02.08.2011

Brazenly shameful Chaos at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

“On stage, there is no need for restraint. I loathe shallow characters on stage.”
 
 
In CHAOS, three equally strong women – a teacher, a journalist and a psychotherapist – begin to lose it as they battle with chaotic life situations. The women of Chaos are kindred spirits with Edina and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous and the characters of an Almodovar film.
 
The women of Chaos represent the well-educated middle class. They are intelligent and socially aware. Chaos is not a larger-than-life Greek tragedy, but rather an exploration of how everyday problems can accumulate and spiral out of control. The modern women of Chaos are far from being kind, adaptable shrinking violets. The women in this play are as large as the chaos they are in, even paradoxically.

Director Irene Aho points out that the women of Chaos have plenty of internal fortitude: a woman can be in charge of her own life in spite of living in a state of constant chaos. The women of Chaos are socially open and far from the reserved Nordic stereotype of only making themselves heard when the circumstances absolutely require it. Mika Myllyaho’s script brilliantly captures the way women communicate with one another. The biggest laughs come from the get-togethers of these funny and intelligent women. The women also know that they can trust and consult each other. A woman doesn’t abandon a friend in need.

In this brazenly shameful performance, the women exist as sexual beings, but also in their social roles through their careers or motherhood. Chaos deals with work fatigue, the fear of losing one’s job, violence among women, wretched motherhood, loneliness, the illness of excessive kindness and over-psychologisation. What makes the play brazen is the way it illustrates the full colour palette of being a woman, including the darker tones. Irene Aho loathes shallow characters on stage: “I don’t find restraint interesting on stage, whether it be in terms of subject matter or the acting itself. I want to liberate my actors from subjugation to bring the full human experience to the audience, complete with both tragic and comical elements.”
 
Casting presented a challenge of its own, as this was the first time the Director was casting non-Finnish speaking actors. Irene Aho’s approach to directing is not strictly based on form, but rather the casting and the subsequent direction is focused on reading the energy of the actor. She does not want to package the actor in the role. It is more important for the director to observe the nature of the actor’s energy and the mutual flow of energies between the actors. It is rewarding to see an actor read her counterpart’s humour: “One maniac will quickly recognise another… I was looking for the qualities of fearlessness and brazenness, as they are the foundation on which the actors can create these overwhelmingly hilarious characters. It was no surprise that once we had finished the casting process, the sharing of these energies and the wonderfully bubbly conversation between these Scottish lasses began immediately. The actors had grasped the essential aspect of this project. They had an immediate desire to source material from their own lives. This is how it begins, I thought to myself.”

In Chaos, each of the women strikes out violently in situations where the sphere of their life and their own mobility within it is pushed to breaking point. One loses it at the 100th anniversary of a school set to be closed down, another lashes out at a custody hearing in court, and the third one, perhaps too late, at the cemetery, on the point of vomiting on her mother’s grave for having destroyed her self-respect. A woman whose personal space has been violated only wants to be left alone. Even an innocent bystander, such as a man speaking a tad too loudly on a mobile phone, is helpless to avoid a surprise attack by a woman such as this. Watch out!

Hanna Helavuori