13 Sunken Years

13 Sunken Years is set in deepest darkest Finland, in the type of small town where Helsinki seems about as far away as Hollywood and people go swimming in temperatures of 0ºC thinking it mild weather. It's all very Tove Jansson (eccentric Grandmother Ursula Koskinen could have been lifted straight out of The Summer Book) except for the misery and missing persons. In that it resembles Scandi-noir.

On the day that Eva Koskinen graduates with flying colours from High School her beautiful mother, Helena, goes missing. Eva is forced to abandon her plans of studying at Oxford University in order to stay at home and look after her Gran. On top of all this her grandmother is in the early stages of dementia. As her mother's body is not found, Eva spends over a decade living a half-life, suspended between grief and hope. For the most part 13 Sunken Years is the story of Eva's struggle to adjust her dreams to her restricted circumstances, although frequent flashbacks give hints about Helena's past. These scenes, the most compelling of the play, remain frustratingly underdeveloped. We spend too little time with the mother and too much with the daughter.

Paula Salminen's first full-length play is functional enough, if slow. Often it struggles under the weight of its own metaphors – e.g. the daughter conquering her fear of water. Unfortunately the acting is not of all of the same high standard. And for a play already inclined to the protracted, this can prove fatal to dramatic tension.