Martti Suosalo to Star Alone in Virittäjä at Tampereen Työväen Teatteri

Martti Suosalo will headline Virittäjä, a one-man play that opens at Tampereen Työväen Teatteri in February next year. The piece is written and directed by Sirkku Peltola and continues a successful collaboration between them, Tamperelainen reports.

Peltola and Suosalo last teamed up on Kärpäset, and earlier work together includes Momentum 1900. In Virittäjä Suosalo plays an ageing professional utterly devoted to his craft, outwardly pedantic and inwardly fragile. The stage holds only the actor, a grand piano and a radiator, which together suggest the character’s vast inner life.

Suosalo traces his interest in solo performance back to theatre school and special end-of-term showcases, and he credits set and lighting designer Max Wikström as crucial to shaping the monologue on stage. Peltola says monologue writing demands a performer who can hold undivided attention, and the play opens with the line, "something in a person always cries."

The announcement follows the theatre's earlier season announcement which listed Virittäjä among Tampereen Työväen Teatteri’s three main-stage premieres for February, alongside an Amy Herzog adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People and the Lea Prize-winning Opettaja, nyt.