Review: Villin kanin kapakka

THE COMEDY OF THE SMARTHEADS

American film and theatre comedian Steve Martin’s play is cultural imperialism from across the pond. The play takes place in 1904, when gangsters ruled the United States.

The Wild Rabbit Tavern is still a cultural café in Montmartre, Paris. It was home to the rising European geniuses Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein. Alongside them – and ahead of them – Martin highlights his compatriot Elvis. Long live that huge difference!

However, the text is excellent: the comedy has a laughable delicacy and at the same time a humanity that reaches beneath the surface. Mikko Kivinen’s solid direction is carried out by Eppu Salminen’s Picasso, who smirks like his role models, and especially Jari Pehkonen’s Einstein, who looks 86 years old all his life.


Tom Wentzel plays a strong role as a regular customer who suffers from boyhood in old age. Pihla Penttinen as the waitress rises to the most delightful surprise of the performance. Penttinen’s work combines a close presence and an intellectually conscious approach to the beating, ego-overflowing men of the world. The male viewer already finds himself longing: why on earth didn’t I get to live a hundred years ago and meet such a maiden!

The translator Tiina Puumalainen uses written language and addressing, which is why the verbal fireworks are sometimes awkward.

Breaking the theatricality succeeds well in Kivinen’s direction. The actors comment on the scenes with the audience, and once they even grab a script from the front row viewer to witness their own memories.