Theater Review Suomenlinna Summer Theater promises a summer of love with a Shakespeare comedy faithful to tradition

Culture|Theater review

As you wish, the premiere of the Group Theater at the Suomenlinna Summer Theater on 17 June. Translation of William Shakespeare’s play Kirsti Simonsuuri. Directed by Jussi Nikkilä. ★★★

At the Suomenlinna Summer Theater celebrate this summer the summer of love.

Jussi Nikkilä control As you wish is an interpretation based on a presentation tradition and faithful William Shakespearen about the comedy we rarely perform. It was last seen at the Helsinki Metropolitan Summer Theater in 1992, Ralf Långbackan The interpretation directed at the viral theater spread throughout Vasikkasaari.

Nikkilä has not forcibly modernized the text. In that sense, a director who studied Shakespeare at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art returns to the basics, as he did in 2016 in a handsome show at the National Theater. In Richard III.

Nikkilä’s control for 2018 Julia & Romeo Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet also the National Theater burned with the fierce flame of youth and broke away more from the epoch.

Now included are the musician and composer of the two previous Shakespeare interpretations Mila Laine as well as a costume designer Saija Siekkinen.

The costume also follows the epoch, while the music occasionally steps against it in a few scenes resembling battle numbers in rap music.

Anyone waiting for Arden’s sparkling fairytale forest on stage may be disappointed, as the performance has got a very sparse visual look except for the costume. This can be thought of as emphasizing the theme of the play: those who fled the court in the woods of Arden throw all their facades, both their titles, their identities, and the shackles of sex to be free in the middle of nature.

At the same time, however, the story loses some of its central fairytale property.

The play the themes are youth and old age, men and women, nature and court life.

Instead of a plot play As you wish throws himself into in-depth and long dialogue-like reflections on the fundamental questions of life. Therefore, the pace of the actors maintaining a loud pace of speech could have slowed.

Kirsti Simonsuuren a beautiful translation that does not run in a silo would get its rights better at a softer pace. Now the pearls threaten to drown in a terrible go.

As in several of Shakespeare’s comedies, playing with gender identity and allowing for the diversity of love are central.

A few male roles are played by a woman and vice versa. Knowing that in the time of Shakespeare, men played all the roles, the interpretation occasionally gathers many layers and rounds.

Miiko Toiviainen is the touching and intelligent Rosalinda, whose father, the captured uncle, Duke Frederik, is expelled from the court. This is followed by Celia, a cousin in the woods of Arden Anna-Sofia Tuominen.

Toivianen’s Rosalinda appears as the master of ceremonies throughout the show, the accompanying court fool Touchstone is always slick and agile Santtu Karvonen.

The witch’s wisdom is admired by the melancholy Jacques, qualified in the role Minna Suuronenwhich recounts one of Shakespeare ‘s most borrowed verses from the world as a stage in which men and women take turns, playing many roles.

Even for the summer theater, even the slightest mischief is not spared.

Indeed, more profound emphasis and clarification of the theme would have been desired from the interpretation than from the pursuit of a passionate comic pace.

Love is still the greatest, and it carries a youthful energy-threatening interpretation.

In the roles Miiko Toiviainen, Marketta Tikkanen, Joel Hirvonen, Anna-Sofia Tuominen, Susanna Hyvärinen, Eeva Kaihola, Santtu Karvonen, Hannu Kivioja, Vilma Sippola, Minna Suuronen, Saara Pakkasvirta. Musician Mila Laine, staging Janne Siltavuori, composition Mila Laine, costume design Saija Siekkinen, lighting design Ville Mäkelä, sound design Jussi Kärkkäinen and Mila Laine, choreography Mirva Mäkinen.