LAURI SIPARI

As a trainer of playwrights,

Playwrights can be trained –
and it’s worth it

In 1968, the department of the Theatre Academy responsible for training producers took on as students three students of dramaturgy. There is a first time for everything. The undersigned happened to be one of them. On the form, where it asked why I was applying, I wrote, I am interested in the work of the dramaturge and playwright. The latter was true; I knew nothing about the former, but I thought it would be best to be interested in it, since I was applying for a course whose name included it. I would not be writing this if it did not reflect some constant features in the course, which has now been in existence for more than 30 years.

Whatever has been said about it over the years, the focus of both students and the most important teachers has been the writing of drama, literature. It was an remains the only university-level course in Finland that leads to a career as a writer. And it is no coincidence that of the five dramatists featured in this publication, three (Juha Siltanen, Laura Ruohonen and Reko Lundán), are alumni of the Theatre Academy.

New drama is doing well in Finland at present – there are many new makers, professional skills are at a high level, and the doors are open even to demanding stages. Drama also has a public – it seems that young authors are able to speak to audiences of many ages. Of the many possibilities of the past few years, I should like to mention Anne Koski, also from the Theatre Academy, the first performance of whose Suuri Toivelaulukirja (‘The great book of song requests’) garnered praise and prizes. It has already seen its second coming at Turku City Theatre. In the case of Finnish drama, for decades theatres concentrated almost entirely on classics or premi�res – which is a bad thing for the development of drama and dramatists. Now this, too, seems to be changing. I should like to think that the change has been achieved by the inner strength of new Finnish drama.

Readiness for collaboration

The basis of the education offered at the Theatre Academy is the integration of the writer into the theatre, in terms of both education and practicality. The writing course has gone hand in hand with the courses offered to actors and producers at the theatre school, which became the Theatre Academy in 1979. The Theatre Academy has always been a performing institution – since the beginning, practical theatre work has formed the core of teaching, often in work-groups made up exclusively of students. For the writer, this has also meant experience of working as an actor and a producer, and the fact that, from the first year, the journey of a text from desk to, at the very least, workshop, has been short. The Academy also constantly seeks links with theatres, and opportunities for performance for its more advanced students. For example, the award-winning contribution of the KOM Theatre in promoting Finnish drama is largely based on this collaboration – in which students from the Theatre Academy have acted as both writers and dramaturges.

Readiness for collaboration, and the formation of working groups among students, have been among the aims of teaching. The results are visible – there are clearly distinguished student generations, and in Finland the roots of the free theatre groups generally lie in the Theatre Academy, beginning with the KOM Theatre and the Group Theatre more than thirty years ago, and ending with the new arrivals of the past decade, for example the Q Theatre, the Viirus Theatre and the Takomo Theatre. For writers who have graduated from the Theatre Academy, theatre is not a riddle or a cause for complexes – it is a working environment in to which they naturally belong, and in which they can also find themselves the most suitable place.

The Theatre Academy has produced ‘pure’ writers who focus on prose and poetry and visit the theatre only occasionally. Among recent names are the short-story writer Riikka Takala, Riikka Ala-harja, whose first novel, remarkably, was nominated for the Finlandia Prize, and the poet and translator Jusa Peltoniemi. Their training was certainly not wasted – at its best, the Theatre Academy has been able to offer an inspiring artistic community, the sharpening of dramatic thinking does no harm to anyone, and in addition the Academy equips its students with the skills of translation, adaptation and dramatisation, among others, and these extend their professional opportunities.

At the other extreme, there are other former students who have made a name for themselves entirely or primarily as theatre directors, like Reko Lundán or Kristian Smeds, the founder of the Takomo Theatre, who are featured elsewhere. At the Theatre Academy, theatre work is seen as a whole – directing and writing may be two sides of the same talent. And more: I can see that for Smeds, the founding of a theatre, its repertoire, philosophy, aesthetics and life-span are a homogeneous, personal, artistic project.

The Theatre Academy has no intention of offering everyone the same pre-digested educational package, but instead to encourage its students to break barriers and find their own way. It is possible because the Academy accepts only 2-4 new students a year, chosen from about a hundred applicants. In addition to literary talent, tests seek out the capacity for dramatic thought, the capacity for collaboration, and something which is very difficult to test and define – originality of thought, belief in possibilities which will perhaps be realised only years after the Theatre Academy.

Words are not the only tools

And what of the future? It is some time since a set-design student from the University of Art and Design appeared in the traditional working groups of the Theatre Academy. New arrivals include light and sound designers, whom the Theatre Academy has trained since 1988. The Theatre Academy is also the highest educational institute for dancers in Finland – and the threshold between different art forms is increasingly low. Thus, in art as at the Theatre Academy, modes of performance that fall between the traditional genres, combining dance, theatre, light and sound in new ways, are becoming increasingly common. At the same time, the concept of dramaturge is broadening. A student of dramaturgy at the Theatre Academy can choose as his tool much more than words, and often does so.

The number of national television channels is currently four, and the production of dramatic fiction for them has multiplied in the past few years. This appears to suck in endless young writers from both the Theatre Academy and the University of Art and Design, whose Cinema Academy trains scriptwriters. Is this a welcome addition to the choice of work available to the writer, or a threat to speech drama? How can the traditional idea of training of dramatists survive the pressure of time? Well, I dare predict – writerliness based on the foundation of the theatre, and great freedom in the finding of a student’s own nature as an artist, continue to provide excellent weapons for the meeting of any literary, dramatic or media challenge. And there will always be enough people who prioritise live performance, the encounter with a live audience, here and now – elements which the Theatre Academy has defined as its own field.

Lauri Sipari
Playwright and drama-translator
Professor of dramaturgy, Theatre Academy, 1992-96
Rector, Theatre Academy, 1997-