Review: Metsä
The forest responds handsomely
when you shout at them
Somehow it went like this: “Everyone knows how to make money when they’re poor, but waste money spectacularly – that’s life!” Defiant, isn’t it. Straight from the 1800s.
The critical realist Aleksandr Ostrovsky denounces greed and contrasts it not only with real lack of means, but also with an ethic that favours wildness and freedom and does not give up its self-esteem even when pressured. The profession of actors is an excellent reflection of the rest of society – even if it is a shabby person, it has an advantage. And writers, they are literally making places for the theatre’s “instruments”. Ostrovsky’s classic play with its gems of humour is a valid speech in any time.
The visiting Russian director, the renowned Yuri Solomin, and his talented music and visualisation colleagues have ensured that the audience gets a different experience, a dose of Slavicness for all their senses. The resounding stage image leads in an epoch-conscious and aesthetic manner to Ostrovsky’s Forest, a forest that is at least as familiar to Finns as both as a concept and as a physical environment as it is to our eastern neighbour. With everyman’s rights or in the form of forest sales and industry, (forest) Finns are experts in this field.
An indication of how the scale of theatre can be completely different from what is generally assessed is the fact that Lasse Pöysti, a merciless veteran of the stage, is seemingly in the role of a lackey. Pöysti’s merit is also his long career as a theatre director, which in turn is the case today with Asko Sarkola and a fairly recent yesterday with Esko Roine. In the course of the story, Sarkola (Gennadi) and Roine (Arkadi) are unemployed provincial actors.
The occupation is therefore quite interesting in this respect, and of course it is not a coincidence. Of course, the awareness of the setting outside the play brings a delicious extra colour to the narrative. When Gennady has to hint at the thickness of the theatre director’s wallet or gets to proclaim how many of the eye-catchers of society or the community are the real commandeers in their pretense and meanness – alongside actors dedicated to their art – then the lines are bathed in coloured lights. With the help of his sympathetic heroes, the playwright amusingly characterizes the tragic and the comedian, that age-old value system. A person with their feet off the ground will inevitably encounter common sense, but if necessary, professional pride will also easily overcome subservient ones.
Sarkola makes the most of his task, Roine passes skilfully and uses his own quality with pleasure. And Pöysti’s (Karp) arrival on stage is rewarding. The meager number of dialogues certainly does not indicate their weightiness, nor does the minimality of the expression indicate the passage of the interpretation. Not when it comes to a wise and lovable actor.
Money plays a big role in the story. It either exists or it doesn’t. In both cases, it is a matter of life and death. If you don’t understand enough financial stuff, you’ll be cheated, if you don’t get a dowry, how to get married, if you don’t know how to flatter what your fate is.
The lady of the manor, Raisa Pavlovna, is in the center, she holds the keys to the fate of many people and a nodding social circle. Poor relatives as a nuisance. Tiina Pirhonen pulls the role lightly and with external spectacle, but perhaps with too much emphasis on superficiality. The comedy that arises in the interplay of the disproportionate couple, Pirhonen and the young Antti Lang (Aleksei), shoots well beyond credibility at the expense of credibility, but to the delight of the audience. Pertti Koivula is the cunning Ivan Petrovich, who, when he gets angry, is responsible for one of the thrilling rising points of the plot.
Kreeta Salminen and Tuukka Leppänen are young lovers, Eppu Salminen and Tom Wentzel are Raisa Pavlovna’s colourful court, and Eija Vilpas is a sweetly replying and pliable mimicking housewife.