Review: Luonnon laki

You still have time: Hotakainen’s The Law of Nature at the Helsinki City Theatre

I like Kari Hotakainen’s words, and I absolutely love his sentences. His book The Law of Nature has a special meaning to me, as in 2013 I was one of the leaders of the reading group discussion on the book at the Helsinki Book Fair. In addition to us bookclub members, there was a large audience as well as Kari Hotakainen himself and his publisher Touko Siltala. I and the other bookclub members had prepared carefully, marked numerous points from the text, agreed on what each of us would bring up about the Law of Nature and what Kari would be asked. The event was the most rewarding and opened up the themes of the book even more.

So rarely have I been so into the original text as when I went to see the Helsinki City Theatre’s The Law of Nature, which will still be performed until 18 March 2016 at the ex-Ryhmäs on Pengerkatu. I was a little worried beforehand that the theatrical adaptation would not have destroyed the wonderful language and important message of the book, but in vain, because the core message comes from the stage almost twisted from a wire to the side of the auditorium and the lines are one to one with the book. Great!

Plot recap

The plot of the play version is briefly as follows: Rautava, a geothermal heating entrepreneur, has a bad car crash and, after an 11-hour operation, ends up in Laura’s hospital ward via the intensive care unit. On the bed next to her is an immigrant named Badu, who has been stabbed in the stomach. Everyday life in the hospital becomes more and more hectic as the Cutter performs his attacks. The cutter prunes the state budget cake, one piece here, another here, and then tries to pat the remaining tax euros into some kind of cake-like whole. Wards are being closed in hospitals, the roof is leaking, mould is taking over and staff is being reduced. Laura and her team try to cope with treating and meeting patients as people.

Rautava begins to add up the cost of his hospital days. He pays 60 euros a day and well over a ton of tax money goes to his treatment every day. Well, of course, he has worked as an entrepreneur for years, but the principle has been to engage in tax evasion wherever he could. Now it would be a different time: Rautava urges his partner to take care of the company’s accounts in a condition that passes the tax auditor’s audit.

Rautava gradually recovers and gratitude turns into grumpiness. Eventually, he slashes obscenities at Laura so rudely that Laura’s temper breaks. This is followed by one of the play’s finest scenes, the monologue of nurse Laura, who is wonderfully performed by Ursula Salo and directs deep emotions.

Towards the end of the play, Rautava is already in a wheelchair at home, Badu is seeking asylum with him, and Rautava’s parents and daughter are included in the picture.

Outstanding acting performances

The main star Rautava is played by Pertti Sveholm. She is brilliant when she is lounging in her hospital pajamas and spouting the truths of a geothermal heating entrepreneur to both the social worker in the neighboring bed (Rautava’s expression) and her pregnant daughter, who is an active green. Many of his statements make the audience laugh. Svenkka skillfully stays professional in the pattern with which he makes Rautava a human and not a caricature.

The whole ensemble is skillful. Matti Laine as the sympathetic Badu is just like the Badu in the book, even though the story has been changed for him. I especially admired his stage peace, singing and use of voice. As a simple entrepreneurial partner who speaks Tampere, Iikka Forss is quite exhilarating and just right. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of this group of professionals is that the delicious characters stay on the better side of the delicate credibility limit, and the characters do not become “summer theatre versions”.

Death and the Cutter have also been included. Death alternates between several actors, always with the same efficiency. Death hangs out near the hospital beds and does not get to go on the Lapland holiday she dreamed of. The editor is Matti Olavi Ranin (I admit, this is a disqualification, because he is my brother-in-law). The execution is interesting, the Editor comes with a dead face, and there is not much explanation when he takes the last buckets from the hospital corridors. Split, cross, stack – we can no longer afford this social security. The role of the editor is even more relevant now than when the book was published in 2013. After the play, I asked the actors if there had been a large number of politicians in the audience, but they only knew about Arja Alho.

Intense narrative

The play lasts 2h 40min and the tempo remains captivating throughout. If we talked and framed in the first half, then after the intermission, we got concrete. As Rautava says: “Practice vs. theory, practice wins by six. Always. The theory beeps, the practice fizzles.”

Functional staging

The facilities of Ryhmäs are small, and it is almost a wonder how skilfully Janne Siltavuori has managed to bring the hospital milieu to life on stage. The roof is leaking and water is being spattered into the sewer with a trowel. Somewhere between the three hospital beds, it is also possible to perform dance bacchanals with the strength of the whole group. And suddenly we are at Rautava’s home or at the physiotherapy in the swimming pool.

Recommendation

I went to see it, because there aren’t many screenings left. There will be social realities, but also many touching and fun moments.