Review: Mestariluokka

A STALINIST LESSON IN MAKING ART

Artists are tormented in the City Theatre’s lavish satire.

One of the guaranteed successes of the Helsinki City Theatre’s autumn season is a satire written 23 years ago, which has not lost its relevance at all, even though history passed a little from the left after the play was completed and the tight-lipped Soviet socialism began to melt into glasnost. When the play lasts three hours and its four characters are on stage practically all the time, it is easy to fall into doubts about the carrying capacity and intensity of the whole in advance, but don’t worry. In the City Theatre’s novelty, director Kurt Nuotio is working on the play for the second time, and with a kind of dream team as a quartet of actors, the audience has little choice but to enjoy the devilishly witty satire.

“Be law-abiding composers”

The setting of the play is clear. Generalissimo Stalin (Lasse Pöysti) has ordered the composer geniuses Shostakovich (Asko Sarkola) and Prokofiev (Esko Roine) to an evening and night lesson, during which the gentlemen should learn how to make proper art. There is also Stalin’s second-in-command, Zhdanov (Martti Suosalo), who seems to have particularly strong opinions about the essence of art. With a word of words, you then measure yourself against others and learn to understand the other side’s points of view a little… Or maybe not.

David Pownall combines humorous entertaining and his serious, thought-provoking message in a really great way in the play. I guess there will always be conflicts between the artists’ interpretations and the “we know better” attitudes of the idealists who build the ideal society of those in power, and Pownall shows this with his razor-sharp dialogue. Sometimes even so sharply that you don’t even have time to realize it right away. When Prokofiev swears that all composers are law-abiding citizens, Stalin retorts that “you are not law-abiding composers, after all.” Or composers are expected to easily create folk music, because “don’t you represent the people and are not composers?” The text is full of subtleties like these. The humour is very irritating at times, but it also tends to get stuck in your throat when you realise that Stalin and Zhdanov are completely serious about their absurd theses.

Quite a quartet

There is no weak link in the quartet of actors. Lasse Pöysti does not portray Stalin as an actual monster, but the character’s intrigue and cruelty are revealed in a stunning way in the garb of a friendly gentleman. Only at a couple of points does Pöysti show the darker side of the generalissimo when he kicks the walking stick from under Prokofiev or announces to the composers that if the singing doesn’t start flowing, you’ll be shot. He tries to determine the form and content of art, but by the end of the play, he is just a tired lonely old man.
Martti Suosalo’s Zhdanov is always explosive, almost psychotic, an omniscient “art connoisseur” who says whatever comes to his mind at any given time. The play begins with a scene in which Zhdanov enjoys American jazz to the fullest and later strongly condemns the same tune. Quite a weather vane, I would say.
Esko Roine as Prokofiev is fragile in nature and perhaps even a little discouraged under pressure, but in the play’s stunning compositional sequence, he also shows his sharpness and shows that there is still resistance. Subtly.
Asko Sarkola’s Shostakovich reflects on the combined relationship between art and reality that Sarkola will probably have to do in his position as a theatre director. In the composition section, he also gets to shine. Perhaps a slightly timid but definitely intelligent portrait of a genius composer.
The stage is the same all the time, a large hall with a piano. The space is spacious, but it is very smoothly used throughout the performance. The City Theatre’s Masterclass is a play that has earned its great success.