Review: Hitchcock ja blondi

Gentlemen still like blondes


Undress, please, says Hitchcock without gestures. Women undress. And men watch. The City Theatre’s premiere of Hitchcock and the Blonde adds tantalizing dimensions to the old story when the trash is fished out of the trash can of the cinematic genius. Cinematic narration is used as a stylistic device: even the sets conceived by Antti Mattila are only projected onto the walls.

In the frame story, film studies professor Alex (Carl-Kristian Rundman) and student Nicola (Sanna-June Hyde) investigate Hitchcock’s film legacy and at the same time his inappropriate relationship with each other. On another time level, Hitchcock (Mikko Kivinen) auditions the brilliant Blonde (Mari Perankoski), who escalates to unpredictable acts.

In Terry Johnson’s text, Hitchcock’s obsession with young blondes becomes central. However, the play presents the blondes in a different light: strong, brutal and incorruptible. Mari Perankoski is heartbreaking as a working-class woman who is only good for nude scenes. Mikko Kivinen, on the other hand, makes a restrained pastiche of Alfred Hitchcock.

Carl-Kristian Rundman, who plays Alex, builds a palpable neurotic whose only passion is films. Sanna-June Hyde’s young student remains mostly at the level of a theatrical recitation, although she brings lightness to the scenes at times.

Under Neil Hardwick’s otherwise natural direction, the lines sometimes taste like paper. Still, you can’t get enough of voyeurism.