Review: Kultainen vasikka

Love with money and vice versa – The Golden Calf at the Helsinki City Theatre

Maria Jotun’s The Golden Calf premiered at the Finnish National Theatre in 1918, but it was only later that it became a classic of Finnish theatre.

The play depicts the relationship between money, love and power. Of the two daughters of the Ahlroos family, Lahja is unmarried and Eedit is married to the honest businessman Jaakko, but like her mother, she begins to dream of a wider life.

The first image of the performance is like a painting. A foggy forest, there is a bird-headed figure playing the cello.

The deliberate, precise arrangements continue throughout the performance, even though the symbolism of the forest set is not quite clear. Natural resources run out, but the connection between that idea and the performance itself remains loose in the end.

Under the direction of Heidi Räsänen, Jotun’s fine, rich dialogue gets the interpretation it deserves. Not a word is lost, the acting of the City Theatre’s skilled ensemble emphasizes the text without freezing for a moment.
I was surprised to notice that the performance had no choreography. That’s how smoothly Räsänen positions and moves his actors.

In the play, war as a state of emergency offers justification for even dubious means of enrichment. When everything is in short supply, trading becomes the focus of life. Some benefit, others lose.

Love is for sale and the golden calf stands like a slot machine in the corner of the room.

On the other hand, it is easy to identify with the position of the ruthless women in the story. They use money to seek security and status, and thus freedom.

“Without money, a person is not a person. He has no right to feel anything, he can be disgraced, trampled, he must be able to cover everything, his whole being, hide his humanity and suffering. He must be dull, dumbfounded, take every blow without complaining.”

This observation, which is still valid in this time, can be heard both on stage through the mouth of Katariina Ahlroos (absolutely wonderful Heidi Herala) and on tape. In the 1961 film adaptation of The Golden Calf, Catherine was played by Herala’s mother, Marja Korhonen.