Review: Kuka tappoi bambin?
HKT’s Who Killed Bambi? play asks whether rape can be forgotten
When Riikka Oksanen was asked to direct Who Killed Bambi? play, she had not yet read Monika Fagerholm’snovelWho Killed Bambi? He picked up a multi-layered book that had been nominated for the Finlandia Prize and said that it was a very serious matter and that there were challenges, but he felt it was really right to take on the directorial job. The script offered an opportunity to highlight how rape is handled and how it is treated, for example, in court.
“The play highlights social inequality. The rapists’ parents are insanely rich people who are also able to settle things with money. If this had only dealt with a private person’s experience of guilt, it wouldn’t have been interesting, but Who killed bambi? makes visible attitudes and norms that are still, even after #metoon, recognizable and existing in our society.” Riikka Oksanen in my interview 16.8.2023
Pyry Nikkilä, who plays the 26-year-old Gusten, also considered joining. He was nervous about the risk that could be involved in staging a work of this kind. Not just to create the impression, even accidentally, that such a serious crime is being belittled or that there is empathy for the rapist. The priorities had to be balanced.
The starting point of the play
We are in a villa town, which I have already imagined to be Kauniainen based on the book. 26-year-old Gusten Grippe is a successful real estate agent, but otherwise somehow apathetic with his life. He longs for his ex-girlfriend, socializes with her best friend, starts new hobbies, doesn’t commit to anything. The situation is shaken when his teenage friend Cosmo says that he is planning a film project about a controversy that happened 10 years earlier and has since been forgotten. At that time, four 16-year-old boys from the villa town gang-raped a girl they knew at a house party. Gusten was one of the four.
Consequences of rape
Situations before and after rape are shown on stage. The rape itself is not shown, but even when it is told, listening to its progress is the audience. For example, the duration is memorable: eight hours and forty minutes.
The consequences of the shocking act of violence are also remembered. What happens to Sascha who was raped? What about the group of boys, whom Nathan’s father Abbe describes: “They are ordinary boys, they all have their lives ahead of them, you have to remember that alcohol played a part…”
The solution in the script, in which the adult Gusten observes the young person, works brilliantly. As a viewer, you can feel how the adult Gusten looks at his young self for a long time as someone else, a detached person who should have acted differently. The past doesn’t leave him alone, and he still can’t deal with it. It’s so hard to start sentences with the word I: I didn’t stop others, I didn’t help the victim, I raped, I escaped, I went to the police.
I repeat: What about the rape victim Sascha? When the last lines say that this is The End, they are not talking about Sascha either. Gusten is in pain, but what about the other rapists? They just keep going. But we all know from one sentence in the play what happened to the victim.
From a multidimensional book to the stage
Pipsa Lonka has adapted a rich book for the stage. Having read the book, I was familiar with all the twists and turns of the play, but my husband Martti Ranin, who was accompanying me, knew nothing about the story in advance. For both of us, the play worked well. The focus was strictly limited and working in different time levels was very clear.
The execution is subtle, it is not overdone at any point. I had a strong emotional state in the stands, I would have liked to shake both the boys and their parents. Nathan’s parents, Annelise (Heidi Herala) and Abbe (Kari Mattila), were very repulsive in their own importance and arrogance. Anneliese, the top director of the think tank, even accused the media of the chase in terms that are unfortunately common on social media today. And the familiar saying “Pappa betalar” also came true.
The voice of reason came from a surprising direction. Gusten’s mother Angela (Leena Rapo), who was a world opera singer, saw more clearly, but did anyone listen to her? On the way home, we talked a lot about parental responsibility and how values are inherited.
The implementation works insidiously
The stage was clinical, simplistic; an excellent solution, after all, it was a “case description” (set design by Janne Vasama). Videos and audio recordings brought added value and spoke to people (Mika Haaranen and Eero Niemi). The small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre was an excellent place for the play, although Bambi would like to take over as many stages as possible.
I liked the performances of both Jaakko Hutchings and Pyry Nikkilä as Gustens. We were afloat, but if the inside is locked, I guess you can’t show anything else. Both Justus Pienmunnen’s Nathan and Elias Keränen’s Cosmo came out as deliberately disgusting or annoying guys.
Plus to Tiina Kaukanen’s costume design. Could I order the greenish jacket that Anneli wore and Cosmo’s pants?
Riikka Oksanen’s direction was again precise and apt. I’ve now seen her plays The Boy and Lou Salomé at the KOM Theatre and Elena Ferrante’s My Fantastic Friend at Lillan. All of the mentioned have been experiences and Who Killed Bambi? is related to the same thread. This time, the implementation was not so mind-blowing right away, but rather the kind of hidden influence that creeps deep into your mind and pops new ideas into your own mind to ponder.
In general, Who Killed Bambi? is a play that awakens and awakens. After that, he hopes to be able to continue the discussion on the theme. About how every woman is afraid when she walks home in the dark. About the kind of wounds that violence leaves. About how justice doesn’t win or how justice doesn’t even seem to exist. And whether evil can be forgotten.