Review: Kuninkaan puhe

Nobility obliges the actor as well

The King’s Speech is a five-star performance from the Helsinki City Theatre

Last week, the Helsinki City Theatre’s repertoire included a play with many possibilities, The King’s Speech. From the beginning, the script has been a depiction of the great moments of the English Empire squeezed into the events of the court – great for its contemporaries, but the magnitude of which may remain on the small side from today’s perspective.

The instructor has material for many interpretations. Kari Heiskanen spins the red thread from the spindle that unfolds the story of King George VI’s stuttering. This he must overcome in front of his people in his radio speeches, which are spread to every corner of the Empire.

The significance of these speeches in maintaining the people’s will to fight may have been overshadowed by the speeches of the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill , who was a true master of rhetoric.

Churchill could see that he downright enjoyed gesticulating with the microphone, while for King George, giving a speech was hell. But nobility obliges, all members of this caste have already learned this in their mother’s milk – so did George VI.

According to the script, this miracle has been brought about by Lionel Logue, an Australian-born oratory teacher, a rather far-fetched help to the king’s dilemma. And it was tight. But it is precisely the bickering between the two that is the kind of down-to-earth not-so-drunk showdown that gives the opportunity for brilliant performances. At this point, I think Kari Heiskanen has made the right choice. Even though the world of that time would have offered dozens of names to highlight in the construction of the play, there are actually only two characters on stage that the viewer follows: Carl-Kristian Rundman’s characterisation of the Duke of York and Pertti Sveholm’s speech teacher Logue. The rest is props, partly even idle by skilled experts.

The fact that an Australian speech teacher has been needed to excite the King of the Empire to the right on the path of doctrine is indicative of the development that has taken place in customs and habits during the last couple of centuries.

Verbal acrobatics has been a must for everyone who aspires to power – those who were least expected to succeed in the competition have succeeded in the competition with the purest papers. “Nobility obliges” can also be found in the play’s performances: that you know how to act quietly – sotto voce – when such a requirement arises. For that, thanks to the entire group of performers, Rundman and Sveholm can stutter in peace.