Review: Nuoruuden suloinen lintu

Tennessee Williams: The Sweet Bird of Youth

Tennessee Williams’ play The Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) at the Helsinki City Theatre is visually handsome theatre. Ralf Forsström’s airy and impressive large stage, decorated with ornaments for a pleasure-seeking and luxurious state of being, is pleasing to the eye. The curtains made of white plastic chains serve as a delicate and living surface for both the lights and the skilful but perhaps a little unnecessarily abundant use of projection images.

Rarely seen
Williams

The play is not one of Williams’ most performed in Finland, and the reason is probably that it is not one of Williams’ best in terms of dramatic qualities either. The descriptions of the situation, which are necessary for the viewer, make the dialogue between the characters stiff and forced in many places.
   The critiques of racial politics and the power hierarchies of the community, built alongside the main theme, are not very organically intertwined, but remain separate and fragmented secondary themes, as if to spice up the background picture.
   Directed by Kaisa Korhonen, the performance also does not delve through the language of the play in such a way that it would clear up the pitfalls of the text with insights. The performance is poetic in terms of imagery, but on the level of language, the poetry remains largely external.
   Kersti Juva’s new Finnish translation is also surprising, as it sounds very – even embarrassingly – old-fashioned in many places, when, for example, the sexual relationship between a girl and a boy is referred to as owning the other or the beloved is “my girl”. I was also left wondering whether the omission of some possessive suffixes from Chance’s lines was the translator’s or perhaps the actor’s policy, in any case it is remarkable combined with the otherwise meticulous, literary sentences.

However,
Sensitive and precise

Despite its weaknesses, The Sweet Bird of Youth is nevertheless a supporting and subtle play in its main theme, which speaks of vanity, publicity, narcissism and shame with immense perceptiveness. And the topic is more and more topical in a post-modern society based more and more on visibility, showing and being on display.
   As is so often the case in Williams’ plays, the Sweet Bird of Youth focuses on a magnificent female role that weaves strength and fragility together. At the Helsinki City Theatre, the play’s aging actress is played by Kyllikki Forssell, who gives a fearless, daring, self-exposing role.
   Forssell trembles his voice to the point of pathetic extremes, but the character of Alexandra dell’Lago, who is squeezed through shame, carries the play and ignites the performance every time she is on stage.

Co-star
and other people

As Forssell’s co-star, the diva’s desperately aspiring lover to the starry sky of fame, Oskari Katajisto does not cope with his role as well. The role is largely left to posing, to settle on display instead of acting. There is an attempt to open up Chance Wayne’s complexes, but the route to the core of the role does not open up, and the tragedy of the character does not ignite to its fullest.
   Kalle Holmberg is an interesting choice for the powerful man of a southern city. Vuokko Hovatta’s Heavenly, Boss Finley’s daughter and Chance’s “girl”, remains a very one-dimensionally curled up character, all of whose qualities seem to return to their lost vitality, yet without the ethereal personal tragedy becoming fleshed.
   Jouko Klemettilä as Tom junior and Aino Seppo as Miss Lucy bring to the stage the acting with clear motives that the performance needs.
   Helsinki City Theatre’s The Sweet Bird of Youth has a powerful soundscape where the clock is ticking incessantly and at Boss Finley’s home, the ringing of the phone penetrates the consciousness in a harrowing, disturbing way. The voices of Eradj Nazimov and Harri Ahponen and the lights of Mika Ijäs drain the performance most strongly to an expressionist level, where the force that isolates the subjective experience of the characters from the world cuts them off from reality.

OUTI LAHTINEN

 Tennessee Williams: The Sweet Bird of Youth. Helsinki City Theatre, directed by Kaisa Korhonen, set design by Ralf Forsström, costumes by Sari Salmela, music by Jussi Tuurna, lighting by Mis Ijäs, sound by Eradj Nazimov and Harri Ahponen. Premiere on the big stage 25.9.