Then the mood changed. The creatures that pierced the fourth wall of the stage were, after all, the little mermaids from H. C. Andersen’s beloved fairy tale rather than the sirens of ancient fables. The toes of actress Leenamari Unho, who acted as the presenter at the unveiling of the statue donated to the Helsinki City Theatre, were left completely intact by their teeth.
Undisciplined, even a little silly and fascinatingly challenging theatre. Yes, yes, and sometimes so fast-paced that I don’t think any of the three actors on stage survived the premiere without minor bumps.
The play, or should I call this performance, which is strongly linked to the visual arts, gave me a lot to think about. I think that the very title of the performance contains a riddle and also the key to solving this riddle. The fountain of the statue worked spectacularly and the pool framing it was not empty, but water splashed all the way to the auditorium in the boisterous water games of the resurrected figures.
So why the name Agora – two mermaids in an empty pool?
Is a work of art if no one has seen it?
Theatre is the art of the moment based on immediate interaction. At least as far as theatre is concerned, this philosophical question is relevant. The audience and its reactions are an essential part of the art of theatre. The mermaids of Minna Lund, who directed the Agora and came up with the ideas for her working group’s performance, did not just attack the audience to do their own rituals, but they ordered some of us spectators to the stage.
Commanding is of course an exaggeration here. However, the word describes well how the power relations established in the interaction between the actors and their audience in the performance were turned upside down in the performance. Mermaids Salla Loper and Emelie Zilliacus commanded and the spectators invited to the stage formed various living statue scenes according to their instructions.
We adults have a lot of ossified attitudes and emotions locked into them. This kind of activity, in which the game defines its own rules, certainly did good for both those invited to the stage and all of us. Agora was a game for adults, which also included closeness and sensuality that gave meaning to life.
The audience is the ruler of Finnish theatre, who share their popularity and judgments by giving their thumbs up, like the Romans who once watched the bloody plays of the Colosseum. The integrity of the audience is not questioned, and it was not done this time either. Antonin Artaud, the father of the theatre of cruelty, wanted to free theatre from the tyranny of words. For Lund and his ensemble, story and plot have also been secondary issues in this performance. They framed the action like buildings in the square where the statue had been erected.
The assault of the Theatre of God, armed with excrement and powder extinguishers, on the front of strong interaction in Oulu more than 30 years ago has remained the only one of its kind. And that’s a good thing.
In his welcome speech at the unveiling of the statue, donated by an unknown author, Unho, an actor from the Helsinki City Theatre, told the story of a lively theatre whose operations gradually froze and ossified. Unho represented the statue committee of the story, which also included Kari Arffman, the theatre director of the City Theatre, and Riikka Thitz, the curator of the stage of the contemporary performance. Both also spoke to us via video recording.
Theatre is not made for the audience, but theatre is made with the audience. I think this is how the hard-to-define line between entertainment and art is drawn in the water. Perhaps this is exactly what Lund wanted to sharpen for us with his Agora.
The princes of the current government have ignored the needs of culture, with the eloquent gesture of the hand over the throat with which the French Sun King Louis XIV shared his scathing criticism in the stories. The cultural departments of the editorial offices are shrinking like a fish before the end of the world. The so-called zeitgeist is not on the theatre’s side now.
Still, there is no need to fear the death of the theatre after grey panthers like this writer have left the auditoriums for good. Lund and other new generation talents are taking the lead in making theatre art, and the result has been promising. The concerns of Arffam and co. were certainly also alleviated by the fact that the premiere audience of the performance, which was part of the City Theatre’s Stage for Contemporary Performance project, consisted mainly of young adults belonging to the Lund generation.
Wikipedia knows that Lund is a Finnish theatre director, writer and performance artist. She has a master’s degree from both Aalto University and the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. In an interview on the Helsinki City Theatre’s website, it is said that Lund’s works are characterised by indiscipline or the need to poke at the normative way of being and doing.
“For me, undiscipline means some kind of playfulness and deviating from the form or asking conventions,” Lund says.
In ancient Greece, the word agora meant a market. At Tuesday’s premiere, Havis Amanda, sculpted by Ville Vallgren, whose previous working title the sculptor gave to his statue was Mermaid, stood on the Lund agora. According to Lund, this Amanda of the sea is a mischievous statue.
In an interview with Helsingin Sanomat, Lund reminds us of the apparently visible fact that in the world of figurative statues, squares and squares are usually reserved for great men and sculptures depicting women have to be found in parks. Havis Amanda has been showcasing the sensual beauty of her bronze-cast body in a prime location in Helsinki’s Market Square for more than a hundred years.