the set, greys and fawns, reflecting water, fire, stone. Chants and song and lighting are used effectively to tell the story, the haunting sweet sadness of nightfall, the contrast of stillness and movement. The sound by Johanna Storm is perfect.

Gradually we build up a picture of personal memories, collective folk memory, social mores and laws, the intimate relationship of the island dwellers with the water and the other creatures, frogs, seals, who live on and around it. The characters are no longer islands but come to value and love one another. The company succeeds in its aim of communicating something that is forgotten and common to everything living on earth.