Review: Vielä ehtii
Tactics Game – Bridge and Life
It’s a four-player tactical game, namely bridge. What does bridge have to do with a theatrical performance? A lot, if you ask me. The play, which leans lightly on a card game, and a complex one at that, compares to life itself. You have to be careful with both your partner and your opponents.
At the end of life, you sometimes have to compromise on being sharp, and of course it’s not a joy even if it makes others laugh. Swedish journalist and writer Carin Mannheimer (b. 1934) has taken up the subject gently. She has taken the side of the elderly, respecting everyone’s uniqueness. When Mannheimer describes in his play in question what can be achieved in “I sista minuten”, Pertti Sveholm, the director of the lively Finnish-language premiere, throws more steam on the stove and assures that “There is still time”.
In the basic pattern, there are three women whose phases have touched each other and who, as they age, still keep in touch. Marianne in her large widow’s apartment with a worsening memory disorder as her companion, Annakaisa who can only momentarily be in a rough place for her husband who cannot manage alone, and Säde, who has always fallen on bad notes in love.
When the fourth player is needed for bridge, the charming widower Peter arrives at the invitation as helpful as he is eager to join – only to tell them that he doesn’t know how to play bridge. The multi-tasker Tommi, on the other hand, can; Besides, it’s hard for anyone not to like a maintenance man representing a younger vintage.
It may seem like a “sociodrama”, but here we are going pretty fast, ups and downs of emotions and sometimes we are downright in the yard. A washable comedy for nothing else!
For Leena Uotila, Marianne’s role is tailor-made. He or she is sometimes enthusiastic, cunning or confused, sometimes irritated and aggressive. Uotila unabashedly takes his place at the centre of attention and, as if consoling the general public, shows that the personality of his own elderly people will not disappear all at once, even if dementia is threatening to shake him from time to time. Marianne is lovable in her volatility, thanks to a skilled interpreter.
And there is nothing to blame for the opponents either. Ulla Tapaninen’s lines as Annakaisa are premonition-driven and grimly critical, so that the audience responds with laughter – even interjections – as if pressing a button. What about Riitta Havukainen in the role of the lovesick Säte? Few can resist such a theatrical cat-like glide and blissfully in love stare.
Vesa Vierikko makes the role of Peter flexibly surprising with his charismatic touch, and Jukka Rasila also loads his natural, attractive comedy into his expression as Tom.
Kaisa Torkkel, Marianne’s meticulous daughter Kristiina, has the opposite role of the rest of the team: nothing comes of this with her mother, she forgets to pay the bills, the apartment is too big and what kind of people are there here…
The visualisation is close-fitting, and it is a stage work that is primarily excellent comedy acting, but at the same time an indication of how people need each other even when the finish line is already approaching. Especially making friends with young people is an effective way to vent. Age brings maturity and tolerance, and guilt that has been carried for years can dissolve into forgiveness and anger into forgiveness. Nonsense? But that’s what life is.