Review: Henki

The Death of Your Majesty

“… If the serpents are vile / damnation saves, oh! Why not me? / Why do reason, will, the gifts of birth, / the same sin in me make it heavier? / And when grace is easy, and to glory / to God, why does he threaten?”

(Excerpt from John Donne’s Sonnet IX. Alice Martin).

Margaret Edson’s multidimensional play The Spirit, which premiered on the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre just over a week ago, did not have a very favourable starting point; The theatre criticism of the country’s mainstream newspaper frightened a group of potential viewers. Some justifiably, but some certainly unjustified. The Spirit, which tells the story of a transformation in the values of an Oxfordian-educated literary scholar who ignores emotions with intellectuality, is a serious play, not only for the repertoire of this particular theatre.

But not distressing, let alone crushing, even though it brings you close to the terminally ill. However, the inevitable, death, has been distanced in the play in many ways – “mercifully” to the spectator-listener. The first episode in particular is mainly characterised by the play on the verbal and intellectual virtuosity of the protagonist, lyric professor Vivian Bearing, which in the vernacular can of course also be called nitpicking. The content analysis, close reading of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, a wonderful sample of English poetry from the early 17th century, is enjoyable. Brilliant text, brilliantly presented.

Besides, it also serves the play. The illusion of the omnipotence of genius is an essential part of the development trajectory, the spiritual growth of the protagonist, the death of pride. As if to be on the safe side, the director has taken the anxiety-reducing distancing into a typography that approaches comedy, at worst to the point of corniness. However, the hollowness of the routine practices of “treatment” that calls into question the patient’s dignity is probably not very far from the reality of hospitals.

In the depiction of the approach to the end, authenticity has been discreetly avoided.  The exhaustion and cutting drift further away that corresponds to the reality of the sick person has been left out. Still, I don’t recommend the play to just anyone. But to any thinking person who has had the right attitude and tuned in. Death as such is part of his life as well.

Text: PERTTI PIISPANEN

Margaret Edson: The Spirit (Wit). Nordic premiere at Helsinki City Theatre 29.3.2001. Translated by Kersti Juva, directed by Milko Lehto, set design by Oskari Torvinen, costumes by Maija Pekkanen, starring Miitta Sorvali.