Project MUSE - The Howling Miller (review)Once the butt of an unflattering joke, Pittsburgh has emerged as a model twenty- first- century postindustrial city, with a stable economy based on healthcare and universities and a thriving arts and theatre scene. The city boasts two LORT companies (Pittsburgh Public Theater and City Theatre), two university conservatory programs (Carnegie Mellon University and Point Park University), and a burgeoning experimental scene, which all regularly produce and attract multitalented theatre artists. These artists are lured by the low cost of living, affordable space, and supportive community. Moreover, situated among the Appalachian Mountains and surrounded by three rivers, Pittsburgh offers a striking and aesthetically pleasing topography that entices many film- production companies.
None of these praises, however, are new to Quantum Theatre, which has been producing site- specific work in the Pittsburgh area for twenty years. Building on the environmental theatre of Grotowski and Schechner, Quantum produces a mixture of classic, new, and obscure works in found spaces that break down the barrier between performer and spectator. To date, some of its adventurous productions include Zola's Th. For its twentieth anniversary season, artistic director Karla Boos, with director Peter Duschenes, chose to adapt The Howling Miller, a 1. Finnish writer Arto Paasilinna. The burned- out remains of the defunct Frick Park Environmental Center in Pittsburgh's largest city park became the stage for the mischievous title character, Gunnar Huttunen, to run, jump, prank, and howl his way through post- World War II anxiety.
With a unique setting, innovative staging, and an obscure text, Quantum succeeded in convincingly portraying . Through a fable- like episodic structure, Huttunen disrupts the sleepy old town when he arrives one day to buy and restore an old mill. At first, his energy and seemingly humorous animal impersonations impress the villagers; yet as Huttunen's eccentricities become more bizarre and threatening, especially his tendency to howl all night long, the villagers, still reeling from the shock of war, quickly incite their own war on the misfit neighbor. When the defiant Huttunen challenges the capitalist greed and bourgeois apathy of the villagers, they respond by forcing him into a mental hospital. The story becomes somewhat clich. Moreover, the love story between Huttunen and a local 4- H worker, who convinces him to plant a vegetable garden, is never fully developed. Yet in the Quantum production, the plot was less important than the physical and psychological journey of Huttunen.
Duschenes successfully echoed the novel by moving beyond the typical pastoral scenario of humans reconnecting with nature to show the connection between humans and animals and the potential for natural harmony. Huttunen (Tristan Farmer) did not simply impersonate wolves, foxes, and bears—he became them. Returning from the chaos and inhumanity of war, Huttunen seems fed up with the human world and literally wants to live among the animals.
The fact that he can embody all of these animals shows the ability of humanity to coexist with nature. For the villagers, who are on the cusp of postwar capitalism, his world is wild and dangerous; for Huttunen, it is peaceful and harmless. Only when the villagers disrupt his bucolic tranquility does Huttunen begin to unravel.
In addition to a faithful adapter, Paasilinna's ideas require a great actor to be made intelligible. Luckily, Quantum had at its disposal the skills of Tristan Farmer. A Carnegie Mellon graduate, Farmer is a natural acrobat and used..
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The Howling Miller - Arto Paasilinna. The Howling Millerby. Arto Paasilinna general information . Though outnumbered and outgunned as he fights the state and its abuses of power, the troubled Huttunen finds affirmation from a talking statue of Christ in the church he plans to burn down. He may even, it is hinted, reach a mythic apotheosis as an avenging wolf. Yet it is the story's representative of the new enlightened Finland, the horticulture adviser Sanelma, who is its most sympathetic character, unswerving in her understanding of Huttunen, in full knowledge of his mental state and destructive acts.
The literary folk tale is on precarious ground. The extraordinary ending of The Howling Miller, which only some acceptance of the supernatural can make convincing, will satisfy the fantasy- lover, but the two seminally important setpieces (..) suffer from a lack of social verisimilitude..
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Title: The Howling Miller Subject: The Howling Miller Keywords: Download or Read Online the howling miller PDF Created Date: 10/17/2016 5:38:57 AM. A review, and links to other information about and reviews of The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna.