Review: Lastenkutsut
Kekkonen’s Children’s Party
Tamminiemi became a battlefield of power in Paavo Haavikko’s new play Old Kekkonen.
Koivisto’s failure as president was recorded in the constitution reformed according to Kekkonen. This is the conclusion of Paavo Haavikko.
HELSINKI After a long period of silence, the Tamminiemi Hall has reawakened as a stage for power struggles and intrigues. Three presidents, one prime minister and the president’s girlfriend have become entangled with each other and at the same time drunk on power.
On Sunday evening, the world premiere of Paavo Haavikko’s play Children’s Party, produced by the Helsinki City Theatre, was performed at the Urho Kekkonen Museum in Tamminiemi. The main character of the children’s party is, of course, President Urho Kekkonen, whose 100th birthday is celebrated in Tamminime. When Heikki Nousiainen rushes into the hall to answer the ringing phone, an old statesman in his wool coat appears in front of the audience.
Kekkonen is preparing to celebrate his own birthday. “Do I have to give myself a congratulatory speech on my 100th birthday,” an anxious Kekkonen asks Matts Pellinge, who works as the party’s chief of protocol. Pellinge, played by Asko Sarkola, is not a mythical creature, even though it feels like it at first. In Haavikko’s mind, when creating the character of Pellinge, there has obviously been the best etiquette master in Finland, Matti Klinge. Pellinge is preparing a retired statesman to receive a congratulatory delegation from the Society of Former Presidents. Kekkonen asks hopefully: “Will Mannerheim come to greet me?” Pellinge has to admit that the Marshal is unfortunately in Switzerland.
Relations between Kekkonen and Koivisto are bloody
“The main devil is coming from there,” Kekkonen exclaims when gunfire is heard from the hallway of Tamminiemi. President Mauno Koivisto rushes in, dressed in camouflage uniform and with a rapid fire rifle in his hand. Antti Litja has discovered Koivisto’s gestures, dialect and growling, contemplative style. Relations between Kekkonen and Koivisto were badly strained by the power struggle of 1981. They seem to be still in the bloody state Kekkonen, who was still weakly in power at the time, tried to overthrow Koivisto from the post of prime minister, but without success. Now the axes of mockery flew between them and the word was slicked. The division of power between the president and the prime minister may be somewhat more difficult today than it was during the power struggle between Kekkonen and Koivisto. Haavikko has also invited the incumbent President of the Republic Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen to attend. They discussed what “cooperation” in the revised constitution means in practice.
Halonen and Lipponen
Lipponen assures that joint decision-making goes like clockwork. He describes himself and Halonen as a “fighting partner”. To this, the president snorts that “it’s men’s slang again”. “And you won’t cry at me anymore,” Halonen quips to Lipponen. Leena Uotila has been able to very easily peel off the current president and the Kallio girl who carries a Moominmamma’s handbag that is too big. Mikko Kivinen as Lipponen is quite apt, even though he is not quite able to alternate between grumpiness and easy-going like the real Lipponen. President Martti Ahtisaari was unable to attend the celebrations due to his busy schedules and travels. Halonen read her predecessor’s letter, in which she reserved the right to options for future level increases.
“Everyone has walked over the Constitution”
Kekkonen seems to be irritated by the new constitution, which has significantly curtailed the president’s powers. He assures that the promised Constitution has not come through the mailbox in Tamminiemi.
Before the party ends, Halonen finds the Constitution under the threshold of Tamminiemi. “All of you have walked over the Constitution,” Halonen says to Kekkonen, Koivisto and Lipponen. Halonen herself says that she just jumped over the Constitution like a schoolgirl.
Arbitrariness, which can also be described as autocracy, was particularly typical of Kekkonen during his presidency. In Kekkonen’s opinion, the decision to invite the Ingrian Finns back to Finland was an indication of Koivisto’s arbitrary use of power. The celebration also referred to Lipponen’s actions in the boycott of Austria, in which he bypassed the incumbent president.
All invitations will end in due course. The children’s parties created by Haavikko’s imagination end when things start to get completely impossible, and the decision is made by Anita Hallama. And the former and current rulers must submit to this.
Miitta Sorvali is a wonderful revelation as Kekkonen’s female friend. The enthusiastic boyishness hidden inside the old Kekkonen always pops up when Hallama appears in the Tamminiemi hall. The play ends with the song of Hungerland, and Kekkonen, who has dementia, returns to his childhood in his mind. He packs Juhani Finland’s Kekkos books into his backpack and prepares to go to school in Kajaani.