(Interview in English below)

Teatteri Viiruksen taiteellinen johtaja Jussi Sorjanen ja ohjelmatuottaja Mirkka Maikola keskustelevat teatterin kahvihuoneessa tiistaina 11:34. He ovat edellisenä iltana käyneet katsomassa The Porn Horror Musical-esityksen.

Jussi: Väestöliiton tutkimuksesta löytyy tieto, että kuinka moni pitää pornoa kiihottavana. 30-40-vuotiaista miehistä reilut 90 prosenttia ja 75 prosenttia naisista kokee pornon katselun hyvin kiihottavaksi. ”1990-luvun alun jälkeen tämä osuus oli kohonnut miehillä noin 20 prosenttia ja naisilla noin 30 prosenttia.”

Niin tavallaan suhteutettuna siihen, miten merkittävä osa ihmisten arkea tuo ilmiselvästi on. Miten merkittävä asia porno on yhteiskunnassa, miten paljon sitä kulutetaan ja silti se on edelleen tabu.

Mirkka: Väittäisin, että se on nimenomaan teatterissa tabu. Tässä tulee se ydinkysymys, että miksi sitä on niin vaikea katsoa teatterissa. Se on niin vaivaannuttavaa. Väitän, että se on se, että ollaan siinä samassa tilassa ja teatteri kohtaa sen yleisön ihan eri tavalla kuin elokuvissa. Voit istua siellä elokuvateatterin pimeydessä ja tuntea mitä tahansa ja kukaan ei näe. Mutta teatterissa esimerkiksi näyttelijä näkee sinut. Tai voi olla, että ei edes näe, mutta sinä ajattelet niin.

Pornoa käsittelevissä teatteriesityksissä halutaan yleensä joko flirttailla pornon kanssa tai tarkoitus on shokkiarvo. Ja tämän esityksen pointti ei ole se shokkiarvo, vaan se vie teeman tosi paljon syvemmälle.

Jussi: Tässä esityksessä jyystetään, hangataan se pornon shokkiarvo pois.

Mirkka: Se on vähän sellainen Gaspar Noé-efekti. Alkaa tulla sellainen tunne, että eihän tätä pysty enää katsomaan. Siitä menee kaikki maku ja tunne pois.

Jussi: Tässä esityksessä ei tule edes mieleen kiihottua. Tulee ihan päinvastainen efekti. Hyvällä tavalla äärimmäisen epämukava esitys. Eilen kun menin himaan, niin mietin sitä, että tämä nyt ei ainakaan ollut keskiluokkainen esitys. Koska kyllä suurin osa suomalaisesta teatteritaiteesta on yhtä vaarallista kuin Katri Helenan musiikki. Eikä siinä sinänsä mitään vikaa ole, mutta se on hämmentävän kilttiä ja sovinnaista. Koska se on keskiluokan tekemää teatteria keskiluokkaisille.

Mirkka: Niin minkä takia me valittiin tää esitys? Muistatko? Siitä on palttiarallaa vuosi aikaa.

Jussi: Mä nyt muistan mun ensireaktion, joka oli hyvin intuitiivinen. Että jos esityksen nimi on Porn Horror Musical ja tekijät on nämä. Joista tiesin paljon vähemmän silloin kuin tiedän nyt. En ollut nähnyt esim. sitä The Thingiä (Viiruksen ohjelmistossa keväällä 2019).

Mirkka: Kyllähän me oltiin molemmat heti tosi innostuneita. Ja muistan että kuvailin tätä ideaa jotenkin niin, että 2010-luvun Nya Rampen, mutta feministisessä muodossa.

Jussi: Toistetaan pornoelokuvan kuvastoa ja pannaan. Vaikka siinä ei tapahdu oikeata penetraatiota. Sehän on tärkeätä muistaa, että se on vain sen kuvaston peilaamista. Mitään oikeata ei tapahdu. Sitten mä en tiedä miten suhtautuisin.

Mirkka: Niin, eihän tuossa edes ole alastomuutta. Vaikka koko ajan kuvittelet että on. Niillähän on vaatteet päällä koko ajan. Alastomuus on teatterissa tosi halpa keino säväyttää.

Jussi: Tämähän on siinä mielessä suoraviivainen esitys, että se otsikosta lähtien kertoo sisällöstä. Ja on melkein vielä siinä dramaturgisessa järjestyksessä: pornoa, kauhua, musikaali.

Mutta mitä tulee taiteen asemaan tai taiteen tehtävään. Ihan tosi harva taideteos on saanut minut provosoitumaan. En tiedä milloin viimeksi. Totta kai sillä tavalla provosoi, että tämä on ihan hirveätä paskaa, että miksi tälle on annettu rahaa. Että heti rahat pois taiteelta. Mutta sen sijaan viihde tekee sitä koko ajan. Olin aivan raivoissani jostain Temptation Islandista ja Ensitreffit alttarilla-ohjelmasta. Että ne ovat moraalittomia. Mutta eikös taiteen pitäisi olla tuollainen. Eikö taiteen kuuluisi provosoida? Niin kuin mäkihyppääjät ovat ottaneet rokkareiden aseman siinä yhteiskunnan paheksunta-asteikossa. Taiteen kenttä on ylipäätään valtavan keskiluokkainen ja kiltti. Sen sijaan viihde ja urheilu on ne vaaralliset.

Mirkka: Juuri näin! Viihde on vaarallisempaa kuin taide.

***

Interview with Glitcher, 15.10.2019

Mirkka Maikola: The Porn Horror Musical. How and when did you come up with the idea in the first place?

Josefine Fri: It was a long time ago! It was actually when we did our first performance together, Sleepless in Montana at Theatre Academy in Helsinki. We had this idea to quote movies and put them together randomly and to build some kind of unlogical structure around it. We had this scene taken from actual porn movie with step dad and the step daughter. And the step daughter was a baby, like really a baby. I was playing the role and Emelie was playing the step dad. We thought that it was somehow disturbing and fun.

Emelie Zilliacus: There was also this turning point in the performance when the baby started to choke daddy and took the power from him.

Josefine Fri: The pop culture has shaped us and our generation so much. There´s brilliant material that most of the people can relate to and have some fantasy or illusion around. And we can deconstruct that experience. We also thought a lot about using porn as a material, taking dialogue straight from porn movies. First we started with porn from a really intelligent point of view. Thinking what books should we read, what kind of academic texts about porn. We came to a dead end and then we just came up with the name: Porn Horror Musical. We thought that was hilarious and out there. We decided to do that and forget all academic and intelligent choices. And we just went on with this name that gave us a lot of inspiration.

Emelie Zilliacus: There is also a new genre, gore, that has come up during the rehearsals. So now we actually have four different themes that we are dealing with. Firstly we were interested in porn and how much it shapes us. There´s so much to think about and reflect upon. And we are really intrestested also in horror genre, since we saw some kind of connection between porn and horror. There is a lot of similarities.

Josefine Fri: The same clichés and the same stereotypes are used in both. Horror can be also about pleasure. Some people get aroused of that.

Emelie Zilliacus: When you watch a lot of horror movies you go further and further with them. You watch first one and then you want more and even more. It´s the same thing with porn. There´s the seek of thrill.

Mirkka Maikola: We´ve had a lot of comments about this production since we released the info. The reactions have been devastated: I´m not going to watch that performance, it gross. One person commented that porn is something that you watch alone at home, not at theatre. But then we found this 2015 research by The Family Federation (Väestöliitto). It indicates that from men aged 30-40 over 90% feels that watching porn is arousing and of women 75%. And the percentage has risen since 90´s. There´s lot of questions in the air: Why this theme is not handled more in theatre or in art? Why it is so difficult topic? Why it provocates people? So what is you relation to the audience and their thoughts?

Emelie Zilliacus: During this week we have talked a lot about it. Porn is really something private and it gets really disturbing when you watch it together with people. People you might not know, or then they are your friends -or even your partner.

Josefine Fri: Porn has such a big part in our society. There is this double morality, and that is really interesting. If 90 % of men and 75% of women find it arousing and it is still something we are not speaking about. It´s really private, but still so many things are sold with sex. Porn is somehow dirty or shameful, but it´s out there in our society, everywhere. But if we as a performers label it as porn art, people find it disturbing. Because the theme is so private, people feel that we are doing some kind of intrusion into their lives. It´s something they watch at home and maybe feel shame of joy or whatever and now it´s there on stage and you are surrounded by people. And that can feel really intimidating. Because the gaze is really…you can´t watch it as you were used to watch it because you are in a public place.

Emelie Zilliacus: And with that gaze we want to somehow provocate new thoughts. While you watch it, you start to think about new things and feel new emotions. And it´s really strange for us also to do it on stage.

Josefine Fri: We are not trying to be anti-porn. That´s really important for us. But that relationship is really interesting. If the statistics say that many people get aroused by porn, there must be people who in public are anti-porn and then they go home and watch porn.

Mirkka Maikola: What is the gaze in the performance. Is it audience´s gaze towards you or yours for audience? Or both ways?

Emelie Zilliacus: We would like it to be also some kind of game of not really knowing where the gaze is. Of course we want to keep ourselves as a subject, not object.

Josefine Fri: It´s a fine line for us. When we perform it, the whole process is about how does it feel in my body when we do this. With that we had to work a lot on because in a way we shut down ourselves. We are there with the audience but we have shut down, and just do it automatically. Because it is really embarrassing for us too. And I think this is the soft part of the performance. I feel embarrassed and I know the audience feel embarrassed. It´s a heavy subject that we are dealing together with audience. It is hard. It is hard for us and it is hard for audience.

Emelie Zilliacus: That´s the core. The connection between us two and the audience. And that´s really nice when you find that connection. We are there in these characters but deep down we are us ourselves and everybody knows it. Nobody is thinking that we are daddy and Riley for real. 

Josefine Fri: I think it´s also about getting the audience participate somehow with themselves. They sit there and they feel shame. It is an interesting feeling to feel ashamed publicly. Or be embarrassed. That can really make things to happen. Even if we do the same thing over and over again on stage. We are doing the same thing, but the audiences thoughts and feelings change constantly. It´s the constant wonder of ”How am I going to watch this? Should I do this with my body, should I look away, should I look straight. How should I tackle this?” And I think that´s the core of porn as well. How do we look at porn. Do we look away?

Mirkka Maikola: What kind of reference material have you used in the performance?

Emelie Zilliacus: All the porn scenes that we do are from real porn movies or clips. We chose the ones that we most enjoyed. The dialogues in porn movies are amazing!. They are so simple and you know why they say these things. They just have to lead to the core action. It´s extra, but you need somehow the story, the bridge over to the fucking. And in these movies there´s always the line ”she´s 18”. They have to say it, because otherwise it´s illegal.

The first part of the performance is transcribed straight from porn movies. We have also some codes from the actual sex scenes, like choking and spanking.

Josefine Fri: Almost everything we do on stage is from the real porn. It´s shocking when you watch brutal or hardcore porn. It´s really violent. When we do it on stage, it feels like sexual assault and we are thinking how we can do it. But no, it is from real porn.

Emelie Zilliacus: We did not even watch hardcore porn, we watched mainstream porn, step daddy, step daughter. That is mainstream. Choking and slapping is mainstream nowadays.

Mirkka Maikola: What about the sounds and the music in the performance?

Emelie Zilliacus: Composer and sound designer Oscar Fagerudd has done the most of it. There´s a lot of references from pop music. And the songs that we have are really special ones. They are today´s pop culture things. Some are bit older songs, but they have given a lot to the pop culture. The sounds in the porn scenes are quite the same as in the real porn movies. Some nice little guitars when it is supposed to be romantic.

Josefine Fri: It is kind of really shallow take on music. It´s not really not deep at all, not intelligent. Just background music.

Mirkka Maikola: You also made your own theatre group for this performance. You did not want to do this performance at the theatre school. Why is that?

Josefine Fri: The idea of starting our group has been present for us during the past three years. We knew that we wanted to start our own art collective. But it was with this performance that we thought that ok, now we have to do it. It has been a dream, but now it came a reality.

 Emelie Zilliacus: And we wanted to be in a professional theatre with this performance. We thought that Viirus could be the one. We knew that this idea is not going to go through in many places.

Josefine Fri: We also wanted to create autonomous atmosphere where we do our own stuff and do everything ourselves. Of course that has shown now with this performance that it is impossible to do everything. But the idea is there; to actor to not to be caught in a role of actor. To be someone else, to be more involved.

Emelie Zilliacus: And also to us to act as directors has been really nice. To direct one another.

Josefine Fri: We have broken out from the whole director thing. We are acting and directing and it´s for us just creating. It´s been a fluid process.

Mirkka Maikola: Do you have manifest for your group?

Emelie Zilliacus: We have written this text about working gently. This is just art, it´s nothing more than art. That line has been really present in this work, because we have noticed that there´s a lot to do. When it´s just two of us in charge of everything -except the sound. We have noticed that this is maybe not possible. Next time we are going to have at least a producer. That would be amazing.

Josefine Fri: For us the main part of the manifest that we relate to especially now, is the process before the end product. If we have a shitty process, we are stressed, we don´t sleep, we don´t have time and then in the end we have the product. But what does it matter?

We are working really hard to not work too much. And somehow it relates to feminism. Creating a soft working environment. Not to be hard on oneself. The pressure also comes with stress. The ambition of being the good girl and being the good student and being the good artist. For us it´s been all about ”just fuck it” -mentality. We have this rule that if we don´t remember the lines on stage, it´s ok. If we lose face and start laughing, it´s ok. There is space for everything. That has been very important step for us. To think ”Fuck it, this is our show, we own it.” Nobody knows how it´s going to go. It´s only us. If we forget our lines, we can ask our characters: what is my line? We can do thing intentionally sloppy. This has been for us the feminist approach. Not to be perfect, to have fun to be out there. Owning our own piece.

Emelie Zilliacus: We become more present in the actual show. When there is not this pressure: ”I have to know this line, I have to sing this perfectly”. We were thinking all the time how we can make process easy. Yesterday we noticed that it´s was so fun to do this show. It´s not the main thing in the performance that the line has to be exactly right.

Josefine Fri: There is space for fuck-ups. Thats´s for us feminism. There is space to be bad. To be a bad actor. Bad singer. Make a bad performance. It´s just art.

**

Viirus GUEST / Glitcher: The Porn Horror Musical at Teater Viirus 16.10.-25.10.2019
Tickets at the door and Lippu.fi
www.glitcher.info
www.viirus.fi/glitcher-the-porn-horror-musical/