 |
From Tallinn with love — an Estonian cult theatre's expression of neighbourly loveThe Von Krahl theatre from Tallinn brings two performances to the Baltic Circle this year, the Swan Lake (Luikede Järv) and Taxi Drivers (Taksojuhid-Taksirengit) which represent two very different sides of the theatre's expressive abilities. The Swan Lake is based on parodying the numerous ideas and traditions of this Tchaikovsky classic and the Taxi Drivers, written by Jussi Niilekselä and Mihkel Ulman, is based on the original idea of Asko Sahlman and brings us bilingual and contemporary drama which truly manages at coming across the Gulf of Finland. The Von Krahl theatre was founded in 1992 and has in recent years gained a reputation as Estonia's leading contemporary theatre group. Nearly all its performances have been successes in Estonia and the Swan Lake and the Taxi Drivers are no exception to this. The Von Krahl group also visited the first Baltic Circle festival with their performance Trankvillisaator. A kind of cooperation was also at work between Tallinn and Helsinki when the group took up producing Jouko Turkka's play Connecting People in 2000 which had been shelved by KOM theatre in Finland. Tchaikovsky in a new lightThis Swan Lake written by Peeter Jalakas and Sasha Pepelyayev's and directed by Jalakas with a choreography by Pepelyayev is definitely not the most traditional interpretation of this evergreen ballet. The long traditions of Swan Lake and its performance history in the Soviet Union have now been put into entirely new light. Von Krahl theatre's performance is an ironic, intelligent and funny interpretation of the old tale, in which oil barrels function as the corps de ballet on stage and the silly princess doesn't get her prince at the end. The music for this performance has been adapted by Sergei Zagny based on Tchaikovsky and it is performed and recorded for this performance by NYYD Ensemble. A taxi to Tallinn or — Lempäälä?The director of Taxi Drivers, Ingomar Vihmar, praises the production team as being very tight knit, co-operative and able to teach each other many new things. The story of a Tallinn taxi driver's kidnapping of his Finnish colleague from Lempäälä and the showdown which follows these events, has ever since its September premier in Tallinn been a major success. - This play is a true example of neighbourly co-operation in the world of theatre, says Vihmar. The Taxi Drivers has also been produced in Pärnu this autumn. Vihmar sees these two interpretations, the Tallinn and the Pärnu performances, as very different from each other and believes that if Finns would get the spark for making their own production of this play, then we could get a third perspective to Taxi Drivers. Contemporary drama very similar in Finland and EstoniaThe actor playing the Finnish taxi driver, Asko Sahlman, is the man to be blamed for the entire existence of this play. The idea to this play was born during discussions with an Estonian colleague who was guest starring in a Finnish television drama. - There's hardly anything left of the original idea, there's not even the same people involved, but the main thing is that the project itself was carried out so successfully, says Sahlman. His visit to Tallinn has been an experience that he wishes others would also have a chance to share. - The differences between making contemporary
drama in Finland and Estonia are really very small, but they are
perhaps more visible on the traditional side of theatre, Sahlman
says. The big, institutionalised Estonian theatres are both, in
their choice of repertoire and in their performance techniques,
more "old school" than their Finnish equivalents. The
working methods of Von Krahli theatre don't really differ much from
those of Finnish theatre groups, although "European trends"
are perhaps closer in Estonia than what they are in Finland.
|
|
[Photo: Jussi Aalto] 
[Photo: Priit Grepp] |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|||
|
|