Jouko Turkka

Jouko Turkka (born April 17, 1942 in Pirkkala ; † July 22, 2016 there ) was a Finnish theater director.

Life

Turkka has worked in Finland as a theater and television director, theater director, drama teacher and playwright. He worked in the early 1980s at the Municipal Theater in Helsinki and staged several classics such as Brecht and Strindberg, Finnish comedies and modern texts. His directorial work presented itself as a break with classical theater conventions. In 1980, for example, he staged the Finnish folk comedy Murtovarkaus by Minna Canth , by doing without the dialogues of the play. The performance sparked protests.

He also wrote his own pieces, for which he directed as well as created the sets. For television he created the twelve-hour series Seitsemän veljestä based on the novel of the same name by Aleksis Kivi . Here he reinterpreted the familiar roles of the seven brothers performing there. Funny and stupid brothers became pathetic, primitive characters. This work also sparked a lot of debate.

Turkka, who also worked as a teacher at the Finnish Theater School Teatterikorkeakoulu , was formative for a large number of students who were later known. His teaching methods, which were sometimes criticized as "brutal", were designed to allow only strong actors to survive.

Works (selection)

• Hypnoosi , drama, 1988
• Seitsemän veljestä , TV series, 1989
• President dementia , drama 1994
• Rakkaita pettymyksiä rakkaudessa , play, 1996

literature

• Soila Lehtonen: Turkka, Jouko. In: Olli Alho (Hrsg.): Kulturlexikon Finland. 2nd Edition. Finnish Literature Society , Helsinki 1999, ISBN 951-717-032-5 , page 306 f.