Review: Rebecca
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST + JANE EYRE = REBECCA
Helsinki City Theatre knows how to create musical theatre with great emotions
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca has sometimes been compared to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and for good reason. Although the writers lived in different centuries (Maurier did not die until 1989), the basic setting of the works is very similar: a girl from humble circumstances gets to be the mistress of a lavish mansion that hides a dark secret within its walls.
Rebeca’s stage adaptation is relatively recent: it premiered in Vienna in 2006. The first to bring it to Finland was the Helsinki City Theatre, the undisputed number one of Finnish entertainment theatres.
The musical, directed by Kurt Nuotio, begins in a bright rosy red, but takes on darker and darker tones as it gets older. All in all, it is a smoothly rolling spectacle that condenses pleasantly towards the end. A small minus comes from the fact that the final solution pops into the viewer’s lap too ready.
Cursed Manderlay
Briefly about the plot of the couplet. There is this very rich English widower Maxim de Winter (Kari Arffman), who catches the eye of an attractive servant girl (Sanna Majuri) in Monte Carlo. A lightning romance leads to an engagement, after which the couple moves to live in Cornwall, on de Winter’s homestead in Manderlay.
Manderlay is practically ruled by the devilish Mrs. Danvers (Sari Ann Moilanen), who hints to her new mistress from time to time that Rebecca, the former mistress of the house, who died under obscure circumstances, has stayed in Manderlay’s corners to haunt her and doesn’t care much about the newcomer.
From this point on, the stage adaptation written by Michael Kunze mixes the basic ingredients of romance in the right proportions – burning love, a growing murder mystery and “bats in the attic”.
Monstrous Danvers
In addition to Jane Eyre, Rebecca , who touches on the romantic horror genre, also brought to my mind the recent musical Beauty and the Beast – after all, there is beautiful idealism and a young girl locked in some kind of horror chamber.
The male lead is also played by the same – Kari Arffman. Arffman is seen here without a monster mask, though, because as already mentioned, the actual monster role in the story has been successfully slapped on Mrs. Danvers.
The casting has gone pretty well in other ways as well. The delicate Sanna Majuri is definitely at her strongest in underdog roles, such as the I-character in the story. The songs interpreted by Majuri vividly reminded me of the musical Miss Saigon from a couple of years ago, which should perhaps still be considered Majuri’s bravura.
Kari Arffman remains a little more distant next to Majuri. There is nothing wrong with Arffman’s interpretation as such, but the cursed character suffering from remorse is inevitably a little less characterless than Majuri’s sweetly pure I-narrator.
Sari Ann Moilanen is chillingly convincing as the musical’s strangely staring Danvers, who for some reason has been caught up in the spell of her late mistress. Moilanen interprets the musical’s title song in a particularly blood-curdling way, which literally conjures up the devilish Rebecca to return from beyond the grave.
The second biggest applause of the premiere was probably earned by Riitta Havukainen, who only flashes on stage a few times, playing the very rich and cheeky American Mrs. van Hopper guided by the charming decadence of the elite.
Everyday Finnish translation
The musical, composed by Sylvester Levay, is almost sung through, as is customary in the big world these days. Most of the dialogues in the story are also performed singing.
Perhaps partly for this reason, the Finnish translation by Liisa Ryömä seems at times too mundane, everyday language. There is not much room for the translator to write poetry, because the viewer must be able to convey to the viewer through songs the means by which Mr. de Winter’s tainted morality was finally glorified.
Although the articulation of the actors is impeccable, I have to admit that I was left with a wrong understanding of Maxim’s final fate (I haven’t read the book). Fortunately, the correct understanding has been printed in the play’s script, which is as lavish as the musical’s visuals in general.