Review: Henki

THEATRE FROM THE UNIVERSITY MILIEU

At the end of March, two plays about university milieus, which explore the relationships between science and life, art and truth, premiered in Helsinki theatres.
The play The Spirit, written by Margaret Edson, performed at the Helsinki City Theatre, examines the last weeks of a professor of literature who has been diagnosed with cancer, which he spends in a technical hospital milieu. This Pulitzer Prize-winning play has attracted attention especially for its depiction of the harsh conditions of dying in modern society. Professor Vivian Bearing is a literary scholar dedicated to John Donne, in whose life everything else has been secondary to his career. The play depicts moments from the main character’s life in retrospect – conversations with teachers during his studies, sparkling lectures and moments of conversations with students. These scenes convey not only Vivian Bearing’s complete sacrifice to her field, but also a sense of superiority and emotional poverty. Bearing’s character can be interpreted in the light of the classic Faust myth, in which the high price paid for knowledge leads to the loss of other values. On his deathbed, however, Bearing is in the same state of uncertainty as any of us – or perhaps worse.

The play gives a desolate picture of the academic world. With the exception of one colleague, this famous university woman is not visited by anyone at the hospital and she shares her last moments with the hospital staff. On his deathbed, Bearing also imagines the situation of his institution after his death, and his macabre reflections reveal the hidden but complete insensitivity of his colleagues towards him. However, more than a description of a scientist in particular, the director of the play, Milko Lehto, considers this play to be a critique of too far-reaching specialisation and the imprisonment of one thing. Thus, according to Lehto, Bearing’s fate shows how distorted Western culture can be by one-sidedly emphasizing reason based on ratio and underestimating emotions and physicality.

However, the play also contains material for perceiving the more general metaphysical situation of humans. As it is said in Donne’s sonnet, which is flashed several times in the play, the thankless role of man in the universe is to sway between disbelief and the possibility of salvation:

If the toxic soil types, if the wood
Whose fruits make us immortal
Rush to death if snakes are vile
Damnation saves, oh! Why not me?
Why reason, will, gifts of birth,
Do they make the same sin in me heavier?
 
(Sonnet IX on the Holy Sonnets, in Finnish. Alice Martin)

According to director Milko Lahti, however, the play, while raising metaphysical questions, leaves them open; for each viewer to answer for themselves.

Vivian Bearing’s story reveals something essential about the position of women in the traditional scientific community, where the price of success has been the emotional and sexual repression of femininity. The Swedish Theatre’s play Ditt livs historia (Your Life History), which tells the story of two women encountering, reveals the position of women not only in the scientific community but also in a literary institution. The play by bestselling author Donald Margulies is set in Manhattan in the private residence of a professor of literature named Ruth. The play opens with an encounter between Ruth and Lisa, a young literature student, which reveals Lisa’s adoring, fearful respect for the well-known teacher. The relationship, which started from adoring admiration, gradually becomes more collegial, with Ruth nevertheless appearing as a supervising teacher and a know-it-all. Detailed discussions about the fictional writings written by Lisa gradually begin to bear fruit, and the turning point of the play is the scene in which Lisa’s first story is published in a magazine. This event changes the play’s interpersonal setting, as from now on Lisa is no longer satisfied with the role of an admiring student and her intentions begin to be clearly directed elsewhere. In long, intimate conversations, Ruth had led Lisa into her past, and she had also told her a closely guarded secret of her love for the Jewish poet. A failed love affair with her had traumatized her later relationships. Lisa records these conversations, which are meant to be confidential, and publishes them as a successful book, breaking the women’s friendship. Jukka Kajava’s direction sharply highlights the dramatic tension of the play, in which the relationship pattern changes in the dialogues between Ruth and Lisa over the course of six scenes.

The play sheds light on ethical issues from the point of view of both women, but is careful not to hand out simplistic judgments. In choosing Lisa as her friend and confidant, Ruth makes the mistake of overstepping the boundaries of her role as a teacher, although her impact on Lisa’s later life is likely to be positive. Lisa’s motives change during the play. Although his admiration for his teacher is genuine from the beginning, the situation between them gradually leads him to adopt seemingly cynical procedures in order to detach himself from his role as a protégé. Perhaps more than the relationship between the two women, this episode of the relationship is about the world of publishing and media that have an impact on the Manhattan apartment, thirsting for new stories and revelations.

Leena Eilittä
Yliopisto magazine 9/01