Review: Ne kahdeksan valittua

The prosecutor’s bench is vacant

In addition to his scientific activities, Professor Heikki Ylikangas has built a career as a playwright for twenty years. His Ostrobothnian-focused research has expanded to include research and drama topics dealing with the entire nation. The latest text brings to the stage the fate of the Finnish Jewish refugees who were extradited during the Continuation War, and especially the extradition process. The play was inspired by Elina Sana’s book Luovuetut (2003) and Ylikangas’s own report on the subject to the Government.

Set designer Mimmi Resman has ended up with basic furnishings from the 40s, which of course suits a play where words and actions speak. Maija Pekkanen’s costumes follow the lines of the times.
– The costume designer must create the illusion of time even for those who do not have their own memory of it. The costume designer helps the actor and is in a way partly responsible for directing the characters. It is especially valuable to costume these kinds of premieres, for which there is no previous model,” says Maija Pekkanen.

The Eight Chosen is a men’s play. Their strengths and weaknesses travel in a human way through the story all the way to the climax. Risto Ryti’s (Hannu Lauri) key line, in which he predicts how future history will interpret guilt and innocence, can be considered as such.

The goal of the play is not to be addressed, and it realizes that. The viewer is told about the actions and the reasons tied to their time, but it is difficult to throw a stone at anyone’s head. If the viewer wants to do so, that freedom is left to them. Our time is often plagued by unpleasant hindsight, but Ylikangas’s text does not succumb to that. In the final scene of the play, Arno Anthoni (Kari Mattila) sits in his prison cell as the man who agreed to extradite eight Jews to Germany. Mattila’s interpretation of the role is so strikingly believable that it stays in my mind as a final image for a long time after the curtain closes.

– The role is interesting. There are facts about Anthon, and attempts have been made to make him the scapegoat of events, but underneath the shell is a person,” Mattila interprets his role and laughs about how he has had similar roles before. So it takes a skilled actor to play a villain, who can also be a victim of circumstances. The suit is best suited then, and Mattila will now play a big role in the metaphorically fitting suit as well.

The title of the play is related to eight extraditiond Jewish refugees, whose fates have been documented. One of them was saved. However, Stiller’s Jewish family (Aarno Sulkanen and Tiia Louste) is not at the centre of the story. Those who are most affected are deliberately left aside, which is true throughout world history. The play’s conscious perspective is more natural for the historian: the factors that influenced the process.