Jussi Helminen
What to tell a Martian
about Finnish theatreThis magazine asked me to write an article under the working title, ‘what would you tell a Martian about Finnish theatre if it came to Earth to find out?’ The magazine promised to translate the article into a language they would understand. I am delighted at this news about the magazine’s circulation: congratulations!
Myself, I sometimes find myself in Turkey or Portugal or some such place and, without understanding the language, want to go to the theatre. Why on earth, if you don’t understand anything? All of a sudden I understand you, dear Martians.
You Martians can and must always view Finnish theatre for some reason, with an eye for something, wanting something.
If your eye is on dramatic performances comparable to the best that London, Paris, Berlin or the other great theatre capitals have to offer, you will find these rather rare among what is on offer in Finland. This does not mean that there are few of them, but that there is a great deal on offer. I shall explain this to you Martians under the title ‘Finnish art theatre’.
With your second eye, your Martians may wish to acquaint yourselves with Finnish theatre as a natural part of the nation’s way of living and being, perhaps its most typical genre apart from Music. You can count stars such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Apocalyptica or Trio Töykeät on the hands of two fingers and the toes of one foot – human ones, at least – but the tango is sung, played or danced by at least half the population. I shall explain this to the Martian under the title ‘popular theatre’.
And if you Martians are still interested, you may with your third eye wish to read a few thoughts of mine as to how these two genres meet, how the young generation of theatre folk admires the former and despises the latter until it enters its payroll.
For your other eyes, I set on view the thoughts that the media, press, television, radio and the rest of the publicity industry are in Finland a little behind Martian time. I also thought I might tell it about my view of Finnish playwriting in relation to Finland and the rest of our solar system – why it spreads so little beyond the borders of Finland or to the other planets in our solar system, particularly Mars.
Finnish art theatre
First, a definition of terms: what I shall in what follows call ‘popular theatre’ is unquestionably also art. I shall leave it up to my Martian readers to decide why I nevertheless use this heading for this section and not for folk theatre.
Here, what I mean by Finnish art theatre are those productions which function in accordance with the international values and movements of dramatic art. These productions are elitist, art in and of themselves and their makers. Works to which the art-loving public must come, which it must find, which are to the taste of a more discerning and smaller audience.
Often they are also of value to the media or they are dependent on the media – the media and the critics can kill them. Some of them are also made directly for the media or through it for the public; but I shall say no more about this, as you Martians are already so familiar with these matters.
Such productions are seen for the most part in Helsinki, where a potentially segmented public is to be found in greatest numbers on account of the population density. There are also productions in Tampere and Turku, and often in Oulu, and seldom but regularly in other theatre towns, of which there are more than 30 in the country.
In recent times it has been typical in Finland that the most radical and innovative theatrical productions have been presented either by the big theatres (the Finnish National Theatre, the TTT Theatre of Theatre, the Oulu and Turku City Theatres etc.) or by groups assembled for a specific production, which die afterwards.
Few small theatres have dared take the uncommercial risk of running artistically innovative productions, except perhaps the Swedish-language Viirus and Teatteri Takomo, currently teetering on the brink of existence (both in Helsinki). Even more clearly, new Finnish plays have in recent years remained the province of the big theatres.
As to artistic standards, the productions bear comparison internationally. The expressive language of Finnish theatre, it is true, bears the wordy Finnish stamp: very physical, Artaud-like productions are exceptional in Finland, but fine works in the field of dance theatre are born even at these latitudes.
A good time for you Martians to visit Finland to see a fairly wide selection of spoken theatre is the third week of August, when Tampere holds an international theatre festival. Dance plays a less prominent role in the programme. The festival has traditionally also gathered together the best productions of Finnish theatre for a period of six days for all to see (once again, more than 50 per cent of audiences come from the locality). Next summer its dates are 10-15 August.
How will enthusiastic Martians find these productions at other times, if they so wish? Because smash hits in this genre are random and without permanent, established theatre companies, I would urge them to turn to the Finnish Theatre Information Centre, which publishes this magazine. The country is a small one, and everyone knows everything about everything. Naturally those who live in the capital know that much less about what is going on in the country as a whole than those who live elsewhere; but you Martians know that too.
Popular theatre
Again, a definition of terms: by popular theatre I mean something completely different from folk theatre.
In Finland, 2.5 million tickets for professional theatre productions are sold each year – in a country with a total population of 5 million. This nation goes to the theatre more than to ice-hockey or football. In the city of Tampere alone, with a population of less than 200,000, more theatre tickets (600,000) are sold than for the entire first division of the country’s football (less than 500,000). The theatre is popular art.
Almost all towns with populations in excess of 25,000 have permanent professional theatres in which the creative and administrative staff are retained on monthly salaries. In addition, amateurs everywhere perform – indoors in winter, outdoors in summer – but the relevant figures are not present in the statistics.
This public attitude to the theatre dictates the theatre’s content and form – demand gives rise to supply.
Demand causes supply
Finnish popular theatre is traditionally realist in tone. Many productions are made of folk comedies and Finnish classics, but Chekhov, Shakespeare, Molière, Strindberg, Williams, Ibsen, Miller and other theatre classics appear as regularly in the repertoires of all the theatres as do musicals.
The diversity of this demand requires of the actors of all the theatres a fairly diverse scale of expression, but also offers them very different roles. Naturally not everyone is a virtuoso in every genre, so that artistic standards sometimes vary, but audiences are forgiving because they are delighted that their home town dares tackle Hamlet or My Fair Lady. Or, more accurately: audiences do not need to be forgiving, because they demand such theatre from the institutions that are supported by their taxes.
To you Martians I would say that, as someone who has seen a fair number of the globe’s theatrical productions, I dare claim the standard of Finland’s popular theatres, too, to be of premier class. It is true that if you look hard enough you can find bad productions, too; but if you want to see one you should ask the Finnish Theatre Information Centre. I myself can tell you Martians about two of them.
The fact that half the population goes to the theatre says something about public taste and, through it, about the theatre.
If a statue is made of some great national figure (following the customs of the planet, generally a dead one), there is still debate about whether it should look like the person or whether it can refer to his way of thinking, in other words whether it can be abstract art. Art-lovers are of the latter conviction, the general public generally of the former. I understand that this feature of Finnish life is, for Martians in particular, difficult to grasp.
Art theatre meets the people
It is natural for young people studying to be dramatic artists to be decidedly of the opinion that the only way to make theatre is to do it like Robert Wilson or Grotowski or Ariane Mnouchkine or Augusto Boal or Aimuntas Nekroshius or... well, you know: them. Thus the young generation of theatre professionals in Finland, too, believes that theatre for the general public, or popular theatre, is crap, and that the only true performances are born in small groups with a lot of noise and not much money.
This is the mainstream within art and its opposition, an eternal struggle. Natural and innovative and debate-provoking, and as such a lively and good state of fermentation.
But in Finland it is difficult to remain in opposition, because the mainstream integrates new winds very rapidly and even develops them within its own theatres.
At this point I shall coin the phrase ‘monopoly theatre’, by which I mean the only professional theatre in many Finnish towns.
It is only in Tampere and Helsinki that no one theatre has this role; everywhere else, this situation obtains.
Thus in its own town the monopoly theatre has the task of both making popular theatre with the mainstream and the elitist art theatre of the opposition, which opposes itself. If the theatre dodges one of the two, it is the latter. Generally money is given as the reason, but the real cause is either cowardice or lack of professional skill.
The power of the media
An amusing phenomenon in the theatrical debate of recent years has been the formation in the media, in other words the press, in other words the theatre reporters, of a strong defence of art theatre. Ignoring the taste or will of the people, they continually praise the elitist productions of art theatres and despise the great mass of people who buy tickets for popular theatre productions and who, with their feet, tell them they completely disagree. Nota bene: I use the term theatre reporters, not critics, for there are none of the latter left in Finland.
Reporters have gained more power, and they also want to use it: with a heavy hand, they enlighten both the theatre-going public and theatre professionals on questions of right and wrong. Only this kind of theatre is good, only this kind can command column-inches in our newspaper, only this kind is newsworthy.
This kind of power, like many others, gives rise to whores, media whores. In Finland there are beginning to be signs that, like in Germany, some productions are made only for the media. To be sensational, peculiar, newsworthy. If you’re not talking about me, I don’t exist.
I understand that on Mars this period has already passed.
Concerning Finnish drama writing
I have a theory about why Finnish drama writing does not spread very readily to the theatres of other countries.
It is connected with the people’s love of Finnish theatre, the beautifully intimate relationship between public and theatre. Finns like Finnish plays, and the theatres cannot get them from elsewhere. Thus there is demand on the part of the theatres for Finnish drama: there are between 40 and 60 first nights every year in this small country.
But theatre repertoires also include the world’s best new drama – Schmitt, Reza, Bukowski, Scottish, Irish, Swedish, Norwegian etc. (Yes, many nationalities are missing.) This fine new drama literature is translated into Finnish fairly rapidly and these plays are produced throughout the country. The theatres (see monopoly theatre, above) feel it to be their duty to present what is happening in the world, where we are going. Thus they do not commission Finnish writers for texts in this genre, but novelty plays specifically for the Finnish genre demanded by the public.
This does not mean that Finnish playwrights are not of the same standard as their foreign colleagues, not in the least. It is just that they cannot get plays like those of their colleagues into theatre repertoires with such ease. In this game, they have to compete with the international best of class, but unlike them they are without a single repertoire mandate. New foreign plays ‘must’ be performed; we are, after all, a monopoly, and responsible for the production of the best plays here in Finland. Thus even on a theoretical level Finnish ‘world champions’ are in a much worse position than their foreign colleagues.
And if they write texts that satisfy the taste and demand of the general public, they are successful at home but not on the international market for elite theatre.
Despite all this, I expect that before long significant international plays will be discovered in Finland. After all, our dramatists really are theatre folk.
In conclusion
I eagerly await an invitation to acquaint myself with your theatre, in order possibly to be able to recommend some representative but cheap-to-tour production from your planet for a very good festival in Tampere.