Review: Buster Keaton – elämä ja teot

The Life of Buster Keaton –
Rauno Ahonen’s role

If we see – and so we see – the actor as a genuine spare parts salesman from Vantaa, then it should be good for both of us. The same man is also a janitor and Buster Keaton, he is a child and an adult, a man and a woman and I claim that he is related to Kari Hotakainen. The acting in it takes a strong inward breath and then blows out big and carefree.

It has been just over three years since Rauno Ahonen’s monologue premiered at Takomo, and now that he brought it as a vintage wine to the Helsinki City Theatre, it’s no wonder if it doesn’t taste good.

After Buster Keaton (1991), Hotakainen has published a whole cluster of interesting books and created a distinguished career. He is one of the number one writers of our time, not least because he has the X-ray machine; Hotakainen sees inside us ordinary people. And not only the smallness there, but also the ingredients for something better. He already had this ability when Buster tried to enter the world.

In a theatre performance, one field of art feeds the other, and both become stronger. Miko Jaakkola’s direction shows skilful reinforcement of contours, and the music brings a wonderful timelessness to the realization. With her interpretation, the talented pianist Kaisa Kulmala supports the cinematic, which, when it comes to Buster Keaton, is a natural undertone.

Rauno Ahonen enjoys being on stage and doesn’t have the time to be many people. Whether his character sells spare parts in Vantaa or gutter gutters in the center of Kälvia, or walks lost on the screen “somewhere in a horse tree”, he is strongly and credibly present. The arsenal of expressions also includes stone-facedness, although for some reason the stone-faced character has prevailed, after all, for example, Harry Dean Stanton, one of the most attractive characters in the performance, has once been nominated for “the Venice Depression Biennale for Best Actor”.

The interpreter brings Hotakainen’s comical knights of a sad character to sit right next to us. Maybe we don’t see Mike Tyson, a straight-note boxer as a movement that comes into your lap, but a special, quiet and contemplative boy who leaves notes on the trees he climbs “visited, thank you” and asks the rake to “gently stroke the back of the ground”, what else is he but very lovable.

The text with its hidden meanings fits naturally into the expression. There is just room for clarification in the audibility of the lines, mainly with regard to the end of the sentence.

The evening, built with piety and warmth in an intimate theatre space, received an equally warm welcome from the audience.