Review: Metsäperkele
THE FOREST DEVIL IS A HIT
During the intermission, a satisfied audience erupts from the hall of the Helsinki City Theatre. The play about G.A. Serlachius seems to have charmed the audience. The play alternates between carefully thought-out treatment and backwaters, as if in the running of a river. During the almost three-hour performance, there is no time to get bored in the audience.
Kari Heiskanen’s screenplay is based on Teemu Keskisarja’s award-winning biography The Curse of Green Gold, The Life and Affairss of G.A. Serlachius. After reading it, the play may open up better, but even without it, things become clear: a stubborn pharmacist who has settled in Tampere and spreads his strength in all directions tries to get rich in many ways in the midst of a debt crisis.
Serlachius is not discouraged by anything. Even though the beer brewery explodes, the egg incubator with its expensive machinery and the mushroom collection organised during the famine years fail, the man just continues. He lacks the diplomacy needed in the business world, which is why he gets into arguments with almost everyone. But Serlachius does not lack will and vision. The years in Mänttä are proof of this. With the help of carpenters from Ostrobothnia, he has a groundwood mill built at the end of the roadless footpaths, and later a paper mill, the importance of which in the history of Finnish communication cannot be overestimated.
Among the manufacturers, G.A. Serlachius is a pro-Finnish counterpart. Turning directly to the estates through his fiery newspaper articles and the estates, he manages to get significant traffic arrangements that benefit him. With far-sightedness and debt himself, he also presents the idea of the birth of Kansallis-Osake-Pankki.
As a self-taught man, Serlachius also learned to appreciate the arts. The patronage relationship with the young Akseli Gallen-Kallela becomes significant, and Serlachius converts him to depict the landscape and folk types of Central Finland instead of the Parisian model. It is natural that Gallen also gets to paint a portrait of Serlachius.
Serlachius’ family life is turbulent. In his love marriage with Alice Maexmontan from Lempää, as many as four of the seven children died in infancy, and one, Axel, who came second in line to his cousin Gösta Serlachius from Jakobstad, shoots himself.
Pertti Sweholm acts, or rather, lives as G.A. Serlachius to the fullest. Sweholm, who is on stage all the time, is able to convey his person’s contradiction, loneliness, visionary, ecstasy, compassion for the workers and the terrible struggle against the incomprehensible authorities. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweholm’s performance as Serlachius would go down in Finnish theatre history as a star performance.
Aino Seppo as Alice may not outwardly live up to the dimensions of her role model, but internally she does. Her suffering from the loss of children, her conflicting attitude towards her workaholic husband, as well as being on the side of her son Axel (Ville Tiihonen) and her heavy alcohol consumption are subtly brought out. The couple’s mutual love seems to endure all the knocks in the end.
Fredrik Idestam (Risto Kaskilahti), the founder of Nokia, as Serlachius’ best friend and later worst enemy, is a great achievement. However, the funniest and perhaps most important role in the play, along with Serlachius, is performed by his most loyal friend Alexander Neiglick (Eero Aho). Other roles include Leena Uotila as Secretary Elsa Skogster, Pänttäjä’s hostess and Customer at the pharmacy. The temperance enthusiastic Master Hällsten is made into an absolutely delicious character by Leenamari Unho.
I haven’t seen such a good and complete work on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre for a long time as Forest Devil is. This performance, which opens doors to Finnish industrial history, is worth watching from afar.