Review: Hitchcock ja blondi
THE ICY TEMPTATION OF A BLONDE
Terry Johnson’s suspense comedy presents an interpretation of the image of women in Alfred Hitchcock’s films
The impenetrable icy lightness of the heroines fascinates fans of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. The most devoted fans wonder why the director makes psychopathic mother-killers and flocks of birds that have lost their instincts always attack blondes. Those in the know even wondered why Hitchcock had the need to systematically bleach Hollywood actresses.
The Englishman Terry Johnson has tackled the subject with artistic freedom, without making any great man play. Despite his physical size, Johnson’s Hitchcock is a timid and small man. In fact, he is only seen in a few scenes set in 1959. The idea of the play is more complicated.
Hitchcock and Blonde takes place on three separate time levels.
Set in the present day, the story features a middle-aged film researcher who lures a young student girl to the Greek archipelago for the summer to investigate old film reels found in an obscure private archive.
A parallel pair is formed by film director Hitchcock and a woman who appears as a substitute actress in the nude scenes, whose imaginary encounter takes place during the filming phase of the film Psycho.
The third story gradually unfolds from the brittle contents of the film reels found by the researcher. The discovery includes Hitchcock’s early cinematic experiments from 1919. The few surviving clips tell us that the central motifs are repeated in the director’s work from the very beginning, but above all they reveal the basic trauma that led Hitchcock to endlessly repeat his attacks on blondes in his films.
Johnson’s centralized play asks interesting questions, and also offers satisfactory answers, without flattening the enigmatic subject. The result is a thrilling relationship comedy.
Of course, the execution is challenged by how to stage such a fragmented story that is so centrally related to the film and how to create a Hitchcock-like atmosphere without falling into cheap imitation.
The performance, directed by Neil Hardwick, holds together well, but leaves many question marks.
The play mainly consists of scenes of two people, which are positioned in a very schematic way. The actors stand on different sides of the stage, throwing lines at each other and filling an almost empty space. Most of the time, they stay on top of two narrow floor hatches, from which they are quickly made to disappear in the way of the next scene.
However, the idea that is effective in itself is not supported by other stage technology. The three large screens sliding on the stage with their changing projections finally provide a fairly ordinary background image for the scenes. Creating tension is largely left to the actors alone.
In the end, the play’s young blondes, Mari Perankoski, who <b<Sanna-June Hyde plays a student and plays the role of a nude model, get the most space in the play. In their roles, both maintain the unresolved equation of portrayal and being the object of gaze, which, in addition to theatre, is obviously also closely related to the essence of womanhood.
Perankoski is the real dynamo of the play. He combines his own mannerisms with old film clichés in a cheerful way.
Carl-Kristian Rundman plays the timid researcher in a small gesture, but manages to fill the stage with his charisma. However, one would have expected the director to offer significantly more support, especially to Rundman. Male conflicts were expected to burst forth at least once from the entire stage.
Hitchcock, physicalized by Mikko Kivinen, is presented above all as a full-bodied figure who is mostly seen either on his back or in profile. Kivinen skillfully creates a character who reveals nothing, but is visible in everything.
But what was Hitchcock’s secret according to Terry Johnson? The performance is worth going to see just because of the film clips saved by the play’s researchers.