Review: Toveri K

The Helsinki City Theatre’s long-awaited Comrade K was what it promised: a shaking theatrical start and an unpredictable factual rumble. Joseph Stalin was scrutinized in this play.

Thursday’s (23.1.) premiere was a premiere at its most authentic, as the content of Comrade K was a mystery and a surprise. For once, the audience didn’t know what to expect. The Russian script, direction and set design of his own dictator and his Finnish comrade O.W. Kuusinen in Finnish theatre is interesting. When the histories of countries have cut in many ways, a lot can be expected from a theatre made with professional ideas.

The historical review, written in continuous length, carried throughout the performance. The Russian view of comrade Stalin, the dictatorship and the Finnish boys kept its grip on many levels. In Comrade K, the text of the script is excellent; It fits on the screen, it has substance and nuance and it is in line with the theme. Historian and playwright Edvard Radzinski marches out an absurd world with the messiah Stalin and his empire. Absurdity, however, is the truth on which the history of facts was built. In this world lived O.W. Kuusinen, whose fate and character remain a slight smoke today, despite his burial place in the Kremlin wall.

Under the guidance of Roman Vikjuk, the participants delved into the depths of the mind. The four dimensions of Stalin were taken care of by Sampo Sarkola, Valtteri Tuominen, Tommi Rantamäki and Esko Roine. What was revealed about Stalin? The petty caricature of the ruler, the insignificant humanity of the dictator, the power of a powerful man to kill, the need for a ruler for a reality in which there is no word no.

The harshness of the act was in itself reassuring, as it provided a framework for the wanderings of the characters in the play. The verbal narration was responsible for the historical props, and that’s a good thing. People moved around with gym gadgets, why not. The focus was on people.

The play’s central characters, O.W. Kuusinen and his wife Aino, created the tension, or Aino did. Vappu Nalbantoglu’s Aino was the liveliest, most humane and strongest character in Stalin’s stable in this play. The intact Aino will not be easily forgotten, the charge was powerful in that way. Asko Sarkola’s Kuusinen remained a bit thin and lacking in profile, but his miserable self was certainly present.

Stalin, the Winter War, the Finnish Boys, the Soviet regimes and politicians got their titles on stage. An interesting gentleman was Mannerheim, whose character does not fit into the Finnish landscape. But what made him interesting were the Russian eyes, which see a different person.

Comrade K is an entity with an experience, a surprise, history and strong theatre. The stretching of the actors and the use of theatrical elements in their entirety remain in the mind.