Review: Stalinin suloinen ruoska

Destinies are solved in Torni

Screenwriter and director Kari Heiskanen’s The Sweet Whip of Stalin takes us to the so-called years of danger after the Continuation War.

The small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre is transformed into the Hotel Torni, where the Soviet-led Control Commission decides on the fate of our country.

The title character of the play is the dreaded chairman of the Control Commission, Andrei Zhdanov (Sixten Lundberg), to whom the political commissar Orlov (Jari Pehkonen) creates an excellent counterforce.

The replication is sharp and the quips fly when Russians and Finns meet. It’s easy to laugh at the words when we know how it turned out in the end.