Review: Matkalla Porkkalaan
On the way to Porkkala, you can explore the post-war atmosphere
HUMAN DESTINIES TAKEN AWAY BY HISTORY
The play On the Way to Porkkala, directed by Milko Lehto, which premiered at the Helsinki City Theatre on 30 March, is a multi-layered story about a foggy Helsinki torn apart by the war, which is supervised by the Soviet Control Commission from Torni. At the same time, the play reflects the post-war chaos and moods through individual human destinies. In the paranoid atmosphere left behind by the war, anyone can be a whistleblower, a spy – or a murderer.
The plot of the play revolves around the events of the night of November 3, 1944, when Captain Ivan Belov was shot by an unknown person in Lauttasaari. The Red Army captain accompanied the military column on its way from Helsinki to Porkkala, which is where the play itself got its name. However, the events do not take place in Porkkala, but in Helsinki after the armistice agreement.
The most investigated murder in criminal history
Although the murder of Ivan Belov is the most investigated murder case in Finnish criminal history, it is still unsolved from the police’s point of view. At the same time, the investigation protocols of the case tell us how exceptional conditions Finland lived in after the signing of the armistice. The author of the play, Sami Keski-Vähälä , says that he became excited about the story after reading Risto Niku’s book Who Shot Captain Ivan Belovin, in which Niku presents a new theory about the murder mystery. As a writer, however, Keski-Vähälä has written his own conclusion to the story. The plot of the play meanders through jealousy drama and secret encounters towards the point of connecting the threads, but at the same time manages to keep its secrets until the final scene.
Guilty until proven otherwise
The day after Belov’s assassination, a note comes from Torn in which the responsibility for the murder of a Red Army captain is shifted to the Finnish government. The government led by Castrén fears that the Soviet Union may occupy Finland if the crisis is not resolved in time. Freedy Kekäläinen (Santeri Kinnunen), a criminal investigator in the play Valpo, is given only a few days by the surveillance commission to find the murderer. On top of that, Torni is required to keep the case hidden from the public.
Kekäläinen is caught in the grip of Räsänen (Ilkka Heiskanen), an officer who has returned from the war, who has been drinking on the night of the murder and does not really remember the events of the end of the night. Räsänen’s situation is reminiscent of the setting in Kafka’s novels – he is taken to jail and interrogated in the morning without even knowing what he is accused of. Since there are no other suspects, Räsänen will have to accept – whether he is guilty or not. However, as the criminal investigation progresses, the prosecutor and the accused become almost friends. Both have suffered great losses in the war. At the same time, both are aware that they are just actors on the big stage of history. The interests of the faceless and supra-individual state overflow the rubbish individual.
Soviet officers drink vodka in the noble solitude of Torni and grill the ministerial delegation coming to visit with caps in hand. The chairman of the Control Commission, Colonel General Zhdanov (Antti Litja), prefers to talk to Kekkonen (Matti Olavi Ranin), a member of the Agrarian League, who accompanies the ministerial procession. The mustachioed colonel general does not like the caricature of the play’s caricature of Minister of the Interior Hillilä (Heikki Sankari) at all, and at the same time makes it clear that the Control Commission decides with whom to discuss and what to discuss. To democratically elected statesmen, the colonel general is a grandiose disdain.
A touch of agent romance
The dramatic nature of history becomes visible again when the actress and scheming agent Miss Rosenberg (Riitta Havukainen) tries to ask Colonel General Zhdanov for information about Belov’s murderer. The Colonel General replies by asking the actor what he would do with the information, would he perhaps slip the information into his lines in the middle of a theatrical performance? In the same breath, he asks Rosenberg if he, as an actor, ever feels tempted to start talking about wood and hay in the middle of a performance. Vappu Nalbantoglu also gives a stylish performance as Torni’s cold and beautiful interpreter Valerie. The same drama, in which secrecy and revelation alternate, also paces the love life in the story.
Homelessness and longing for cabbage
Katariina Kirjavainen’s set design also highlights the scars left by war in people’s living environments. On the stage of the small stage, simultaneous scenes can be conjured up, which put each other in the cross-light. There is even a scene where Torni’s female interpreter Valerie and officer Räsänen meet in real rain under a large umbrella.
On the Way to Porkkala also tells on a deeper level about the fundamental homelessness of people under the yoke of war. Behind the scenes, Russian officers are also drinking and longing for Mother Russia and cabbage, even though “it doesn’t even taste good”.