Review: Män kan inte våldtas

Humour is a weapon when Men Can’t Be Raped becomes a play at the Little Theatre.

This is the first time Märta Tikkanen’s breakthrough novel Men Can’t Be Raped from 1975 has been staged in a theatre in Finland. It is sad that the novel is still so relevant, writes Tikkanen in the foreword to Schildts & Söderström’s new edition of the novel from 2019. Now the rape is attacked as a theme with humor on the stage of the Little Theatre, but not without feeling the horror and grief.

The novel received a crushing reception when it was first published, especially in Swedish in Finland, and Märta Tikkanen had to endure ridicule and ridicule even privately for writing about things that were not allowed to be written about, namely rape. Today, Men Can’t Be Raped is a modern classic and Tikkanen is one of our most beloved authors.

We are in Töölö in Helsinki in the 1970s. The main character’s name is Tova Randers (Minttu Mustakallio) and she is a librarian and a divorced mother of two. On her 40th birthday, Tova is raped by a strange man after an evening at the pub. Tova does not go to the police, but instead decides to take revenge on the rapist, Martti Wester, the king of bowling, the man, with comic precision, played by Robert Kock. Tova intends to rape him. And unlike Martti Wester, Tova intends to report herself to the police and stand for what she has done. But what are the legal penalties for raping a man? Can men be raped at all?

A giggly time travel to the 70s

There is a lot of humour in the production that is not present in the novel. Minttu Mustakallio is a terribly skilled comedian and there are several others in the ensemble who also play humorous roles, including Joachim Wigelius who evokes many giggles as Tova Randers’ prudent lover B. B as in Bjarne.

Director Sara Giese has wanted to retain the language of the novel, the niing, the references to the 70s, the sour milk and crispbread, all the street names in Helsinki and the choice of words (kucku, farmare, fruntimmer). The dramatization is in general extremely faithful to the novel in terms of the course of the story, turning points and lines – the language, quite simply: it is almost word for word.

Lo Kauppi dramatised Men Can’t Be Raped for Stockholm City Theatre in 2019 and chose to set the plot in contemporary Stockholm. Sara Giese, on the other hand, wanted to bring back the historical perspective and geographical markers now that the play is being staged in Helsinki.

Mustakallio convinces in Swedish

The course of events is portrayed as a collective story on stage, told by the entire ensemble, who in turn speak in the novel’s retro Swedish. This happens gender-blind, that is, the actors play men and women all over the place. It was a smart move to keep Tikkanen’s nuanced language with old-fashioned polite phrases, among other things because it is quite often so terribly funny in the actors’ mouths! Minttu Mustakallio, who started speaking Swedish only a few years ago, takes turns with an exquisite tone of voice in the other Finnish language. This is not the first time Mustakallio has played in Swedish. The first time was in Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Peggy Pickit Sees God’s Face, masterfully directed by Anna-Mari Karvonen at the Swedish Theatre in 2017, a production that is difficult to top in every possible way. There are some similarities between Peggy Pickit and the current production: I think of the social criticism and the harsh humour, the laughter that gets stuck in the throat. It’s like you almost want to throw up, the human being is so disgusting, in both plays.

Men Can’t Be Raped is, in the end, a really funny play, there is laughter out loud on all sides of the audience. But without a doubt, the laughter also vibrates towards a much more horrific sounding board. The worst thing about Men Can’t Be Raped is that it’s still relevant – metoo fresh in my memory – and that it’s absolutely credible. And that’s why you have to laugh, to endure.