Review: Väärennetty morsian

AN EVEN MORE AUTHENTIC COMEDY

The Helsinki City Theatre’s Chinese novelty, The Fake Bride, is the fulfilment of Asko Sarkola’s long-standing dreams and an absolute cultural act. In addition to being a funny comedy, the performance can be followed as an experiential lesson in theatre comedy, as in addition to Chinese exoticism, the performance also glows with the best comic traditions of the Western theatre tradition from different centuries.

Director Kong Xinyuan has built Sami Keski-Vähälä’s dramatized The Fake Bride into a Finnish spoken drama into an exhilaratingly confident package, in which jokes are also made at the expense of Chinese theatre. For example, the complex and well-defined etiquette that dominates the interaction of the characters and the exaggerated use of voice by the actors provide endless ingredients for a director who clearly has a very wide theatrical register and an excellent sense of comedy.

In the direction of characters, the Chinese tradition functions mainly as a method that guides the direction of expression, not as an object of serious imitation. Visualisation, on the other hand, is a purely Chinese thing: minimalist sets, glamorous costumes and powerful role-type make-up are literally teeming with symbolism that tickles the imagination while offering the actors additional expressive dimensions.

The centuries-old story of the marital mess of three families is surprisingly familiar and clear in its basic form. However, the linear story is told in a much more multi-voiced way than we are used to: in between the speech scenes, there is also material that comments on them and deliciously inflates their themes.

The whole is held in the hands of a narrator whose omniscient character cannot help but catch a glimpse of the harlequin of the commedia dell?arte or the benevolent jester of Shakespearean comedy. This time, however, the rogue character is a woman – a cunning and cunning marry woman who is not content to just tell about the events, but acts as the initiator and confusing of them, and in the end as one of the main characters. The comic dimension is deepened by the fact that the charming plotter is played by male actor Risto Kaskilahti, who does the most lavish role of the evening.

At the end of the story, a deus ex machina to the power of a hundred awaits the viewers. The romantically sweet finale is followed by a fantastic, almost clownish final act, where judge Qiao, known in Chinese folklore as righteous, takes the stage. Jyrki Nousiainen’s unexpected, astonishing and boldly exaggerated solo truly crowns both the performance and the story.

Diving into a foreign culture has required the actors to have a brisk attitude and a self-indulgent desire to learn new things. Director Kong Xinyuan has made the dip an obviously enjoyable experience, as you can read childish enthusiasm on the faces of the actors, and that is unbelievably rare in these expanses. And disappearing, as theatre always does. At least Risto Kaskilahti’s sense of rhythm, Jyrki Nousiainen’s shameless daring, the expressiveness of Reetta Honkakoski and Sanna Majuri, Tuukka Leppänen’s flirtatious flirting and Pekka Huotari’s carefully choreographed rage should now be canned for future needs.