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Gregory Burke. Gagarin’s Road. Helsinki City Theatre, Studio Pasila. Translated by Sami Parkkinen. Directed by Maarit Ruikka. Set design
Kaisa Niva. Costumes by Sari Suominen. Sound and music by Ari-Pekka Saarikko. Cast: Jouko Klemettilä, Mika Nuojua, Panu Vauhkonen
and Matti Olavi Rani. Gagarin Way. Tampere Workers’ Theatre’s Basement Theatre. Directed by Tommi Auvinen. Set and costumes working group. Cast: Pentti
Helin, Ola Tuominen, Antti Seppä, Lari Halme.
Is a political crime less a crime than a crime committed solely for personal reasons? Is it perhaps a noble act?
Does the end justify the means? These are the questions posed by Scottish director Gregory Burke’s debut play Gagarin’s Road, which will premiere within a short period of time and at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila
and at the Tampere Workers’ Theatre’s Cellar Theatre. Burke’s play poses its question well. The Gagarin Way – in TTT the original name Gagarin Way – is with testosterone
An accelerated hijacking drama about the workers of a factory that manufactures computer parts. Workers guess that production is going to be moved to a country with cheaper labour. It’s time to send a bloody message to the global
to the anonymous and faceless profiteers who represent capitalism.
The problem will bethat the hijacked consultant is not faceless, anonymous or even Japanese, as he was supposed to be. She turns out to have a family
from the very neighboring village. Burke’s play is set in Scotland, in the small town of Dumfermline, north of Edinburgh. The hijackers of the play boast of the political activism of their relatives and try to pass the baton forward, now in the field of terrorism
means. Burke’s play asks whether there is anything left of socialist ideals other than a small-town Soviet-style street sign,
Gagarin’s Road. You can guess that the drama based on kidnapping is suspenseful. What is more surprising is that Gagarin’s path is also satirical
comedy, and quite a successful one. Especially at the Helsinki City Theatre under Maarit Ruikka’s sinewy and lively direction. The Way of Gagarin is not the first play of its kind, and not even original, but it is excellent. At the beginning of the play, there is a long talk
and amusingly about Jean-Paul Sartre, perhaps as a reminder of what the literate community has needed the extremists of society for before.
Burke also picks in the other direction, Quentin Tarantino’s art house violent film Reservoir Dogs, which also depicts a crime that goes wrong. There are mischievous kidnappers in Finland
previously seen in Oliver Bukowski’s grotesque comedy Going to Tokyo. The originality of Burke’s play arises from the fact that it is at the same time local and global, philosophical and popular,
thriller and ideological drama. The consequences of global capitalism that touches every corner of the globe are investigated by Beckett-esque ordinary
Jobbarit. Of course, the title of the play is also a symbol: would Gagarin’s path still be possible – is there still an alternative to capitalism? Although Burke throws arguments sharply from one side to the other, the play’s stance seems clear: as the story progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer
It will come that the class struggle will not progress through this. But since the first step has been taken, there is no turning back from the bloody road. The play
The ending is quite surprising. The play will be performed in both Tampere and Helsinki without intermission. The scene is the shabby basement of the factory. In the Cellar Theatre, it is truly austere and modest, while in Studio Pasila, Kaisa Niva’s stylish metal set and Teppo Saarinen’s skilfully mood-changing lighting are artistically metallic.
Studio in Pasila Gagarin’s path hits its mark wonderfully. The acting group works well together and gets a text covered in Burke’s quips
pulse to the fullest. Jouko Klemettilä is a motorized, punky Eddie, pessimistic in his social outlook, but full of energy in his will to act.
Klemettilä’s Eddie is a completely unpolished role, stretched to the point of grotesque humour.
Panu Vauhkonen plays the more insecure Gary, who asks the kidnapped consultant for an explanation for his actions. The comic nuances are mastered so
as Mika Nuojua as a jovial student-guard. Directed by Tommi Auvinen , TTT’s Kellariteatteri has chosen a lower-octane mode of transport for Burke’s thriller. The humour is not so on the surface and the events do not flow
forward with such a dense rhythm as in Helsinki. However, this does not apply to Ola Tuominen’s excellent performance, which is more aggressive than Eddie Klemettilä. Especially until the halfway point, Tuominen holds the audience and the other characters
on their toes. In the second half, the performance experiences problems related to pacing and the delivery of dialogue.
Pentti Helin makes Garyn Vauhkonen’s role work a simpler, slightly sturdy character. Especially towards the end, this feels a bit bumpy
solution. Lari Halme’s sensitive and confused student-security guard is an extremely precise job.
Matti Olavi Ranin turns a businessman who resigns himself to his fate into a defiant questioner, Antti Seppä a melancholic world adventurer.
From the factory assembly line to the limelight
Gregory Burke found the subject of a successful play while working in temporary jobs
In Scottish Gregory Burke’s play Gagarin’s Road , there is a line that states that there is no secret working-class army trying to revolution in the state of readiness. The only thing that the working people are waiting for is the next lottery draw.
One kind of lottery win was won by Burke, 34, for his play Gagarin’s Way. He wrote it five years ago one summer with a £3,000 inheritance from his grandfather. “I took the slips off the assembly line of a factory that manufactures printer ink cartridges and decided not to speculate but to really try to do what I want.”
The topic was found nearby. His hometown of Dunfermline has a proud tradition of political activism, but Burke was amazed at the apathy around him. The mines had been closed, and the naval base, a major employer, had moved south.
Burke decided to see if there was anything left of the political activism of the working class. What if people were not ruled by apathy but by frustrated rage?
“I hadn’t decided to write a play. The last time I had been to the theatre was as a child. Dialogue just felt more natural than prose.”
Burke had read plays: Beckett, Behan, Pinter. At the university, he had studied philosophy. “I dropped out of my studies and went to work, thinking that it was only temporary. But suddenly, a 21-year-old person realizes that they are 29 years old and are thinking about what to do with the rest of their lives.”
Burke sent the text to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, known as an incubator for new plays. “I went to temporary work and when I didn’t hear anything for seven months, I thought that was it.”
Then came the phone call. And a workshop where the play was polished. The premiere was held at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year to maximise publicity. It was worth it. First the play was picked up by the British National Theatre, now there are premieres for the next year in different parts of the world.
“This is a Cinderella story, after all. For a year and a half, I’ve been able to support myself by writing.”
Coming up is Occy Eyes for the Paines Plough Theatre, a television comedy and a play commissioned by the British National Theatre, the story Faust, set in prison.