Kouvolan Rebecca-produktio oli lähtenyt hitchcockmaiselle dekkarilinjalle, ja pidin sen lavastuksesta, ajanmukaisesta puvustuksesta ja ohjaaja Heikki Timosen näkemyksestä. Pienehkön teatterin intiimiys ja erilaisia seiniä käyttävä avastus loivat jotenkin ahdistavan ja klaustrofobisen tunnelman, joka korosti Minän kokemuksia Manderleyssa ja Maximin suhtautumista sukukartanoonsa. Minulla oli puolet esityksestä sellainen tunne, että aavistuksen aavemaisesti valaistuista ikkunoista kurkistaa ihan kohta sisään joku...
Näyttelijöiden laulutaito ei aivan riittänyt Levayn musiikkiin, mutta näytteleminen ja rooliin sopiva olemus paikkasivat sen. Kati Solehmainen oli herttainen Minä ja Tommi Rantamäki uskottavin tähän mennessä näkemäni Maxim de Winter. Tytti Vänskän Mrs Danvers oli täysin omanlaisensa ja todella kiehtova hahmo: totesimme ystävieni kanssa, että hänessä oli karmiva vivahdus raiteiltaan mennyttä Niskavuoren Hetaa. Danny oli julmetun pelottava.
Harmittaa etten koskaan nähnyt proggista toista kertaa. Rebecca on Kunzen ja Levayn teoksista ehkä vähiten suosikkini, mutta se on joka tapauksessa hyvä musikaali ja sopii kaupunginteattereillekin.
Kolmannessa luukussa piileskelee Rebecca-musikaalin kantaproduktio Wienissä. Rebecca on Michael Kunzen musikaaleista vähiten kiero ja osaksi sen vuoksi hänen musikaaleistaan vähiten suosikkini, mutta se tuntuu uppoavan ns. suureen yleisöön hyvin. Francesca Zambellon ohjaus oli aika peruskauraa ja esimerkiksi Kouvolan teatterissa saatiin tarinasta enemmän irti kuin Wienissä, mutta joka tapauksessa pidin Wienin produktiosta. Näyttelijät olivat hyviä ja lavastus kaunis, ja kunnolliset nais"pahis"hahmot ovat aina plussaa.
Näin Rebeccan Wienissä useammankin kerran, mutta tähän postaukseen oli pakko valita lippu, jossa on Uwe Krögerin nimmari. Siinä on sydänkin ja kaikkea. Uwen tähti on viime vuodet ollut vähän laskussa äänenmenon myötä, mutta sellaiset 20 vuotta Uwe hallitsi saksankielisten maiden Kuumin musikaalinäyttelijä -listoja ja juorulehtiä. Hän on esittänyt jokaista isoa roolia jota tenori vain voi, aina Starlight Expressin Rustysta Phantomiin. Osa rooleista on ollut varta vasten hänelle kirjoitettuja. En ole fani enkä yleensä harrasta nimmareitakaan, mutta Uwe on hilpeä ilmiö ja todenpuhuakseni myös todella ammattitaitoinen musikaalinäyttelijä.
Ja kyllä, siihen aikaan Raimund Theaterissa pääsi seisomapaikalle 2,50 eurolla. Seisomista enemmän haittasivat lukuisat teini-ikäiset Uwe-fanit, joiden kirkumisen jäljiltä korvani soivat pari tuntia jälkeenpäin, mutta kokemus oli avartava ja kukkarolle ystävällinen. Fanityttöjen lisäksi tapasin siellä kerran vanhan rouvan, joka vihjaisi että oopperaankin saa seisomapaikkoja jos menee tiettyyn aikaan tietylle ovelle jonottamaan. En koskaan kokeillut, mutta tyylikkäästi pukeutunut herttainen mummeli sikakatsomossa jäi mieleen.
Rebecca was played in Helsingin kaupunginteatteri (The Municipal Theatre of Helsinki) in the season 2008–2009. I was in the show presentation and the director told that he has made quite a different production compared to the Vienna one, but there weren't much differences in the way the story was told and staged. Except for a very radical plot change or two. They had cut "Wir sind Britisch", though, which IMO was only a good solution because in Vienna it cut the dark atmosphere created by the scenes before and after it. Otherwise the scene order was the same as in Vienna.
The other big change was that Rebecca herself was seen on stage as an "invisible" ghost that danced around in Manderley. She was also shown in a portrait. Considering that Rebecca's absence is an essential point in the story, I found this a bit odd, but I haven't got much against the idea in general. It could work well if it were done right, but in this production it clearly hadn't been given enough thought and the result wasn't very ominous, oppressing or scary. Rebecca just kept popping in in some scenes and dancing very modernly in a plain purple dress. Most of the time she didn't have any point in the scene, she just jumped around and seemed crazy. She also wasn't the Rebecca's spirit that would loom around the house, she just was there. The only scene in which I liked her was in the reprise of "Die neue Mrs de Winter", where she danced/ran around in the house and tried to stop servants throwing away her belongings. She was also in the burning house, I think. If you go to Helsingin kaupunginteatteri more often, you'll notice that they have apparently (had?) a contract with the dancer and "must" find some use for her in productions. She was the fairy in Beauty and the Beast and danced in exactly the same way.
The fire scene was more than confusing. Mrs Danvers walked around in the house with a torch and set things on fire and finally she went to Rebecca's room and was sitting on the bed and hugging Rebecca's nightgown when the house "collapsed". Yes, all good this far. Seconds before the stage went dark Maxim suddenly ran up the stairs to Danny and died with her in the burning house. What the heck? Ich sang "...is my home" in the epilogue where she's supposed to talk about her and Maxim. Then Maxim appeared on stage and kissed Ich and, I don't know, took her to heaven with him or something. Like, hey Mr Director, how about staying true to the original story and not killing characters? They later changed the lyrics to "is our home" (had someone complained?), but Maxim still stayed in the burning house, which made the ending even more confusing.
Sets:
If you don't count the cheap-looking cliffs very clearly painted on a cardboard and the slightly too simple room of Rebecca, I liked the sets. Manderley was airy and light-looking and could be rotated to show different rooms, and the columns were also used in the court scene, which btw looked really good. In the morning room there was hanging a rather confusing pair of some huge pink flowers that probably were supposed to be orchids but looked more like giant female sexual organs. My friends and I came to the conclusion that someone had wanted to highlight the hints that Rebecca or Mrs Danvers or both might have been lesbian.
Costumes:
Especially Ich's dresses and hair totally didn't fit the era. They didn't fit any era, she had shapeless cardigans and skirts and a ponytail but it looked maybe more 90's than 20's. Ich's white ball gown was beautiful, but the point of it was a bit lost because all the masquerade guests were dressed in white, too, so she wasn't anything special after all. Also Mrs van Hopper's dress was white, but at least her giant wig with pink feathers made it easier to recognize her among the guests who looked very similar to each other. Danny's black dress was a bit odd in its ankle-length and shape but it didn't disturb me as much as I thought it would. Generally the leading cast's costumes were oddly cheap-looking, shapeless (not in the 1920s way) and ugly, like in some school play.
Translation:
Mediocre, but much better than in Elisabeth (not by the same translator). Some parts worked, some didn't. There weren't any big factual mistakes and the language was good with mostly grammatically correct sentences, but the words didn't fit into the music, and all in all it sometimes sounded like someone had used a big hammer to match the notes and the syllables. Maxim's songs were nearly impossible to sing. I felt like the translator had often just used the first approximately matching word or expression and hadn't stop to think if something else had worked better. An example: Mrs Danvers sings "Palaa, Rebecca!" (Come back, Rebecca!), but because in the music both notes in the word 'palaa' are long, it has to be sung as "Paalaa Rebecca!", which can either mean "Make [hay, etc.] bales of Rebecca!" or "Bale, Rebecca!", and I don't think the song is supposed to have any agricultural meanings.
Sanna Majuri's Ich was confusing. She had her shy moments, like in front of the servants, but in general she was outgoing and confident with strange people, didn't hesitate to answer to Maxim when they first met and so on. She was more just over-the-top clumsy and didn't always know how to act in new situations. And she giggled. When she broke the statue and had to hide behind the desk, she actually giggled like a mindless teenaged bitch because hey, I just broke something and now those adults don't know I'm hiding here. Whatever. I liked her at first, but eventually she started to irritate me more and more and didn't feel like the character anymore.
Sari Ann Moilanen as Mrs Danvers was great, moving, twisted, mad, everything a Danny must be. Her voice wasn't always enough for the songs, but generally she could sing well. Moilanen is quite a nobody here, she has done some TV ad dubs and played small parts in some revues, etc., but she was definitely the star of the musical. Her "Nur ein Schritt" was scary.
Kari Arffman as Maxim was quite stiff in the beginning, but he got more lively especially in the second act and angsted very well. I've seen Uwe Kröger six times as Maxim and since Uwe is very Uwe-ish no matter what role he plays, it took me time to get used to un-Uwe-ish Maxim. I like Arffman's singing, though he apparently hasn't got that much experience with musicals and you could sometimes hear it. It didn't help that Maxim's lyrics didn't match the notes. The poor man seemed to be in agony sometimes, but then again it suits Maxim's character.
Riitta Havukainen as Mrs van Hopper annoyed me. She wasn't symphatetic at all, she was a mean bitch who seemed to dislike Ich. She had her funny moments and she has a nice voice, but her portrayal just didn't work for me at all. "I'm An American Woman" was over-the-top, but somehow in the wrong way; the humour in it was too... Finnish. Straightforward. It's a bit hard to explain, but in Finnish humour things aren't funny if they don't include naughty words. I prefer my humour more subtle, it isn't funny for me that someone kisses someone else's ass and grins.
The same applies to Jack Favell. I hated already Carsten Lepper's Favell, but I hated Antti Timonen's Favell even more. Favell acted like Edward Hyde in the Vienna production of Jekyll&Hyde. He kept laughing madly every time he had said something, no matter what he said, there just was this automatic laugh after it. He groped Ich, "kissed" her hand by licking it up to her arm and was just very, very eww and way too over-the-top. He could sing, though, and didn't laugh as much in the second act. He actually could have been good if someone (the director?) hadn't told him that Jack Favell likes to rape everything he sees. Tuukka Leppänen as the 2nd-cast Favell was much better, he did the licking probably because the director had told him to but he didn't highlight it and concentrated more on making Favell a believable character.
Beatrice (Emmi Kangas) and Giles (Matti Olavi Ranin) were adorable. Beatrice's "Was ist nun los mit ihm?" was wonderful and somehow even "Die Stärke einer Frau", a song I strongly dislike, sounded quite nice. Toni Wahlström as Frank Crawley was also good, though his microphone was too quiet and I couldn't hear what he was singing in "Ehrlichkeit und Vertrauen". Every now and then he sounded so much like André Bauer that it was already scary, I don't know if he had listened to the Vienna recording but he often had exactly the same tones. Ben (Sami Uotila) was also sweet, though his singing and acting didn't always have much to do with each other.
The musical had the usual problem of many Finnish musicals: the actors sang even their duets facing the audience and not each other. They mainly just stood there and sang, like in a concert, and it looked stupid. All in all there wasn't always much logic in the directing, like when Frank was encouraging Ich with his song but Ich didn't react at all, and after a while she just walked away in the middle of the song, like "Oops, I have to change clothes before the next scene". How about some interaction between the characters?
I don't know why, but our actors often can't articulate and I sometimes have the feeling that I'd need subtitles in Finnish TV programs rather than in the foreign ones. This time I could also hear what people, even the ensemble, were singing and saying, which definitely was positive. I liked the ensemble especially in the servant songs and in "Strandgut", they sounded really good.
The trailer:
All in all... Actor-wise and visually not as bad as I had feared, but they had done some some very very odd changes that did not work. In the premiere the atmosphere was good, but later it felt that the actors were just doing their job, they didn't manage to put feeling into the performance.
I really really like the production. There's the certain Operettszínház stamp on it (lots of smoke, random dancers, people being lifted up on platforms to sing big solos, etc.), but far less than I've this far seen in any other production there. The directing worked nicely, people had contact and chemistry with each other and I don't remember any scenes where something would have really felt wrong. No songs were removed or changed, but there were some little pieces of dialogue that I haven't heard before. For example, in the scene where Maxim tells about Rebecca's illness to Frank, in the end Frank says something like "You're free now" and Maxim answers "No, I'm not so sure".
Ensemble. All photos: Operettszínház
The Operettszínház has a strong tradition with operettas (well, duh) and you can see it in their musicals. For example, in Elisabeth they have attempted to transfer the directing style, sets and choreographies of an operetta into a drama musical, and IMO the result doesn't work. There's too much everything on stage. They've gradually learned something, though, so in Rebecca the operetta tradition is already much less visible, and the Epilogue must be the first time in the history of the theatre when we actually see a completely empty stage. :-P The choreographies of Ákos Tihányi worked very well, they were clear enough to look good and they didn't use too much people at the same time.
The sets were beautiful. They are very much based on the Vienna sets (lots of blue colour, the big staircase, the hotel, Rebecca's room with balcony and so on), but the set designer had created something original out of them and they mostly worked very well. There wasn't half as much useless props on the stage as usual, and people had enough space to move and dance and just be. They used a lot of projections and those looked natural.
Zoltán Bereczki & Dóra Szinetár
Acting-wise, I liked the actors. In Hungary actors generally can bring out emotions and details like in no other country where I've been to theatre, and the characters worked very well alone and together. But, but... I've got a general problem with the Operettszínház actors, and that's unfortunately their singing. It's not Hungarian actors in general, it's the actors of Operettszínház. I don't know why, perhaps they all have a common singing teacher. Apart from some exceptions, they tend to sound very forced and unnatural to my ears. I can't explain it very well, but it's like the sound wouldn't be coming out freely, there's something keeping it down. Every time they have to get even a tiny bit more voice out of them, they seem to be more shouting than singing. In most cases it doesn't disturb me too much and I can watch a production without agony, but I just don't enjoy the singing. Some voices really hurt my ears, though, and for example Zsuzsi Vágó (Ich) is one of them.
In the 2nd cast everyone except László Sánta sounded more or less bad to me. I like for example Zsuzsi's voice when she doesn't shout, but now she shouted a lot. I had feared what Kata Janza would sound like as Danvers, but in the end she wasn't that bad. Not good, but better than I had expected. The theatre has some sound tech problems too, and in some parts of the theatre the sound is quite sharp.
Danvers clearly had something wrong in the head, and I'm not yet sure if I like it or not. During "Sie ergibt sich nicht" she takes dead orchid petals in her hands and lets them slowly fall on floor while she sings, and in the end of the song she's sort of singing in a light rain of white orchid petals. Then she kneels at the orchid pots like at an altar. It worked nicely, but I could also do with a bit less of Danny's weirdness. Kata is a decent actor, very stiff and scary and powerful, but nothing spectacularly genious. I still kind of liked her obsessive interpretation, though it took some effect off of Danny's last snap when she hears the truth about Rebecca's death, as she had been crazy already before that. Veronika Nádasi was more normal and I liked her. Lilla Polyák has the best voice of the three, but I somehow couldn't get hold of her idea of the character well enough, I felt that she concentrated more on singing than on acting.
Kata Janza & Zsuzsi Vágó
László Sánta's Ben is scared of Rebecca. He's shaking, desperate, nearly hysterical, and IMO one of the strongest characters in the production. In him you can so well see what Rebecca really was like, and László played him excellently and had the best voice of the cast. Dávid Pirgel as Ben overacted a bit too much and was rather annoyingly retarded, more like a stereotype.
László Sánta
Szilveszter Szabó was quite stiff, but as Maxim he can at least use all that angsting potential he has and he did it well. This must be the first time I've seen him smile on stage. I'd have liked to see a bit more of the Maxim who feels at home in society, because there is also that side of him and he's not just a big bundle of angst and dark thoughts, but I assume Sziszi will find it sooner or later. In some ways he was very much like the Maxim in the novel. When I first saw the musical in Vienna, Uwe's romantic gestures as Maxim annoyed me because "my" Maxim never was very visibly in love. Here they had emphasized the lack of romance in Maxim's behaviour. It showed both in Sziszi's acting and in the scenes. In the wedding scene Ich had no bridal dress or flowers or anything, and after them another couple came out of the church with all that normal wedding fuss. Ich caught the bridal buquet, but Maxim took it and gave it to some wedding guest, making her much happier than what Ich seemed to be. Zoltán Bereczki as Maxim was more energetic, even hyper at some points, and though it wasn't exactly the way I'd imagine a British gentleman, in a way it still worked. Besides, he sings well.
Zsuzsi Vágó & Szilvester Szabó
Zsuzsi Vágó was a very sweet and fragile Ich, and I got the feeling that Ich really tried to be what she should be and make both herself and Maxim happy. The change in the 2nd act was amazing. Already the small hand gesture with which she told Frith that she doesn't want bread was full of lady-like attitude. She still had the scared side in her, but in the house she was now confident. I liked Dóra Szinetár's voice a bit more, but I preferred Zsuzsi's acting.
Dóra Szinetár & Lilla Polyák
I got the feeling that lots of the atmosphere we see is in the head of either Mrs Danvers or Ich. The production has a very psychological feeling in it, and it emphazises the dark sides of the story more than what I've seen in the other productions. One nice example I paid a lot of attention to are the shadows or ghosts or whatever they are. There are four female, a bit zombie-like creatures going around in Manderley, mostly in the darker scenes with Danvers and Ich. For example, they walk around Ich in the Prologue, and later she sees them in the mirrors of Rebecca's room, which I totally adored because there's a lot of mirror symbolism in the original novel and I'm fond of it. In the novel Ich sometimes sees Rebecca as her own mirror image, so they had used that idea here. During the Rebecca song in the 2nd act the mirrors start to haunt and follow Ich, and after that the creatures move more and more outside the mirrors, for example around the balcony when Danny tries to persuade Ich to jump. In that part they slightly disturbed me, they seemed to be too much and generally the scene wasn't very scary. I liked the creatures more when they were in the mirrors or just among the ensemble and not too highlighted, so they disturbed a bit in some scenes.
All in all, the directing was the best I've seen in this musical, and I also liked the staging a lot.
