Ah, that familiar feeling when you are behind on the writing. As shows accumulate, waiting to be written about, time marches on, and new shows inevitably begin. And so on, and so on, proceeding - as Kafka might say - into deepest darkness.
Nevertheless, here I sit on Day 4, with just a lazy single show to write about today, the enchanting Before Us, The Deluge. The extended chaos of yesterday's Hippie Revolution was just too much for me - I appreciated the intent to innovate on a level of dramaturgical confusion, putting as many fight scenes, 70s songs, and unexplained events into a single 2-hour period as possible, but my brain just wasn't up to it. Maybe I am not cut out to be a flower child, after all.
Meanwhile, our hosts in Tartu tick along. The city is slowly unraveling itself to me - from its initial appearance as a lump of concrete in the form of H&M, Subway, and other shopping extravaganzas that plague the centre of Europe's cities, I have been quietly discovering some of the more secret facets - not without the help of friends and strangers alike. The wooden houses are a particular feature - originally built to house workers, today they stand as relatively energy-inefficient relics of Estonia's past (though possibly also pointing to the future, today Estonia is apparently the largest exporter of wooden houses in the EU).
Before Us, The Deluge
As well as his neoliberalising and imperialist military instincts, Ronald Regan was also known for having a comedic disposition, especially in relation to the Societ Union. One joke he tells features in Before Us, The Deluge. After some introductory notes that these are jokes told by people within the Soviet Union, who "have a great sense of humour but are very cynical about their systems", Regan relates that a man is putting down a deposit for a car, and being told to return for it in 10 years. "Morning, or afternoon?" The man asks. "What difference does it make?" the seller replies. The man says "Well, the plumber is coming in the afternoon".
"Ha. Ha. Ha." comes the slow, sarcastic reply from Anti Kobin, one third of the protagonists of Before Us, The Deluge - a sickly-sweet and darkly comic look at that microcosm of Soviet life: the apartment building. The stories centre around a particular apartment block, in Õismäe, a suburb of Tallinn, where tenants live out their tiny dramas on a never-changing landscape of malfunctioning amenities, apartment shifting, and tragicomedic incidents (incidentally, if you ever wanted an example of the astonishing urban planning projects of the Soviet Union, an image search of Õismäe is a good place to start). Here, artists trade apartments for a better view but no hot water, young girls imagine Swan lake is being sung to them by the radiator, and punk bands rehearse to the tune of noise complaints.
Before Us, The Deluge holds a mirror up to these events, using the apartment building as a metaphor for Estonian life in the 1980s. The stories of three protagonists are related in all their tragicomic detail. Anti Kobin begins, telling of his artist parents and their incompatibilities with Soviet life, trying to move their grand piano without the help of a maintenance lift, rendered faulty through its miscommunication of Russian and Finnish parts, and the fact that the Russian parts "weren't made for elevators anyway". Liivika Hanstin takes over with her narrative of trying to become a ballerina, having seen a production of Swan Lake on a Finnish TV station. Finally, Mihkel Tikerpalu provides an account of his ascent to punk status, joining the others in putting safety pins in their ears and rehearsing in their apartments, much to the chagrin of neighbours.
The metaphor of water binds the stories together, offering a counterpoint to the building itself, and creating the central binding event around which all others circulate - a flood from a burst pipe. The opening scenes tell the story of Noah's Ark - a metaphor revisited at the beginning of the second act. The pipe affects all the characters in different ways: Kobin's artist parents lose huge investments in leather they were using to bind books, while Hanstin decides she can make her "very own Swan Lake" in her living room.
It's rich fodder for storytelling, with each moment coloured by an appropriate visual accompaniment from the actors or design. The imperious set (Liina Keevallik) is a 'doll's house' design, featuring four window-frames, a TV screen, and an elevator, all connected by giant plumbing pipes (at one point shown to be eroding in an amusing sighting effect from within, showing their cracks). It's pretty extravagant, but nothing is wasted here - in fact, that's a feature of the production in general, courtesy of direction from Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma that is exponentially precise. There's a certain pleasure in watching a well-functioning machine, and that's the type of direction this is: smooth, integrated, everything there for a reason, and all reacting to and playing off each other. The young cast members (from Nuku Youth Studio, Tallinn Ballet School, Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio, and Tallinn Boys' Choir) seem to respond to this deliberateness, forming disciplined constellations that contain tiny variances whilst maintaining a coherent whole - a synergy to which most ensembles can only aspire.
While I found the production charming, it's worth discussing the differing views on the content. Some of the lines are so dark they could easily become their own jokes, such as "We didn't have a telephone, only a telephone book". Some material is more directly comic to the audience, such as a video of the mayor at the time saying in an interview that "they made some mistakes in construction. For example, the roof, the walls...". But all of it can be pretty painful to those who lived through it, referring as it does to the containment of their dreams, desires, and hopes. Some of these stories are about triumph over adversity, such as Korbin's tale of his accidentally-successful clothing business using the labour of the old women of the building. Some are more about the triumph of imagination, such as Tikerpalu tapping out Morse code messages with his neighbours through the heating system ("We even played Battleships once"). Finally, some a more directly bleak. It's that last point that Before Us, The Deluge never quite articulates, beyond making a joke about it. But it's present in the metaphor of water, dripping through the story and infiltrating all levels of narrative with an ever-present threat, acting as both binding force and ultimate oppressor. As a way to approach Estonia in the 80's, the strategy is impeccable.
Beyond Us: The Deluge
Authors and directors: Jaak Kilmi, Kiur Aarma
Set design: Liina Keevallik
Musical design: Lydia Rahula
Dramaturges: Andris Feldmanis, Piret Jaaks
Video artist: Alyona Movko
Lighting: Priidu Adlas
Sound direction: Mikk Mengel
Choreographer: Olga Privis
Film director: Katrin Sipelgas
Operator: Mait Mäekivi
The cast includes actors from the NUKU theatre including Mihkel Tikerpalu, Anti Kobin and Liivika Hanstin, as well as the young actors Amanda-Hermiine Künnapas, Villem Roosa (NUKU Youth Studio), Keijo Norden (NUKU Youth Studio), Samuel Mooses Kaljuste
or Robin Roosna, Eric Tohver or Villem Turk, Marleen Sandberg (Tallinn Ballet School) or Karoline Bart (Tallinn Ballet School) and Angeline Ala or Amia Victoria Vohli (Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio). The Tallinn Boys’ Choir also performs on the stage.
Nevertheless, here I sit on Day 4, with just a lazy single show to write about today, the enchanting Before Us, The Deluge. The extended chaos of yesterday's Hippie Revolution was just too much for me - I appreciated the intent to innovate on a level of dramaturgical confusion, putting as many fight scenes, 70s songs, and unexplained events into a single 2-hour period as possible, but my brain just wasn't up to it. Maybe I am not cut out to be a flower child, after all.
Meanwhile, our hosts in Tartu tick along. The city is slowly unraveling itself to me - from its initial appearance as a lump of concrete in the form of H&M, Subway, and other shopping extravaganzas that plague the centre of Europe's cities, I have been quietly discovering some of the more secret facets - not without the help of friends and strangers alike. The wooden houses are a particular feature - originally built to house workers, today they stand as relatively energy-inefficient relics of Estonia's past (though possibly also pointing to the future, today Estonia is apparently the largest exporter of wooden houses in the EU).
Before Us, The Deluge
As well as his neoliberalising and imperialist military instincts, Ronald Regan was also known for having a comedic disposition, especially in relation to the Societ Union. One joke he tells features in Before Us, The Deluge. After some introductory notes that these are jokes told by people within the Soviet Union, who "have a great sense of humour but are very cynical about their systems", Regan relates that a man is putting down a deposit for a car, and being told to return for it in 10 years. "Morning, or afternoon?" The man asks. "What difference does it make?" the seller replies. The man says "Well, the plumber is coming in the afternoon".
"Ha. Ha. Ha." comes the slow, sarcastic reply from Anti Kobin, one third of the protagonists of Before Us, The Deluge - a sickly-sweet and darkly comic look at that microcosm of Soviet life: the apartment building. The stories centre around a particular apartment block, in Õismäe, a suburb of Tallinn, where tenants live out their tiny dramas on a never-changing landscape of malfunctioning amenities, apartment shifting, and tragicomedic incidents (incidentally, if you ever wanted an example of the astonishing urban planning projects of the Soviet Union, an image search of Õismäe is a good place to start). Here, artists trade apartments for a better view but no hot water, young girls imagine Swan lake is being sung to them by the radiator, and punk bands rehearse to the tune of noise complaints.
Photo: Siim Vahur
Before Us, The Deluge holds a mirror up to these events, using the apartment building as a metaphor for Estonian life in the 1980s. The stories of three protagonists are related in all their tragicomic detail. Anti Kobin begins, telling of his artist parents and their incompatibilities with Soviet life, trying to move their grand piano without the help of a maintenance lift, rendered faulty through its miscommunication of Russian and Finnish parts, and the fact that the Russian parts "weren't made for elevators anyway". Liivika Hanstin takes over with her narrative of trying to become a ballerina, having seen a production of Swan Lake on a Finnish TV station. Finally, Mihkel Tikerpalu provides an account of his ascent to punk status, joining the others in putting safety pins in their ears and rehearsing in their apartments, much to the chagrin of neighbours.
The metaphor of water binds the stories together, offering a counterpoint to the building itself, and creating the central binding event around which all others circulate - a flood from a burst pipe. The opening scenes tell the story of Noah's Ark - a metaphor revisited at the beginning of the second act. The pipe affects all the characters in different ways: Kobin's artist parents lose huge investments in leather they were using to bind books, while Hanstin decides she can make her "very own Swan Lake" in her living room.
It's rich fodder for storytelling, with each moment coloured by an appropriate visual accompaniment from the actors or design. The imperious set (Liina Keevallik) is a 'doll's house' design, featuring four window-frames, a TV screen, and an elevator, all connected by giant plumbing pipes (at one point shown to be eroding in an amusing sighting effect from within, showing their cracks). It's pretty extravagant, but nothing is wasted here - in fact, that's a feature of the production in general, courtesy of direction from Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma that is exponentially precise. There's a certain pleasure in watching a well-functioning machine, and that's the type of direction this is: smooth, integrated, everything there for a reason, and all reacting to and playing off each other. The young cast members (from Nuku Youth Studio, Tallinn Ballet School, Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio, and Tallinn Boys' Choir) seem to respond to this deliberateness, forming disciplined constellations that contain tiny variances whilst maintaining a coherent whole - a synergy to which most ensembles can only aspire.
While I found the production charming, it's worth discussing the differing views on the content. Some of the lines are so dark they could easily become their own jokes, such as "We didn't have a telephone, only a telephone book". Some material is more directly comic to the audience, such as a video of the mayor at the time saying in an interview that "they made some mistakes in construction. For example, the roof, the walls...". But all of it can be pretty painful to those who lived through it, referring as it does to the containment of their dreams, desires, and hopes. Some of these stories are about triumph over adversity, such as Korbin's tale of his accidentally-successful clothing business using the labour of the old women of the building. Some are more about the triumph of imagination, such as Tikerpalu tapping out Morse code messages with his neighbours through the heating system ("We even played Battleships once"). Finally, some a more directly bleak. It's that last point that Before Us, The Deluge never quite articulates, beyond making a joke about it. But it's present in the metaphor of water, dripping through the story and infiltrating all levels of narrative with an ever-present threat, acting as both binding force and ultimate oppressor. As a way to approach Estonia in the 80's, the strategy is impeccable.
Beyond Us: The Deluge
Authors and directors: Jaak Kilmi, Kiur Aarma
Set design: Liina Keevallik
Musical design: Lydia Rahula
Dramaturges: Andris Feldmanis, Piret Jaaks
Video artist: Alyona Movko
Lighting: Priidu Adlas
Sound direction: Mikk Mengel
Choreographer: Olga Privis
Film director: Katrin Sipelgas
Operator: Mait Mäekivi
The cast includes actors from the NUKU theatre including Mihkel Tikerpalu, Anti Kobin and Liivika Hanstin, as well as the young actors Amanda-Hermiine Künnapas, Villem Roosa (NUKU Youth Studio), Keijo Norden (NUKU Youth Studio), Samuel Mooses Kaljuste
or Robin Roosna, Eric Tohver or Villem Turk, Marleen Sandberg (Tallinn Ballet School) or Karoline Bart (Tallinn Ballet School) and Angeline Ala or Amia Victoria Vohli (Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio). The Tallinn Boys’ Choir also performs on the stage.
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