Yesterday I went with a companion to see A Streetcar Named Desire at the Finnish National Theatre.Tennessee Williams wrote almost literal bucketloads of passion into this play. It comes as a constant buzz of electricity; hot, red-blooded, sexy, and dangerous. It was almost inevitable, then, that my concerns about the use of sex in the Finnish theatre would resurface.
I have an inkling that theatrical tendencies such as those that I have blogged about are related to ideas of rebellion and liberation; ideas of being 'free'. But when the form of rebellion is dictated and repeated, it ceases to be rebellion. When freedom of expression becomes a necessity to act in certain ways, the freedom becomes illusory and elusive.
Yes, Stanley was well sculpted. Yes, he emerged from a soaking in the shower in nothing but wet, white briefs. But we might as well have been watching laundry on a washing line. It was a display of theatrical bravado, but the raw emotional spark was not there. It was sex but not sexy. The technique was perfect, but the heart was missing.
Where does the passion come from, and why is there so little of it in 'liberated' Finnish theatre? Come to that, why is there so little in Finland?
But my time was well spent. I have been very lucky in my artistic company recently, and yesterday my companion was simply delectable.
11 comments:
between the 'dictated rebellion' of vapid, heartless 'desperately signalling' theatrical tradition on the cultural side and the 'arrogant wasteland' that's fucking up your health on the physical side, what's keeping you here?
matti: (a) my friends, Finnish and otherwise, who are beyond value; (b) the idea that it's all in my head and wouldn't actually be any different anywhere else
what a gentlemanly, diplomatic answer. boutros boutros kani.
See also here.
Well, you DID go see something at the National. While they do some excellent work there, I've also seen plenty of plays that are acted very conservatively.
Sounds like a fair critique to me, matti--if Stanley's not sexy, there ain't no Tennessee W also in my humble o.
For me it's not a matter of lack of passion in Finnish theatre or performing arts (I saw Tero Saarinen perform HUNT last night and it was aching with gorgeousness, and a bit of performance art on the weekend was terribly sensual), but you do have to go out of your way to find it. I think it's true that at the National Theatre in England Stanley would get fairly heavily criticized for being a sculpted wet blanket; possibly the reviews here said the same. Possibly the best thing about places larger than Finland is that you have several national newspapers and several large companies, so the idea that one place, writer, or institution can be an authority on anything doesn't happen so much.
If that's obtuse, what I mean is that when the National Theatre of Finland performs with its particular style (which it does have, and it's quite conservative), it seems to be easily interpreted as The Best in Finnish Theatre. It's not always the best; it's always the best-funded and the biggest-housed, but it shouldn't be taken as an authority.
Sensuality onstage is, in my experience in Finland, more in dance than in theatre. I may be wrong but that's what I have found so far. On the other hand, I see a lot more dance.
And on top of all that, I'd (predictably) argue that heart without technique is god-awful theatre, while technique without heart is also god-awful theatre.
Heart needs to be trained, too. It's not something you have or don't.
I think that's what I mean with "conservative" acting. That your technique can be great, but your heart and soul are locked away out of the reach of the audience. Audiences eat hearts and souls, apparently is what I mean, and if you like having your heart and soul eaten, welcome to theatre.
But anyway how do you make Stanley sexy, when the entire audience expects him to be a sex bomb? They're just waiting for a raw, unpredictable heart and soul draped luxuriously with flesh. How do you present that in a way that can still go beyond expectations and actually reach an audience?
You know it might be a bit culturally true anyway. It is difficult in Finland to be raw without being messy, or to be technical and filled with soul. It's difficult anywhere, but there's a kind of stoicism or quietness over the whole national character that can make expression, well, different.
The other night there was a drunk young man slumped on the stairs outside the next-door building to mine. It was 1:am and he was screaming for nearly an hour. He yelled about his family, his friends, this society, everything under the sun; seriously a guy in anguish. He was so loud and screaming so long I eventually opened my window to see where he was, is how I knew he was slumped on the stairs. I could only see his sprawling red shoes. Eventually I started thinking his voice should be gone by now, but it was still loud and strong. I wondered if the alcohol gave him some superhuman ability to scream. It was technically amazing. I didn't want to go down and help him in case he was violent, though. I felt bad about that but I probably should. I wondered why nobody else went to help him or at least called the police.
happeningfish: thanks, interesting comments.
matti: look again at my 'desperately signalling' entry, and you'll see that I had similar misgivings before I had even heard of Finland.
Just to clarify: I'm not knocking the professionalism of mainstream Finnish theatre. This was a production that was well enough presented to have me looking inside myself wondering why I wasn't receiving. That's when I concluded that it was the job of the production to project so that I would receive, because I was in a receptive state of mind.
uygamlI saw David Harrower's Blackbird at the (Finnish) National's small Omapohja stage a couple of weeks ago, and lo, I did not think it suffered from the usual flaws and shortcomings of (Finnish) institutional theatre. The translation (Michael Baran's, also directing) was good, too.
I don't go with positively delectable companions, though - I go on my own.
NB I haven't got keyboard dyslexia - the odd word which opens my comment was the word verification. Fuck knows why it got there...
Anna MR: Glad to hear about Blackbird. Smaller spaces can be more innovative in many ways.
But you wouldn't begrudge me a little (delectable) romantic daydreaming, though, surely?
Nah, no begrudges. Just trying my hand at "old and embittered" is all...
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