Theater in Turku

Last night I, once again, realized how obsessively I love theater. I've never been indifferent to it, even as a child I recognized the unique magic you could only feel in a theater, the energy and emotions flowing between the audience and the actors/actresses on stage, the fact that each night is a little different made by the chemistry of some kind.
I've been onstage since I was 9 years old and went to a special kind of a music class, we were 16 kids, selected through tests of singing and rhythm, each of us already playing instruments and singing. I played piano and cello and we had choir rehearsals a few times a week. I have such wonderful memories of all those years, they've strongly affected on the way I see myself today. Through school projects of musicals and plays I realized how much I want to be onstage, it was feeding my narcissistic need to be in the front of an audience, and the kicks you get when you hear the applause is very addictive like any drug. I am sure most of the performers agree on this one. You have the passion and the gift and the possibilities to express yourself but you need the audience to see it, to tell you how good you are and how beautiful you look....In a theater you soon know you are very often dealing with quite self centered people, and no matter how long you've been doing it the stagefright is always there and the fear of rejection, the adrenaline, the fact that when the show's over you come home and can't relax or sleep for hours. I've always been at my weirdest at the premieres, everytime we have a huge party afterwards but I usually leave soon with a headache. All the exitement and concentration just don't wear off that quickly. That's why the "funerals" of the play are much more fun!

So last night we went to Turku, to Linnateatteri to see Akseli Ensemble's play "Ranta", "The Beach" or more likely "The Shore" as I would transalate it. There were many things I really enjoyed, for example Juho Milonoff did a fantastic job, and Laura Malmivaara wasn't too bad either. The story was a combination of a tragicomedy and mystery, the first part was definitely stronger. The guy who had written this play, Paavo Westerberg, has done a lot of work in TV and it showed on stage; there were a few quite unorthodox decisions on stage I wasn't sure did it actually work, but then there was some classical stuff like playing with the chairs and so on.

After the play, nice dinner in Oscarin Olohuone. I really like the restaurant in a nice area of my dear hometown of Turku. Turku is now by the way running for European Capital of Culture 2011. I sincerely wish it'd become true, as no matter what the inhabitants of Helsinki and Tampere are saying, Turku is an unique city with a history...other Finns are just jealous ;-)