Review: Ne kahdeksan valittua
Eight destinies charged at the Helsinki City Theatre
The common conscience of the people – if there is one – should sound the alarm in real time, but at the latest when analyzing various historical stages. Writer and Professor Heikki Ylikangas’ new play The Eight Chosen Ones goes far back in time and takes a closer look at an event that must be considered a disgrace in Finnish history. Namely, on November 6, 1942, our country’s government handed over to the Germans eight Jewish refugees who were staying in Finland at the time, including children. The collective conscience is not easily relieved by the knowledge that only one of the extradited survived.
The birth of the play is based on Elina Sana’s book Luovutetut, which was published a couple of years ago. The book was accompanied by a major controversy, which spurred not only a thorough investigation of the subject, but also its fictional treatment. The premiere of the stage work was a long-awaited cultural event in late winter.
The eight elected ones are looking for explanations, showing the decision-makers’ dead end and walking as if on their toes over graves. Will there be an understanding of that? Everyone must answer that personally.
The dramatist already has convincing evidence of combining fact and fiction, and structurally this story also works well. The historical figures are carefully defined, the plot meanders like a suspense play.
Although the truth is cold, the people involved in the decision are not cold.
The romance between the well-known lawyer Paavo Kastari and the Soviet soldier Kerttu Nuorteva is highlighted as influencing the course of events.
It is good that the steering has been entrusted to a representative of the new generation. Young people are able to look at things from a distance and, if necessary, also place stage episodes more boldly in the backlight. The anxiety that the course of history produces cannot remain the only gift of theatre, only transferred to the audience. The encounter of human and timeless comic traits in the characters’ behaviour is experiential for the viewer even when operating in otherwise quite serious frameworks.
In my opinion, Milko Lehto as a director manages to build a fast-paced theatrical performance, even if it is done by retouching the likenesses of the characters. The writer Hella Wuolijoki, for example, was hardly in any situation such a high-pitched old woman character as Leena Uotila adapts of her, nor was Heinrich Himmler a caricature of the head of the German police force, which Jouko Klemettilä jokingly mastered about the head of the German police force, but nevertheless it is a question of quite lively performances.
Not to mention Jari Pehkonen, who puts his comedian skills on the line by sketching a funny but less believable picture of the respected legal scholar Paavo Kastari.
Kari Mattila as Arno Anthon, the head of Valpo, gives a tenacious performance that carries excellently from start to finish, and both Matti Olavi Ranin as Lieutenant Ari Kauhanen and Heikki Sankari as Minister of the Interior Toivo Horell provide strong support for this performance.
Vuokko Hovatta plays a central role in the story as Nuorteva, as it is used – when contemplating guilt – as a reflection surface above all on Risto Ryti. Neither of them had been given any other options in the fateful stages of their lives. Nuorteva became what was threatened, as President of the Republic, Rytin had to submit to the demand for the extradition of Germany in the difficult situation of the country. Hannu Lauri replied to Rytina with concentration, at times even underlining too much. Hovatta’s progress is deliberately straightforward, he is mostly restrained and cool, as one would expect from a trained spy.
Aarno Sulkanen’s interpretation of Abraham Stiller, a representative of the Jewish community, is a fine role, appealing and strongly expressive.
Both Mimmi Resman’s stage design and Maija Pekkanen’s costumes communicate in style a time when the episodes now on display come to life.