Review: Täydellinen lauantai

Striving for the perfect Saturday

I’m sure you know the feeling when you’ve planned something great and great, everything goes wrong from the start. This is also the case in the Helsinki City Theatre’s new play Perfect Saturday. How can it happen to a person that they don’t get even a small moment of their life just for themselves?

Markus (Pekka Strang) has made a discovery. He has bought Neil Youart’s rare vinyl record Me, Myself and I. At a flea market. Markus decides to dedicate Saturday to jazz. First a little praise, after which the man tunes into the mood or at least tries. However, his wife Helena (Vuokko Hovatta) bursts in. Helena wants to talk. Markus gets the situation under control for a moment and takes a nap in Helena’s bedroom. All you have to do is play the album, but no. It’s starting to happen. The phone rings. The mobile phone rings. The doorbell rang. The handyman (Jouko Klemettilä) is in trouble. A neighbor (Sixten Lundberg) pops in. The ingredients for disaster are at hand. Wouldn’t a man just get an hour to listen to the album? No, because, life is changing now.

Pekka Strang is such a great choice for this kind of role. The husband’s thoughts are on musical rarity, not on problems bigger than his wife’s life. It made me laugh how Strang squirmed around the stage as he tried to get rid of all possible distractions. I also liked how Vuokko Hovatta looked suffering. It was as if something had really been twisting in the lady’s stomach. Viewers could also see that there was something in the woman’s heart that he needed to know about, but he just didn’t notice it. Arttu Kapulainen , who plays the couple’s son Sebastian, is like a drug addict straight from a park bench. I mean, she looks absolutely sick. As a side note, Sebastian had decided to change his name to something a little more flashy. I won’t tell you the new name, but somehow the name suited the boy incredibly well. Jouko Klemettilä also always knows how to be unbelievably funny. The handyman Leo and Markus had some minor language problems, but we still managed to have conversations. Markus almost understood the man.

Such plays simply work. It is easy to identify with Markus’ situation, but despite this, the viewer’s laughter springs from somewhere deep. As if there was something very comical about Markus’s situation, and there is. The things you see and hear on stage are absurd and horrible, and you wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone. A perfect Saturday progresses deliciously horseless from one scene to the next. This kind of play is exactly the kind of play that resets your own thoughts well and leaves everyday worries in the background. Theatre doesn’t always have to be serious.

Jaakko Saariluoma has directed a play based on a script by Florian Zeller . I have to admit that Saariluoma has the ability to make comedies work. It feels like it doesn’t go too far at any point, but the viewers still have a good time. The Arena stage is well suited for this kind of work. A suitably compact space that can accommodate doors and a decent living room with leather sofas. The set design is by Antti Mattila.

A Perfect Saturday is a farce comedy that is suitable for a wide range of viewers. You don’t have to be super consumed by the theatre, but this is exactly the kind of play for every man and woman. I could imagine that this will also be one of this autumn’s hits, if the Christmas party includes a theatrical performance. The play is great for larger groups, but it also works well for smaller groups. A perfect Saturday is entertainment at its best.