Review: Armfelt – sotilas ja kavaljeeri

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Savo Brigade and EU minuet The Armfelt play is an enjoyable play on the history of power and dangers

Oskari Katajisto is a dazzlingly skilful Gustav III. The king loved the theatre and made his pet Armfelt (Santeri Kinnunen in the middle) act for himself.

Armfelt came and won.

Helsinki City Theatre’s intelligent and funny history play struck its kind with a rare charm just when it began to be suspected that our theatres’ enthusiasm for history was going unnecessarily well-trodden.

The most surprising thing is the gloriously unwieldy way in which the Swedish Frej Lindqvist deals with history, the events of the time, and the characters. I’m sure he knows the course of things, the background and the years. But on stage, he does not preach or lecture.

In an enjoyably mischievous way, he spins a theatrical play on his subject, spices it up with punchy tasty dialogue and frosts the caricature with a rancid delicious grin.

An open Europe

The play tells the story of Gustav Mauri Armfelt, a Finnish baron who became the favourite (and nanny!) of King Gustav III of Sweden, and who from there drifted to the courts of Europe, even to Russia as a pet of Catherine the Great.

The time described is the same one that a couple of years ago made me dig up the story of the Swedish von Fersen, the biography of the Swedish general who tried to save Maria Antoinette from the guillotine, and the story of the main character of Struensee’s The Life Doctor, a doctor who worked at the Danish court for a few years.

Romance, adventure, extraordinary fates in life – that’s what it’s all about.

But also about other things. The formation of Europe, the shift of power centres around the North and South Poles, is in the background as a much more exciting and topical influence. Napoleon’s peek at the map, Catherine’s command in Russia, the flapping of a panicked Sweden on the edge of the political world, such things sharpen the consciousness.

That electricity flows from Frej Lindqvist’s pen to the play. With Armfelt’s favorite, his perspective expands into a picture of a game of power politics. From time to time, a line pops up that hits the crackle of today’s power structures in the European Union and the court masks that protect them.

Grobian Defeat

After all, Finland did not yet exist at the end of the 1700s, when the young officers of the Savo Brigade, Armfelt and Yrjö Maunu Sprengtporten, left for the world and had to learn the dance of power. Oh, how gloriously the minuets and the rhythm of the dance compare to the pattern of politics and the use of power in the performance! What diabolical stitches can be found for gigging with culture!

However, good, insightful theatre does not need much to push the idea. Such is the Armfelt play, when it takes our thoughts to Finland’s position with the help of Matti Rasila’s lonely and unsmiling Sprengtporten and opens up another perspective through the slacker and successful Armfelt.

Who sets the pace of the dance? The Russian Catherine, who gets her incomparable character from Kristiina Elstelä, who, as a crazy and dangerous old lady punk, forces her feet to the ballet bar? Or are the French Grobians still trying to ignore the rest of the world like Napoleon?

In its second act, however, this masterful amusement loses a bit of its tension as it slides into a list-like repetition of the course of history.

A Celebration of Excellence

In Finland, it is rare to see such a theatre as lightly and skilfully considered as Armfelt.

It rushes the actors to sharp characterizations and grinning play where the kings can be perceived as talking. Thus, Oskari Katajisto’s Gustav III is a stunning combination of a foolish caricature, a squirming gayman, a gambler who hides his insides, and a ruler who interprets the world through theatre. However, there are points where I would like to see the king’s ability as a wielder of power to be visible. His successor, the talentless Gustav IV Adolf, on the other hand, is a small black spider, whose misfortune and helplessness Reidar Palmgren manages to bring out in an eloquent way.

Fascinated by the possibilities of theatre, Frej Lindqvist reveals the director’s epoch, the many hints of the music, the evocativeness of the dance, building everything into a sophisticated play, Korean and delicious to the eye.

Of course, it is a charming background for the Finns, those brave warriors of the Savo Brigade, whose old-fashioned rigid quality is perfectly described by Pekka Laiho’s father-Armfelt and Eeva-Liisa Haimelin’s mother.

The main role is played by Santeri Kinnunen, and the task is not small. After all, you have to grow from a fairly innocent young man to a skilled court dude and political player. Kinnunen is delighted to find a conqueror, a young adventurer, as well as a man of the world and a man disappointed in his final stages. But some drive would have been needed where playing with the world is burning. This unforgettable Finn, the pet of women and courts, is a bit soft.

A child of his Armfelt era

Premiere on the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre on 22.2.2001.

Written and directed by: Frej Lindqvist, director’s assistant and interpreter: Anna Gröhn, Finnish translation: Reita Lounatvuori (Pentti Saaritsa, Volter Kilpi), choreography: Aku Ahjolinna, conductor, choice of music and own compositions: Carita Holmström, set design: Ole Dikland, costumes: Sari Salmela.

Cast: Santeri Kinnunen, Pekka Laiho, Eeva-Liisa Haimelin, Ursula Salo, Nora Schüller, Oskari Katajisto, Matti Rasila, Kristiina Elstelä, Jyrki Kovaleff, Reidar Palmgren, Kari Mattila, Jyrki Nousiainen, Leenamari Unho, Sari Haapamäki, Joha Jokela, Carita Holmström, children, dance troupe.

Orchestra: Päivi Kiljava/Reetta Näätänen, Harri Joy/Tuukka Vihtkari, Petri Komulainen/Kalle Hassinen.