Review: Prinsessa Ruusunen
WHEN A PRINCESS WANTS TO BECOME INDEPENDENT
Sleeping Beauty is a classic fairy tale that is passed down from generation to generation, but what happens when the princess reaches puberty? It will be seen on the City Theatre’s Small Stage, written and directed by Anneli Mäkelä , in the children’s play Sleeping Beauty. Mäkelä’s interpretation of the fairy tale classic is fresh and opens up new perspectives on the old story. A child audience dressed as little princesses watches the colourful fairy tale play quietly.
Anneli Mäkelä, who works as a dramaturg at the Helsinki City Theatre, has written
fairy tale play based on Tchaikovsky’s music and the traditions of fairy tale telling
cultures. The prince also plays a bigger role than usual in the story.
In the City Theatre’s version, the heroine of the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty (Sanna Majuri), lives a protected life in the court of the jovial king (Jari Pehkonen) and queen (Lilga Kovanko). According to the curse imposed by the fairy Carabossa (Marjut Toivanen), Sleeping Beauty must hurt her finger on her 15th birthday and fall into a hundred-year sleep. So the king has enacted a strict law that all the spindles of the kingdom must be destroyed. With the ban, the spindle becomes a taboo that attracts the people and the growing princess alike. Troubadours secretly make up songs about spindles and country ladies dream of dark spindle shops. When the princess meets the subjects whispering about the harsh king and his henchmen, Sleeping Beauty realizes that there is a lot in the world that she is not told about.
Sleeping Beauty, the apple of the king and queen’s eye, is a curious and knowledge-hungry pre-adolescent. When the princess does not get answers to her questions from her hushed parents and courtiers, she becomes depressed and withdraws into herself. The spindle and the hidden outside world begin to fascinate him more and more. The longing for the princess is expressed in the play by the inconsolable rumbling of the Wild Goose (Reetta Honkakoski). The courtiers have clipped the wings of the Wild Goose, so it is also tied to the castle like a princess. The parents’ well-intentioned desire for protection eventually turns against itself in the play. In a way, the story of Sleeping Beauty is also comparable to the Oedipus myth: in both, opposition to fate paradoxically leads to the fulfillment of fate.
A happy or sad fairy tale?
The play’s magical set design and costumes are designed by Katariina Kirjavainen . The pastel-coloured costumes of the courtiers, women’s hoop skirts and white wigs capture the atmosphere of a fairy tale well and delight the little viewers. The antics of the children’s students of the Bravuuri circus school performing in the play elicit extra applause from the audience.
The narrator of the play is an old man (Pekka Laiho), who follows the events with the prince (Reidar Palmgren) as bystanders. However, the prince cannot resist the temptation to interfere in the course of events, as a result of which different time levels meet in an interesting way in the play. The old man wisely tells the prince that it is up to us whether love destroys or saves. At the end of the play, the narrator leaves it up to the audience to decide whether it was a happy or sad fairy tale. The audience sits quietly and screams: “happy”!