Review: Män kan inte våldtas
Lillan starts with a hit
When Märta Tikkanen’s feminist cult novel from 1975 is staged for the first time as a theatre, it is unfortunately to be noted that it is still relevant. We have not come that far in gender equality, as the MeToo debate clearly showed.
The play is dramatized by Lo Kauppi, who also directed it at Stockholm City Theatre in 2019, but here Sara Giese is directing and has also contributed to the dramatization, among other things, she has moved the action from Stockholm back to Helsinki where it belongs.
The ensemble’s fresh blue denim clothes with high-waisted jeans and flared trouser legs take us back to the 70s. Costume designer Sven Haraldsson is also responsible for scenogra-fin, which consists of a light wooden wall with a wall-mounted bench where the ensemble sits in between everything and especially since they themselves do not act on the narrow space between the wall and the stage, but they comment on what is happening. It is a miracle that Ulriikka Heikinheimo’s choreography even allows for bugging in the narrow floor space.
The always lovely Minttu Mustakallio is perfect in the role of librarian Tova Randers, a single mother of two who keeps the kilos in shape with the help of jazz dancing at Arbis. On her way home from work at the City Library on her 40th birthday, she spontaneously decides to stop by the now defunct restaurant Vanha Maestro and celebrate with a plank steak with a glass of red as a gift to herself. Tova doesn’t know that there happens to be an afternoon dance there that day. In the swirls of dance to the tunes of Mun mummoni muni mun mam-mania with Jussi & the boys of all songs, she allows herself to be seduced by a Martti Wester, well played by Robert Kock. The “continuation” at his home degenerates into rape – women like rough treatment, he believes.
But Tova doesn’t report the rape, it doesn’t feel like it would pay off, as a victim it feels difficult to be taken seriously by the police, especially if you have voluntarily followed the perpetrator to his home and alcohol has its part in the whole thing. You should have known better, especially at her age. But that doesn’t mean that she is content with her victim role and licks her wounds – quite the opposite. Tova is brooding on revenge. She is going to rape the perpetrator, so he gets to feel what it feels like and be humiliated with him too – in public, too.
Over the entire wooden wall, Tova draws out her plan of revenge, while reflecting on her life and the men in it. Ex-husband Jon Randers (Pia Runnakko) who openly cheated on her, as well as the sleazy lover (Joachim Wegelius) with whom she tried to have a relationship afterwards, and former love Kari who smelled like Paco Rabanne and still makes her see pink dreams in her mere memory… And of course the adult sons Mick and Jockum (Robert Kock and Alexander Wendelin) who live at home and expect ground service. Jockum’s girlfriend Bimbi (Ulriikka Heikinheimo) also glimpses by from time to time.
In Jörn Donner’s film Men Can’t Be Raped from 1978, the rape scene itself is not included, but Lo Kauppi has brought it into the plot on stage in an elegant way. But despite Tova’s revenge, the play ends in a kind of anticlimax back home with her sons. In between, Tova feverishly tries to be arrested and punished, but the police have a hard time convincing her guilt and Markku has a hard time admitting himself as a victim. It is sad that there is so much that still feels familiar in history that is presented here by a very well-oiled and interacted ensemble, a production worth seeing and thinking about