Review: Salaa rakas

A story of confusion is captivating – always

Helsinki City Theatre is flaunting its costumes

Helsinki City Theatre’s farce autumn relies on the fairytale-like lightness of the 1920s. Between the First World War and the global depression, people lived in the sunshine to the beat of light music, dressed up in colourful outfits, sat in restaurants and cinemas, drove around light-heartedly in cars, city men played gigs and women were allowed to throw themselves into a bit of light-footedness.

Or to be more precise: you can form such a picture of the 1920s in retrospect. In any case, the world of art was in the throes of great upheaval and liberation. The theatre participated in the competition with an abundance of hugely popular light entertainment plays. The international rillumarei was the spirit of the times.

The pseudonym Arnold & Bach was one of the inventive craftsmen of such entertainment performances in Germany. Franz Arnold was an actor and Ernst Bach a director, who knew how to churn out stories like Repe Helismaa decades later. Arnold & Bach production ended in 1929 after Bach’s death.

Time for the restoration of honour

Der keusche Lebemann (1921) is a typical entertainment product of the time. Julius Seibold (Asko Sarkola) is a sausage and mustard manufacturer who lives in splendor and prosperity in Würsteldorf (“sausage village”), which he rules, and who deceives his socialite Ginnel (Heidi Herala) with the help of various lies.
Her daughter Gerty (Sanna-June Hyde), who is about to grow up, dreams of getting engaged to her partner Heinz (Sampo Sarkola), which does not fit in with her father’s plans at all. The sausage factory must be kept in the family, i.e. an obedient sissy must be found as a spouse for the only child.

Julius has already found one: Max (Santeri Kinnunen), who has worked in the office for 17 years, is a shabby wretched wretched person who is suitable for the job.

The only problem is that Gerty is a modern young woman. He demands splendor, envious social circles, consumption in his life. Julius and Max quickly come up with a plan that works for the girl. Max is washed, combed and redressed – and to top it all off, he is reinvented as a showy ladies’ man.

Extreme nonsense

The story of the play, which ends with an overflowing happy ending, is a stretch of light pomposity to the extreme. The story is based on the glorification of superficiality, naughty erotic play and sudden twists that are easy for the viewer to guess.
bIn the fireworks of misunderstandings, the viewer knows more and more than the characters.

In Finland, too, these similar stories have been immensely popular from the 1920s until at least the 1950s and later in Spede’s films. The Five Crooks, the Huru Guys, the Vagabond, the Gold Digger and the Lumberjack plays, in Adam’s Costume and a little bit of Eve and hundreds of others. The Finnish rillumarei has experienced a restoration of honor in later times, and now many light-hearted farces are considered cultural history.

There is a similar cultural buzz in the delightfully indulgent superficiality of the play Salaa rakas. This truly experienced stage in entertainment certainly deserves the respect of posterity.

Glamorous costumes

According to Julius’ plan, Max had had an affair with the famous film actress Ria Ray (Vuokko Hovatta). As it happens, Ria appears in a small village accompanied by her fiancé (Eppu Salminen).

The whole village admires the movie diva and she shows an example of how to spend properly (“I spend 250,000 marks a year just to take care of my appearance.”) and live in costumes. Costume designer Irmeli Toivanen has had the gig of a lifetime, as not only women but also men change the entire pattern many times, even if the story of the play only takes one hour! One magnificent creation after another marches onto the stage Only the heavy lumps of Mrs. Ginneli seem painful in the midst of all the colourfulness and lightness.

The Secretly Beloved style of verbal blasting requires a perfect sense of rhythm and constant participation from the actors. At the premiere, almost everyone, including Asko Sarkola and Heidi Herala, was fumbling and correcting their lines.

At its most successful, stylized overacting is fun and pleasant, as the curly-haired Eppu Salminen shows with his varying tones of voice as the diva’s extremely jealous fiancé.

Or Sampo Sarkola’s smoothly overemphasized movement language. Gerty and Heinz’s dance performance to Edmundo Rosi’s Gumana makes you laugh, amuse – and succeed.

Kinnunen’s evening

In the end, however, the evening is Santeri Kinnunen’s. Max rises from a grey office rat to a believable dandy through painful twists and turns.

At times, despair and a desire to give up, and in the very next clause, throwing oneself into Julius’s new idea. Perfectly controlled role-playing.