Lost Persons Area

A tragi-comedy which deals with aging and the presence of death. Three elderly people find themselves in a hospital where the only place to escape reality is in a sea of memories. This production without words, is performed with expressive masks created by Antero Poppius.

Directors: Davide Giovanzana and Soile Mäkelä
Performers: Davide Giovanzana, Tanja Eloranta, Johanna MacDonald and Soile Mäkelä
Lighting: Johnanna-Maj Vihalem
Sound: Marko Pakarinen
Costumes and Sets: Collective work group
Expressive masks: Antero Poppius
Metamorphic masks: Teatteri Metamorfoosi

TEATTERI METAMORFOOSI is a professional Finish Theatre troupe that specializes in the production of mask performances, the creation and making of masks and research related to the mask. It also uses these specialties as pedagogical tools. The troupe is highly influenced by the work of Jacques Lecoq. Teatteri Metamorfoosi organizes a Mask Festival called “MasQue” every two years in Helsinki.

Commentaries on the work:
“Just as babies, the elderly are just as easily and immorally exploitable in the arts: the arts touch their vulnerability. But the artists in the “Lost Persons Area” avoid the easy route: they find the funny in the sad and the sad in the funny without ever exploiting the evidence. Also, they connect, not by pushing the right button, but through demonstration of how complex and irreversible life can be.”
Mikhail Brashinsky – Cinematographer – Russia

“In this piece, the masks are not impressionist special effects nor coloured easy behaviours. Rather they are language with which the artists speak to us. This is why, in spite of the expression fixed face (a name given to the mask), these masks, (or rather the persons behind them) are capable of delivering a large gamut of human emotions – the primary reason we go to the theatre.”
Dr. Anna Ivanova-Brashinskaya, PhD
Professor – Department of Puppet Theatre, Helsinki, Finland