Review: Kauppamatkustajan kuolema

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The Tragedy of a Little Man

The Helsinki City Theatre’s choice to present a serious drama like Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Merchant on the big stage is not an easy decision. The City Theatre’s large stage is very large, and the distance between the stage events and the widely spread auditorium places considerable demands on the filmmakers.
The prerequisites for the success of the performance are a director like Reko Lund’an, who is able to structure the events over a wide field and build the different time levels and states of mind of Miller’s play into clear spaces, and a set designer like Kati Lukka, who is able to creatively make use of the large space and its technical possibilities.
The visual and spatial implementation of the performance is brilliant.

Mega

The big stage also requires that the actors must be mega-class. Even the simple, concrete, speech technical requirements mean a lot.
Esko Salminen and Kyllikki Forssell can afford to be little people without them disappearing from sight. Played by them, Willy and Linda can curl up in their small, dimly lit kitchen, shaded by apartment buildings, between the fridge and the dining table, so that the intimacy of the scene exceeds the proportions of the space.
Santeri Kinnunen and Nicke Lignell as their sons, Matti Ranin and Taisto Oksanen as neighbours and Esko Nikkari as Willy’s monologue conversation partner, his brother Ben, also do excellent acting, as do everyone else in their roles. The performance is well executed right down to the edges.
The only thing that bothers me about The Death of the Merchant at the Helsinki City Theatre is that it is so cool and skillful, good theatre – above all, theatre.
It does not seek to break or cross any boundary, but accepts its institutional position; Miller’s play by Juha Siltanen who speaks the language of the suburbs, as a good translation, the actors as actors in their roles, the audience paying spectators who have come to enjoy the art experience on the comfortable benches in the auditorium.
However, the embarrassment is erased at the latest at the cathartic moment when Willy Loman and his son Biff sort out their relationship for the last time. When Biff desperately tries to get the dream aside like his father, who is hung in a noose, to understand what the rest of us, both on stage and in the audience, would like to shout at him, but for various reasons we cannot.
Willy Loman is moving towards his death inexorably like the hero of an ancient tragedy. But unlike the heroes of tragedy, who recognize their fate and realize the necessity of their death, Loman never faces the truth and realizes the futility of his death.
It is incredibly sad how well Miller’s play, which premiered fifty years ago, describes our time.

OUTI LAHTINEN

Arthur Miller: The Death of a Merchant Traveller. Helsinki City Theatre, directed by Reko Lund, set design by Kati Lukka, costume design by Sari Salmela, lighting design by Juha Westman, sound design by Antero Mansikka. Premiere 17.10.