Review: Va va de ja sa!
Theatre review: Sausage, perkele, koskenkorva!
At first it feels like Va va de ja sa! more studentspex than satire. Men dressed up as aunts and Jonna Järnefelt’s bimbo who satisfies the sex drive with mango ice cream doesn’t feel very inventive. Emma Klingenberg’shappy who sings about bites and kisses could in turn be borrowed from The Benny Hill Show.
But then, towards the end of the first act, a gem appears. I don’t know when I last experienced the language issue being treated with such ingenuity and pleasure as when Eero Saarinen’s Finnish-language Helan and Pekka Strang’s Swedish-language Halvan take a lunch break and take the opportunity to fight over the rights of the majority and minority population. The coffee sugar and the label of the mustard tube are used to illustrate the balance of power and, above all, show how banal the circular reasoning used in the debate about the status of Swedish is. The hypocrisy on the pages is criticized without moralizing. “What do you have?” asks Helan angrily. “Dragsvik!”, replies Halvan.
Us against them
Overall, Bengt Ahlfors’ revue number revolves around the nationalism and us-versus-them mentality that has sprouted over the past year in connection with the election victory of the True Finns and the witch hunt that is going on in recessionary Europe. Self-glorification is the key word. The rhetoric is summed up succinctly in the jogging suit people’s song Ihanaa leijonat-koskenkorva-korv-song.
There are also some kind, almost child-friendly, sketches with talking trees and dancing hands – “Oh, what a cone I’m getting,” exclaims Miss Gran. But the tone is also a little mean, like when both a well-known plastic surgeon and a theater manager get a good coat on their fur.
Some references and the classic revue style suggest that the older generations belong to the show’s primary target group. Nicke Lignell dreams of Marlene Dietrich and to be able to do his part like John F. Kennedy and Ingmar Bergman.
But an eighty-year-old can also identify with the frustration of changes smoldering here and there. Charming is the sketch in which Järnefelt and Klingenberg transform into trams 3T and 3B, which are constantly forced to change letters. The text is ingenious, as are the costumes and choreography where the movable shoe soles allow the ladies to glide around like carriages on their tracks.
They also manage to get some spot-on characters on Lilla Teatern’s stage. The slushy plastic surgeon role is cut and dried for Joachim Wigelius , who also wears a fantastic half-mask in the successful sketch. I’m also fascinated by Pekka Strang’s Lucia committee lady – it’s hard to keep from laughing when he preaches regional spread with his peculiar dialect where Ostrobothnian gets a touch of Åland.
Then I can think that a Muslim gay like Lucia is not so shocking and that in general you don’t always need to repeat True Finns tastelessness even though the purpose is to ironize.
It’s fun to see Ralf Forsström’s set design and costumes. As is well known, the duo Forsström & Ahlfors has been a radar couple since the sixties. Here, the peaceful stage space is created with the help of a thin fabric line adorned with a speckled print with a nostalgic eighties feel. Behind it, a more colourful backdrop with abstract spires is revealed, a bit like mountain peaks in a Tove Jansson landscape. The crown jewel is the mammoth icon that hides behind the layers of fabric.
The ensemble has musical talent and the songs are interpreted in an atmospheric way. Jakob Höglund deserves praise for his witty choreography that dusts off the revue form and gives the weaker sketches a boost.