Review: Rebecca

REBECCA IS IN POSSESSION

The Helsinki City Theatre has made a great start to its autumn season.
Built for the big stage, Rebecca, based on the novel by Daphne du Murier, is a wild story about a woman’s fate with its ghostly elements.
A musical thriller is not the most conventional theatre, but this choice is apt, downright needed. There is no silliness on stage, but there is enough love and plenty of costume glamour.


The Rebecca story, made famous by Alfred Hitchcock, is a passion drama in which the secret of a closed community unfolds hinge by hinge. Burning passion licks innocent love like flames.
The deceased lady of the manor continues to enchant the hostess, who is played darkly and coolly by Sari Ann Moilanen. Of the many wonderful songs, his handsomely interpreted title tune Rebecca predicts harrowing twists and turns. Moilanen makes his breakthrough role in Rebeca in other ways as well. Kari Arffman and Sanna Majuri are de Winter’s young couple. Manderley’s unhappy triangle drama changes characters, but the same inexplicable harshness of life only turns the side until someone has the courage to destroy the whole beastly state.


Kurt Nuotio’s direction flows rhythmically well and improves towards the end.
It was already known in advance that almost everything possible would be done on stage. Set designer Katriina Kirjavainen has taken stairs and fire technology as elements of her charmingly wild set design. With the lighting design by Mika Ijäs , the sound design by Eradj Nazimov and Seppo Myllyrinne , and the choreography by Osku Heiskanen , Rebeca is intertwined with a theatrical experience that can be seen and heard in the memory for a long time.

Melodrama, which operates with tragic elements, is an amazing genre that is in danger of losing the balance of horror and lightness. The campfire has dominated the sport. When this is done in such a finished way, the viewer enjoys the symbiosis of horror and beauty. Rebecca is in control, even though Moilanen’s powerful interpretation echoes into the almost dark autumn night: “Rebecca, now where are you…”