Generous Audiences Make for a More Daring Performance at the Kansallisteatteri

By Kati Fitzgerald

Kristian Smeds's piece Jumala on kauneus (Engl. God Is Beauty) is currently being produced in repertory at the Kansallisteatteri, the Finnish National Theatre, in Helsinki. Five actors along with musicians perform a series of scenes representing seven paintings by artist Vilho Lampi, a Finnish painter born 1898 in Oulu and educated at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Association. A significant contributor to Finnish art and culture today, Lampi committed suicide at the turning point of his career, in 1936. Smeds's piece is an adaptation of a 1959 novel by Paavo Rintala, first adapted for the stage in 1981 by Kaija Viinikainen. Smeds's version-to judge by the audience response-seems to have achieved great acclaim at the Finnish National Theatre.

The Finnish audience, while of a similar demographic as the American repertory theatre audience (upper class, over 50, white), show a kind of attention and consideration that is unthinkable in the American theatre. After a nearly 20 minute intermission following a two-and-a-half hour first act, there were no noticeable empty seats in the auditorium. Neither did it appear that anyone fell asleep, left in the middle of the act to go to the restroom, talked to a neighbor, or answered a cell phone: the Finnish audience appear to be both passionate and extremely patient patrons of the arts. For an American student, pinching herself to stay awake after a transatlantic flight, this was unbelievable, especially noting that the actors portraying Lampi were never afraid to linger over a poignant line or take their time moving across the vast stage. During the 30 seconds of silence that, on an American stage, would have signaled the loss of a line, an actor at the National Theatre might simply move comfortably from joy to shame. The attention as well as the extreme generosity of the audience seemed to foster better, more thoughtful performances on the part of the actors.

Despite the surprising length of the piece, for a non-Finnish-speaker, the performance is a feast of visual imagery, which works to give an impression of the characters or landscapes pictured in Lampi's works. Although the first inclination of a piece like this may be to isolate the moment in which the actors directly replicate a given painting, it appeared as if the artists - through their movement and language - instead expressed the emotion, circumstance and environment of the paintings. Evoking Gertrude Stein's vision of Landscape Theatre, the actors (all playing different versions or stages of Lampi) presented a cacophony of images and sounds. Music, intonation and guttural language become part of the visual landscape of the scenes.

The set design is simple; an off-white "canvas" constructed with 6 flats stands center stage, with an orchestra sitting up-stage-left. The actors use only half of the deep stage space, but manage to fill the broad, empty space with their movement and voices. Despite the effective design, the difficulties of repertory performance quite literally showed through when it came to the performance's lighting design. Lighting served to create Lampi's images in a much more pointed way than the dialogue or movement of the actors. Color and composition were used to form picturesque moments or frames. Unfortunately, as the duration of these frames was quite long, the audience had time to notice flaws in the design. Accidental shadows and dark spaces proved more distracting than the beauty of the picture itself. Although Smeds and the rest of the team managed to create some fantastically beautiful stage pictures, the lighting, especially in a space as large and well funded as the National Theatre, could have been much cleaner and better developed.

Although the performance originated in a much smaller, intimate, black-box space and though each scene is generally comprised of only one or two players, the actors fill the entire space with ease. Even if the level of acting was difficult to judge due to the barrier of language, the acting, or at least the actor, does not appear to take center stage in the performance. The audience does not come away from the performance with a clear memory of the faces or voices of any of the actors. Moments, such as the dance performed with a large rope in the first scene and the cabbage massacre later in the play (which took on a very different meaning for English speakers who, hearing the word "lisää" screamed over and over, imagined the head of a woman, Lisa, rather than the word in its Finnish meaning of "more"), were memorable, but the entities who created those moments were not.

Smeds and his team created a field of impressions and images in Jumala on kauneus, which range from violent to comic, sentimental to quirkily poignant. Proving that the pact between audience and actor is essential in the creation of progressive, innovative theater, The Finnish National Theater stands as an example to the face-paced, crowd-appeasing theater of the United State's most funded theaters.

Jumala on kauneus
Photo credit: Miska Reimaluoto

More reviews by our students

About the Theatre and Research Journey to Helsinki, May 2009