Rampant chaos and stumbling blocks in working life
Leadership leaves its mark on people and work communities – and the effects can be seen long after the leader has left. Writer-director Juha Jokela followed these tracks when writing Let’s Play Busines.
The play originated from small-scale workshops that Jokela held with a few actors (Sanna-June Hyde, Santeri Kinnunen and Ursula Salo) and a video designer (Timo Teräväinen). “In the first workshop, we found a theme that started to produce scenes for the next workshops,” Jokela says.
The scenes eventually turned into a play about a project consulting company called HX, whose controversial authoritarian leader has retired. Favorites and abused employees continue to work together, carrying with them both scars and nostalgic memories of the past.
“The topic felt really interesting, because the longing for a strong leader has been present in my own field, as I have lived my youth in post-Kekkonen Finland and attended the Theatre Academy after Turkka,” Jokela says.
However, when he began to write the play in full, the themes of the business world got stuck in place. After watching far too many episodes of The Office series in a row, according to his own words, Jokela got the idea of a frame story in which a theatre company performs a working life satire about the HX company.
“When I had people read the text, the general feedback was that this is exhilarating, write more actors,” Jokela says.
The shadow of leadership
The HX Company and the theatre company are united by a strong leader.
In HX, Hannu (Santeri Kinnunen), the former boss’s confidant, wants to cherish his legacy, while Ressu (Sanna-June Hyde) tries to highlight past abuses. In the midst of it all, the new leader Artturi (Martti Manninen) is trying to find a balance and wondering which camp he should serve.
“He wants to bring a more people-oriented and creative work culture, but not everything is going smoothly for him either. The play also deals with how leadership clouds one’s own eyes,” Jokela explains.
The artistic director of the cast (Wanda Dubiel) also causes headaches for her crew in her own way. He tends to make quick decisions and changes, which makes the actors confused – and especially the financial manager (Jan-Christian Söderholm) nervous when the budget starts to be put to the test.
“This also shows the struggle between art and money. The title of the play also refers to the fact that the artists are trying hard to act out the business so that the financiers would be satisfied and there would be no more cuts,” Jokela says.
Humour is born from precision
Jokela thinks that working life is full of delicious comedic pitfalls that arise when trying to reconcile different goals in working life.
Working life and its phenomena have been central to Jokela’s production, such as the play Mobile Horror (Teatteri Jurkka 2003) and the TV series Firma (MTV3 2005). In terms of style, Let’s Play Business is perhaps most reminiscent of the Performance Economy trilogy (Espoo City Theatre 2010–2018).
“This is the next stage in the same studies, but perhaps this one is even more outrageous in its approach. In the frame story of the theatre troupe, the shooter sometimes gets quite spectacular,” Jokela says.
He describes himself as doing comedy as one would think he was doing drama. The aim is to create a diverse stage language and interesting visual narrative. Timo Teräväinen’s video design plays an important role in this.
“Humor comes from precision. We don’t try to make sure that everyone understood that humour is all about. For example, when you use corporate video aesthetics authentically enough and put the video in a slightly wrong place, the end result is really funny.”
Jokela believes that Let’s Play Business will both hit the viewers’ laughing nerves and leave something to ponder. “The themes are serious and important from the perspective of the moment, but the approach is quite horrible in places.”
Text Ida Henritius