HS Analysis | Horror has already taken over TV and movies – now the creepy trend is also creeping onto theater stages

Hollywood has produced a lot of horror films in recent years, and they have become a new money-making machine for the entertainment industry. We are not used to seeing the same kind of excitement and terror in the theater, but now there are some signs in the air. Could horror take over theater stages as well?

For example, this fall, the Turku City Theater had its premiere Jussi Marttilan based on a crime novel On the waterwhose starting point is a tenacious urban legend about a river snitch who stalks young men.

We will see you next spring at the Helsinki City Theatre by Danny Robins a blockbuster already praised as a modern classic 2:22 A Ghost Storywhich premiered in London in 2021.

And then there's this classic: A woman in black. To be seen in spring 2024 at Hämeenlinna theatre.

Huh. This woman has a very special place in my heart.

by Susan Hill to a horror novel Woman in Black (1983) based, By Stephen Mallatratt dramatized and Marja Alopeausen translated into Finnish, the play had its Finnish premiere at Tampere Työväen Teatteri in November 1990 under the name The woman in black.

I saw the show myself in the spring of 1991, in the seventh grade of middle school. It made an indelible impression on me and my friend.

The work performed on Eino Salmelainen's stage was done in a minimalist way: there was a wooden box and two actors on the stage. There weren't particularly spectacular lights either, but the darkness was used all the more effectively, and image projections, the memory of which will fade away from me and my friend in ten to fifteen years.

After that, I haven't been afraid in the theater – if you don't count when I went with the same friend to reminisce in the Tampere Theater in 2014, which premiered In the woman in black. The second time, fortunately, I was most afraid in advance: that I would be scared again like 23 years before.

Nothing we can't yet speak of a special boom in terms of thrill or horror offerings in theaters, but something is clearly on the move in the theater world as well.

Whodunit murder mysteries are performed relatively regularly in the theater, and we even saw a strange classic of the genre Mousetrap just this autumn on the Arena stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

Strangely Agatha Christie from writing From the mousetrap does the fact that it has been running in London for more than 70 years, except for the break caused by the corona pandemic. I saw the show at the Arena in December, but more than tickling the nerves of fear, it made me realize that the play should probably be put to rest in the grave already.

Coming to the premiere on the same stage in the spring 2:22 A Ghost Storyin which “supernatural experiences appear in the middle of everyday baby life”, on the other hand, already sounds significantly more ominous.

“It is a very clever thing”, says the director of the show SpongeBob Westerberg on the telephone.

The psychological thriller is really a genre rarely seen in the theater, says Westerberg. He himself is doing one now for the first time.

On the film and literature side, Westerberg has always enjoyed working with this genre. He sees that a sport familiar to viewers can in a certain way make the viewing experience smoother.

“Here, through supernatural experiences, we get to look at the different worldviews of four people and their beliefs, we open up quite meaningful things. But in a frame that is familiar and perhaps therefore easier to approach.”

2:22 am combines the classic four person chamber drama and Hitchcock's properties of the thriller genre he started in his films, says Westerberg.

“I think many approach it through film experiences. But the stage is always the stage and offers a completely different way of experiencing things.”

The fact that there are living people in front of you instead of a big screen or a TV screen can be quite special, especially in the genre of suspense and the supernatural, Westerberg thinks.

“The actors are exposed in front of the audience, our peers.”

Mind I wouldn't do it, but I have to. Let's get back To the woman in blackto the harshest of all.

Hämeenlinna theater's show in the spring has been made in collaboration with Kuopio City Theatre, where it was last performed this fall. The director is just ending his leadership in Kuopio Tommi Auvinen.

The woman in black in a performance like this, the lights and sounds are so central that the person in charge of them is called first Janne Auvisen.

During the call, the pieces fall into place, so to speak, when Janne Auvinen immediately offers information that was not found in Ilona, ​​a database of theater premieres.

It was specifically Tommi Auvinen, who directed me and a friend's first performance in Tampere in 1990, which terrified me.

“We've joked that this is like our shared hobby,” says Janne Auvinen.

I belong to the theater family Auviset – Eila to Roine and Vili Auvinen boys – have done The woman in black many times to different theaters. In addition to the Tampere Theater, the Tampere Comedy Theater and Rauma City Theatre.

In the year In 1990, the younger Auvinen was still sitting on the side of the audience, but since then he has become a direct expert in the theater's horror and suspense genre. Auvinen designed the lights and sounds for, among others, the Tampere comedy theater to Ghost Stories in 2018 and votes for the one implemented in the corridors of Häme Castle this year Told by ghosts – for the show.

A woman in black is, however, very special to him.

“I really like doing it. In that, I can play with the audience, when my brush, i.e. lights and sounds, are so central.”

But unlike many spectacles of today, where light and sound are used enormously, we are In black very thrifty, Auvinen explains.

“There is a little too much light, and then too little light.”

Bright fluorescent lights on the stage, so-called practice lights, are used in the performance. When they then fall into almost complete darkness, the dark feels darker, Auvinen describes.

And when it's dark enough around you, you can no longer be completely sure of your surroundings.

“

“I went to the nearest phone booth and called the theater. Book Woman in Black, now, immediately!”

Vote are just as important, if not more important.

“I have often said about the voice that it is the easiest way to make the audience cry. And it seems to also work in tension and fear,” says Auvinen.

For example, a cracking sound leads to a scary atmosphere. According to Auvinen, it's like a mistake that starts to bother the viewers, and which they then recognize every time they hear it.

In scary stories, there is always one thing that a theater maker must remember. It's a responsibility. Don't panic too much.

“The situation must remain safe. I avoid even talking about the fear itself, this must be such an enjoyable thrill. It's the same reason why people go on the ghost train.”

Give then Tommi Auvinen will finally tell you how A woman in black first arrived in Finland.

Here's how it went:

The year was 1986. Tommi Auvinen was his wife Teija Auvinen with in London.

“There were advertisements The woman in black theater performances. The wife said to go there.”

Tommi Auvinen was of the opinion that it really wouldn't work. That must be very scary, he says.

We went anyway.

“From the previous one, a direct cut to the fact that I was completely terrified.”

It also happened that during the intermission, Auviset, both working at TTT at the time, bumped into Tampere Teatter's spokesperson, who was also excited about the performance.

“Immediately after the show, I ran to the nearest phone booth and called the theater. Book now Woman in Black, immediately, immediately! WOMAN IN BLACK.”

TTT was contacted, and later it turned out that only a short time later there had been a call from the Tampere Theatre.

In the year 1990 directed by Tommi Auvinen The woman in black then you get the premiere. Little brother Janne Auvinen is in the same mood as big brother in London when he goes to the show. Quite an ax in the stone thing, it's hardly scary.

“When I came out, I was completely sold,” says Janne Auvinen.

The rest is history. About the woman in black became a long-term joint project of the brothers.

And sometime in the spring of 1991, two middle school students came as other people to see Eino Salmelainen's work being performed on stage.

On the way home, they were bored. Somehow shaken in a quite entertaining way.

I'm terribly afraid that there might be something overwhelming with horror in the theaters as well.

At least I'm excited.

A woman in black. Premiere at the Hämeenlinna Theater on January 4.

2:22 A Ghost Story. Premiere at the Helsinki City Theater on February 8.