Review: Tiny Dynamite – Dynamiittisiru
Välkky and Pölkky in the summer pasture
Pasila’s British novelty is a small and beautiful poem about courage
Abi Morgan: Dynamite chip. Helsinki City Theatre, Studio Pasila. Translated by Anna-Elina Lyytikäinen and Heli Kivimäki, directed by Anna-Elina Lyytikäinen, set design and costumes by Jyrki Seppä, lighting by Teppo Saarinen, music and sound by Ari-Pekka Saarikko and Petri Lapintie. Cast: Jouko Klemettilä, Eppu Salminen and Merja Pietilä.
Abi Morgan’s Dynamite Chip is a play about two men who have known each other forever. One of the men was struck by lightning at the age of six, while the other believes that he was spared without a blow in his life. Men are Ugly and Shy Man to each other.
Rujo is an alcoholic marginal person, shy teaches companies risk management.
Every summer, the men spend their holidays together in cottages rented by a shy man from all over the country.
During the two summer weeks depicted in the play, a woman invades the men’s lives: alternately a beloved jumping off a bridge and a stranger hitchhiking in the dark. One of the characters refers to the past, the other to the future. The present is represented by the uncomplicated assistant girl of a nearby restaurant, who delivers the groceries ordered by the men.
Abi Morgan belongs to the same generation of British dramatists as Mark Ravenhill, who is topical in Kom Theatre’s Nudes, or Stephen Greenhorn, the author of the play Passing Places, which was staged at the National Theatre about three years ago. In a way, the dynamite chip is very reminiscent of Greenhorn’s play, where two men drive a surfboard on the roof of a car around Scotland with a rowdy hitchhiker girl.
Morgan writes much more centrally than Greenhorn. Mental landscapes and the wildly poetic movement of memories replace the masculine road movie structure. Morgan enhances his lucid story with magic, which is delightfully theatrical magic for the viewer.
Under the light-hearted and airy guidance of Anna-Elina Lyytikäinen, the chairs of the villa dance and sandwiches are thrown from the hands of the eaters to the heavens. Lyytikäinen has not set out to solve the play too far in any direction, but has relied on its fragmentary playfulness.
With the help of the actors, who clearly enjoy working with the text, the pale bare stage staged by Jyrki Seppä is transformed into an aureerily cozy place, the gauze walls of which also give room for the magic of the play.
Eppu Salminen Ujo and Jouko Klemettilä’s Rujo are reminiscent of the characters of Asko Sarkola and Esko Salminen in Coline Serreau’s play Välkky ja Pölkky. However, the realistic basis of the story brings Morgan’s characters much closer to the Finnish audience, and the basic setting of the play is sure to interest young people in particular.
Klemettilä is impressive as a trampled involuntary but unleashed mess that is released into a wild flight of spirit. Eppu Salminen’s importance as a slick success is devilishly recognizable, as is the vulnerability of a shy man in the face of life’s first real risk.
The actors work together effortlessly. The characters are outwardly each other’s extremes, but there is no doubt about the bond between the men. Merja Pietilä plays a woman or women with captivating precision, all of whom are united by a crooked nose and funny hair.
The Dynamite Chip is a small, big play about courage – and pretty much love as well.