Behind the Scenes in Finnish National Theatre

The topic of Makrotex this week is BEHIND THE SCENES. 

I revert to a post of March 2020 (just before the covid outbreak) when I visited 

Finnish National Theatre. We were a small group who toured the backgrounds of 

all the four scenes and heard about the upcoming renovation project. 

The tour was interesting, because usually you concentrate in the upcoming performance 

and don't give a thought to things behind the scenes - how lights and scenes change, 

who builds and organizes in the background. 

Finnish National Theatre is an impressive granite building, completed in 1902.

The Main Stage has nearly 700 seats. This fabulous ceiling fresco was painted by 

Yrjö Ollila (1887-1932) and his team. It is called Thalia’s Mirror and represents 

many of the theatre’s actors and actresses.

Behind the curtain there was a rattling-looking rope battery, which is manually pulled 

to raise and lower the prop fabrics. The spaces were full of stuff, wires, and certainly also dust, 

not suitable for an asthmatic at all. The actors had to change their outfits in shockingly 

small corners - but everything seemed to work great and the stage assistants keep an eye on everything. 

Our group in the labyrinthine and messy narrow gangways and stairs was well guided by 

stage assistant Tuomas Wellamo, the mustached gentleman in the picture. 

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#colour collage #der natur donnerstag #gartenglück #how to survive november 

#image-in-ing #krapu #makrotex / behind the scenes #my corner of the world #tuesday's treasures