Review: Villin kanin kapakka

GREAT MEN OF HISTORY WITH ENTERTAINMENT

Although the American Steve Martin (b. 1945) is known in Finland almost exclusively as a skilled film comedian with a flexible face (e.g. Superhulttio, The Family Is the Best, Roxanne, The Bride’s Father, Hookfinger), he is a much more versatile man as a cultural ploughman. Well, he has also been noted in Finland for a couple of slightly more serious roles, such as the recently seen Grand Canyon on TV, but his career as a TV scriptwriter, short story writer and playwright has been left in the background here.
His comedy at Picasso at The Lapin Agile , written as his debut in 1993, rose to Broadway a couple of years after touring smaller theaters and was then elevated to the heights. In 1996, Martin was awarded by the American Association of Theatre Critics as the best playwright and the best play in a Picasso comedy.


Artist Rentals
and the lord of theory

Martin’s play had its Finnish premiere in 1998 at the Tampere Theatre under the name Wild Rabbit’s Tavern, directed by Tiina Puumalainen and now entertained by the same name at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila. The common factor for these two productions is actor Eppu Salminen, Picasso in both versions.
Since the 1990s, the play has aged so much that in some places the best-before dates have already expired, at least in the case of references to the millennium. Otherwise, its approach to the fundamental questions of science and art, sparkling with its wit, is completely timeless, and great men such as Pablo Picasso or Albert Einstein will not be erased from the pages of history in the meteor storms of shooting stars of all the world. (In Martin’s view, Elvis is a bit missing).
In other words, the play takes place in a cultural tavern in Montmartre, Paris, about a hundred years ago (it is still there, by the way), whose “canteens” include, in addition to the aforementioned Picasso, fellow artists Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and a number of more anonymous middle-of-the-road figures. Of course, there are many kinds of wingmen and profiteers, some as patrons, some as mistresses.
A few days later, a young aspiring physicist pops into the cafeteria, introducing himself as Albert Einstein and some of his incomprehensible theories as revolutionizers of the future. When Picasso, who is in his own turmoil phase, arrives, we get into a rather sparkling conversation in which two completely different kinds of creativity and creative madmen compete against each other. And of course, it’s not enough to just wrangle about art trends and the theory of science, they also talk about women, a lot. And the women about them.
The soup is stirred up with his own scoops by Gaston, a member of the tavern’s equipment who is going through a sexual crisis due to aging, the half-sly sly art dealer Sagot, the charming “cultural groupie” Suzanne and, of course, the restaurateur Freddy, whose sarcasms have good accuracy. His girlfriend, Germaine, who works in a tavern, is from the same country. There is also a mysterious tramp from across the time zones, who sings a modern ballad “Are You Lonesome Tonight…”


Accurate acting

Martin has written about the dialogue that is both intellectual and hilarious at the same time, and on top of that, it jumps out of the framework of the play at appropriate points so that the audience can also be the subject. That kind of combination is often quite difficult to hold together, but in the Wild Rabbit tavern it works very tolerably.
Director Mikko Kivinen, himself a very situational actor, has thrown in his own spices that appeal to Finnish tastes. At times, there is a risk of slipping into self-serving, i.e. meaninglessness for the play, but the group keeps the bridle tight enough that the hum does not get out of hand.

Jari Pehkonen Einstein and Eppu Salminen as Picasso are in great shape, passing accurately to each other and shooting at the goal with great power. Pehkonen makes the most of Einstein’s iconic fluffy protagonist, including the audible tongue-in-cheek. Salminen makes Picasso a notch smaller, but recognizable.
The rest of the gang doesn’t leave any holes in the whole either. Jyrki Kovaleff hosts the tavern in a mellow manner, the young women Pihla Penttinen and Helena Vierikko complement each other with contrasts, and the slightly older gentlemen Hannu Lauri and Tom Wentzel perform their roles with charisma and suitably edgy.
You have to remember all the time that comedy is being made on stage. There is no point in looking for great historical movements in this tavern encounter, but it is nice to pick up gags that reach the present day.