Review: Eila, Rampe ja palvattu onni
Eila and Rampe
Happy on stage
That’s exactly what it is, succeeding in a combination of short prose and dramatic art. They tell as if they weren’t on stage, rather than in a local store, public transport, reception rooms or public sauna.., if there were any. The lines click like darts and everyone in the voice thinks they have hit the bull’s eye. Those watching the game from the sidelines can take their side and not reveal their cards. At most, you can secretly say to the person next to you that “what’s the matter, let’s go to the elevators”.
Manse’s celebrities, Eila, Rampe and Likka, would – perhaps already be – a suitable subject for sociologists. With or without dialect spice, they are, above all, very Finnish. With their ingrained beliefs and habits, prejudices and character traits. Not only recognizable, but also lovable, because who doesn’t love themselves! Sinikka Nopola’s fictional characters have jumped from the pages of the book to the theatre. The entrance can be described as a breakthrough!
Heidi Herala may not outwardly resemble the image readers have of Eila, but that’s not all. He takes the field as he pleases. He has a mother and a daughter, he has a wife and a ram. But above all, there is eternal femininity in her. In Eila’s case, it’s not always the positive sign that shows femininity. Sometimes it happens that first there is talk, then thoughts followed and a few frogs as punctuation marks. But that’s just manna for the interpreter, the comedian. That this particular Eila also charms the son-in-law candidate, so no eyewitness is surprised…
Intuitively directed by Heidi Räsänen, the play is a “road story” in which you are looking for an even better sight in Finland than Näsinneula, the Tuuri village shop, where you can get an inexpensive cured ham that warms the mind more than a visit to a miracle healer. Especially since it is Eila who has to be “curved”, and not the one whose leg is squeaking, i.e. Rampe.
When Rampena is Ilmari Saarelainen, a master of understated comedy, the performance becomes a deliciously limited prototype of a Finnish man, a rather withdrawn, “no talking or kissing” hero. Saarelainen is a good passer in dialogue and thus excellent as a co-star.
Leena Rapola gives an interesting face to Eila and Rampe’s daughter. The cautiously independent and rebellious single Likka offers surprises to both her sweet “mother freak” and her boyfriend Pirkka, who struggles with his own inhibitions and escapes into obscure verbality, the language of a researcher. Rapola has sensitivity and power. In addition to sensitivity, Petri Poikkolainen’s Pirkka is a good ingredient for panic disorder. Poikolainen is appealing in her expression of complexity, longing for love and escaping at the same time.
The songs composed by Maija Kaunismaa bring both an atmosphere effect and excellent added value to the whole. In them, humour rises to the surface, but also glimpse of shadows, the inexplicable longing characteristic of the human mind. The whole team sings well and figures out the choreography cleverly. The Glow Moment is a clip of Herala’s elf game, a funny recollection of the school’s Christmas party.
The fairytale-like clarity of Katariina Kirjavainen’s stage design is suitable for both a safe interior and on the go. It should be mentioned that the city is by no means left out of the narrative. The world must be broadened, for example, by the Sibelius monument and the essence of happiness must be pondered. “I wonder if we can go to the blueberry forest this summer?” says Rampe, and Eila acknowledges: “It’s always a bit of a mess for you.”