Review: Mestariluokka

MASTERCATEGORY

If strict boundaries are set for art in advance, can the result be art at all? The humour of the play The Master Class is so dark that the real laughter only breaks out in the second act – when Stalin (Lasse Pöysti), Zhdanov (Martti Suosalo), Prokofiev (Esko Roine) and Shostakovich (Asko Sarkola) together compose music suitable for Soviet citizens.


In the play, written by Dawid Pownall and directed by Kurt Nuotio, Soviet leaders have invited terrified composers to the Kremlin to make them understand the role of art. Makes people happy!

The play is absurd and, at its funniest, also horrible, as was the cultural policy of the Soviet Union. Pöysti’s Stalin is somehow moving in all his stupidity – although at the same time on stage the composers’ differences vomit in sheer terror.

So what will the song be like? Something is illustrated by the fact that while the audience howls with laughter, Stalin himself cries in annoyance on stage.