Review: Villin kanin kapakka

WILD RABBITS’ TAVERN TRIP

I wonder if we would dare to write about Jari Pehkonen – the Albert Einstein of the performing arts – that he acts disproportionately well. That would confuse masses, speeds and energies.

In any case, Pehkonen plays Einstein in the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila’s Wild Rabbit Tavern , and he does it brilliantly.

Steve Martin, known as a film comedian, has set the events of his comedy in the legendary Le Lapin Agile in Paris.

A miscellaneous group of historical figures emerge from the doors of the tavern in farcical style, the top of which are two young geniuses, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, who were only in their twenties at the time of the play in 1904.

The comedy plays with time levels. Restaurant guests greet the new century with enthusiasm, latter-day messengers paint a more contradictory picture of the future, and we viewers know best, for better or for worse.

Eppu Salminen stands proudly next to Pehkonen as a Picasso with the charm of a harbour dude, a bag of guts living his blue season, to which Elvis himself paves the way to primitive art.

Hannu Lauri, who should definitely be seen more often on stage, gives an exciting interpretation of the role as a hard-edged art dealer.

Tom Wentzel carries the erotic perspective as an aging loyal customer dedicated to the mystery of women.

The feminine sparkle is taken care of by newly graduated actors Pihla Penttinen and Helena Vierikko.

The comedy’s musical offerings are provided by Helena Haaranen, whose countess sings charmingly next to the note, and Juha Jokela, whose Elvis, in turn, sings almost breathlessly perfectly.
Mikko Kivinen’s direction turns the play into a neat drama, but in the audience you can’t help but think that we are now sitting on the wrong continent and in the wrong decade.

The American self-irony of Martin’s play, which premiered in 1993, is conveyed as a rather theoretical construction, and nothing is as in the past as the millennium frenzy.