Review: Paavo 1,5
Deceptively easy
Paavo 1.5 is not a hugely original choice for Studio Pasila. However, it is easily approachable and charmingly acted. Young audiences can get into its world. A relaxed rhythm ensures that parents do not fall off the wagon either.
Michael Drukner’s SpongeBob 1.5 was written ten years ago. The comedy has already been performed in several theaters, and its popularity is easy to understand. The right to adopt homosexuals continues to arouse passions for and against. In Drukner’s play, an ordinary middle-aged gay couple Jari and Martti (Jaakko Saariluoma and Tommi Auvinen) think they have adopted a 1.5-year-old Paavo, but due to a comma error, a 15-year-old guy with a criminal background and a gay man (Petja Lähde) shows up.
The realism created with a living room set and bright lights reminiscent of TV comedy series is probably the only possible setting for Paavo 1.5. The performance is also dosed in a youth-friendly way. The approximately one-and-a-half-hour performance has an intermission. The attention is focused solely on the actors.
The comedy moves on the surface level in the collisions of the characters. A gay couple is by no means just exemplary. But their relationship seems genuine. Foolish Jari (Jaakko Saariluoma) spends his days making more or less useless useless inventions. Social worker Martti, more cynical and booze-going, clearly the “man” of the relationship, is not at all as tolerant in his private life as he is in his work when helping people.
Jaakko Saariluoma and Tommi Auvinen, who replaced Eero Saarinen in the role of Martti, are already virtuosos in capturing the audience’s interest. Fortunately, Saariluoma, who is known as a stand-up comedian, gets to play a role with genuine dignity. The sweetness hidden in his Jari’s silliness gives depth to the couple’s relationship.
Petja Lähde moves the wanderings of 15-year-old Paavo in a moving way. His interpretation does not seek extremes, as one might assume. The interpretation is more diverse, more sensitive and at the same time relaxed in the moment than the stereotypical expression of youth angst. Jerky gestures, humour and a little boyish sincerity glimpsing from under the shell build Paavo into a person. Paavo also acts as a revealer of Jari and Martti’s relationship.
Today, the proposal does not say anything new about the rights of gay couples as such. On the other hand, talking about adoption still feels like a fresh, topical and rather hushed issue. Is love only for sweet toddlers? Isn’t a teenager with his contradictions worthy of affection anymore?
Tommi Auvinen has the ability to direct comedies with a gentle irony towards differences. His directorial debut a few years ago, also performed at Studio Pasila, approached a very similar topic. However, Paavo 1.5 embraces tolerance instead of difference. Even though the word has suffered from inflation, it is quite suitable to describe the problems brought to light by Studio Pasila’s performance.
A gay couple has to endure prejudice, but a juvenile delinquent (or labeled as such) has to face the lovelessness of the whole world. A gay couple wants tolerance, but a young person longs for love. And love is much harder to come by than cold tolerance. Jari, Martti and Paavo look at each other, and none of them are the same after that.