| The 1954-55 season marked a turning point in the history of Finnish theatre. The first Finnish-language theatre, which had acquired the status of National Theatre in 1902, also became the first theatre in Finland to house two different stages under the same roof, and a theatre restaurant to boot. The Small Stage’s inauguration festivities on the 3rd and 4th of September attracted unprecedented attention. There were many guests from abroad, including the Directors of the leading theatres and theatrical organisations in Scandinavia. The event was also keenly attended by the international press. Although the first year of this two-stage enterprise must be viewed as something of a trial period, it became clear from the very start that the Small Stage was a much-needed resource. It enabled the Finnish National Theatre to broaden its repertoire and target its programming more effectively. The public warmed to the Small Stage immediately. The autumn season in particular witnessed a shift in audience attendance from the Main to the Small Stage.
The idea of a second stage was initially taken to the National Theatre’s board of governors by the Director Eino Kalima around 1945. However, funding for a new building was unavailable under the prevailing, post-war conditions. Once Arvi Kivimaa took over from Kalima as Director in 1950, he raised the issue of the need for a small stage yet again. Kivimaa was well-connected to the European theatre world. He had travelled extensively and was familiar with many studio spaces in Stockholm, Paris and London. His ultimate goal was to foster Finnish drama by allowing new unknown writers, or established writers of other genres, to try their hand at playwriting. Another of the more ambitious objectives for the Small Stage was to experiment with the latest avant-garde drama being produced abroad.
The building design for the stage was conferred upon a young architect, just as the design of the Main Stage had been in its day. The husband and wife design team of Heikki and Kaija Siren were commissioned to undertake the project. Designing the Small Stage involved Siren in a great deal of discussion over the nature and function of the theatre’s new role. Audience equality was a key issue. Every member of the audience should be able to see and hear equally well. The Sirens’ design also abandoned the traditional proscenium stage. “We made the aperture of the stage as large as possible within the space available. This was intended to increase the level of intimacy between actor and audience.” | |
| Arvi Kivimaa had a strong personal vision of the new theatre. His goal was the clean, empty space of the ancient Greeks, which places the importance on speech. Originally, white was chosen as the colour for the auditorium. Over the years, the Small Stage has been refurbished and was eventually turned into a proscenium stage. The original steps leading from the stage into the auditorium have been removed, and the auditorium’s white surfaces were painted black. Another major feature of the design was to ensure that common areas such as storage space and the workshop would be located to serve both the Main and the Small Stage. There were several ideas for the façade, but the Sirens finally opted for plum-coloured clinker tile and aluminium. The auditorium and the fly tower are finished in clinker tile manufactured by Kupittaan Savi. They were first laid out at the factory in order to assess the variations in colour and determine the exact position of every tile. The ground floor of the building also contained the first theatre restaurant in Finland, The Theatre Grill. Nowadays the area is occupied by the Finnish National Theatre’s third stage, Willensauna, which took over as the theatre’s studio space in 1976.
One of the Small Stage’s earliest productions was Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie directed by Sakari Puurunen, representing the very latest in international drama. However, it was Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot which caused a real sensation in 1954. Directed by Jack Witikka, it initially divided the audience. Heikki Siren recalls his own personal encounter with Beckett’s play. As he left the theatre after the première, he heard the disgruntled audience muttering “did they have to erect a whole new building just for that?” Nevertheless, the critics extolled the play, the director and the actors. In the end, even the audience warmed to the piece.
From its inception, the Small Stage has been a progressive forum. Its programming policy survived the doubts of the fifties, the social radicalism of the sixties, the political agendas of the seventies, the so-called stagnation of the eighties, and the financial austerity of the nineties. When it was created, the Small Stage was an essential step in the revitalisation of theatrical expression and Finnish playwriting. It has continued to prove as essential over the last ten years, despite the changing tastes and habits of the audience. During its entire history, the Small Stage has demonstrated that it is an ideal testing-ground for the relationship between the audience and the ever-evolving nature of Finnish drama and theatre practice. | |
Takaisin
