Review: Valtakunnan häirikkö
Politics of the game
Veikko Vennamo was not only a politician, but at the same time a phenomenon and a concept. He was active in three parties. In the Agrarian League, the walls became cramped.
There was no room for two egos of at least the same size in the same party.
Vennamo left Urho Kekkonen’s support party with the doors slamming and first founded the Small Peasants’ Party, which later changed its name to the Finnish Rural Party (SMP).
The Helsinki City Theatre’s play The Troublemaker of the Kingdom is both a story about Veikko Vennamo and the forgotten people and his counterforce Urho Kekkonen. Without Kekkonen, Vennamo would probably never have developed into a powerful political figure – in many ways.
The title of the play, written by Henri Kapulainen, could just as well have been, for example, The Politics of the Game, as Vennamo scolded others for practicing it throughout his political career, but at the same time he was the embodiment of the political game itself.
Helsinki City Theatre’s play hits the mark. The form given to the play by director Raila Leppäkoski is interesting. Even though tough political satire sometimes turns into bush theatre, the form works.
The fast-paced roughness rewards the viewer with insights and the dams are broken, laughter is loud.
For those who lived through the times of Kekkonen and Vennamo, The Troublemaker of the Kingdom is at the same time a repetition of political history. The facts are in place, even though some of Vennamo’s close relatives want to look for inaccurate details in the play. There may be those, too, after all, a fictional play is not a documentary.
The play is strongly tied to its narrative time, so generations after that time may have difficulty keeping up with the fireworks.
Pertti Sveholm does an amazing job as Vennamo – once again. After just a few minutes, he is talking, gesticulating, ranting, calculating and scheming like a real Vennamo. The illusion is complete.
Celebrating an election victory exuberantly or “banknote vertebrates”
In an instant, a politician whipping his party colleagues turns into an injured little boy with a trembling lower lip and seeking support from his wife Sirkka (Leena Uotila).
Sveholm overshadows the others, as Vennamo did on the political stage.
Mikko Kivinen Kekkonen is a distantly calculating, self-absorbed number one politician in the country. There has not even been an attempt to make him look like Kekkonen, but his words and actions are allowed to speak for themselves – and that’s a good thing.
Kekkonen is above everyone else because of his superior relations between his home country and neighboring country, and even Vennamo hits his head on him.
Pekka Huotari plays absolutely excellent roles of the representatives of the forgotten people. His endearing country men have a credibility that is rarely seen on stage.
Jari Pehkonen also succeeds in his dual role. As Johannes Virolainen, who licks his lips, his imitation is funny and of a good national average level, but the slippery Virolainen himself is overshadowed by Kekkonen even in the play.
On the other hand, the main icon of The Forgotten Nation, Eino Poutiainen , played with piety by Pehkonen, and his moped, in the end, becomes the central forger of the SMP’s election victory, whose victory points are taken by Vennamo, full of his own excellence, coldly throws aside like a used mitten.
The play insightfully summarises what was ultimately left of the game’s politics when the nation’s troublemaker is finally removed from the stage.