Review: Raimo Reiska Raksa

Raimo saves the world
A consumer-critical children’s performance resembles a rock concert

Sami Keski-Vähälä’s new children’s play throws a challenge in many directions: for serious people, adults who take a solemn view of themselves, materialists, people with sensitive ears and those with irritable defects. A little bit also for those who want to understand everything.

Raimo Reiska Raksa, a co-production of the Kapsäkki Music Theatre and the Helsinki City Theatre, is funny, fast-paced, loud and consumer-critical.

The title character is Edouard Uspenski’s Uncle Fedya and a boy reminiscent of the 1970s Finnish TV drama Fat Lens, an inventor who thinks he has nothing to learn at school.

So he goes to work, as a janitor for the City of Helsinki, and saves one dog from misery and death and the world’s ecological catastrophe. Not a little.

Despite its joyful exaggeration, the gallery of characters in the musical theatre performance is easy to recognise, or precisely because of it. Children and animals are sensible, adults are anything but.

Raimo’s stressed mother just sleeps or messes around, and after she thinks she’s done everything (or at least a shivering green kiesel) for her son, she does yoga for herself. Raimo’s boss is a power-hungry mayor who blackmails his employees with security clearances, and Raimo’s father runs a sofa factory in China.

Her co-worker, the charming cleaner Anneli, is very fond of kissing and guessing. “Guess how terrible it was!”
Raimo, the honest and sincere one, can’t guess.

The actors are excellent and sing well.
Anna-Maija Tuokko shines not only as a mother, but also as a mayor and, among other things, as a hilarious Chinese glitter seller. Paavo Kerosuo convinces as the drumming Raw Dog tough guy, and Hanna Vahtikari’s expressions are a delight to spot. Tuomas Uusitalo’s Raimo is the most sympathetic young janitor.

The text does not underestimate or look at the child from above, but rather from the height of the buttocks, while assuming a fair amount.

Even elementary school children may not perceive the story at the plot level; But even though the dramaturgy doesn’t exactly dazzle with its brightness, the relationships and attitudes between the characters and the playing with language work better.

It is also part of the playfulness that the performance, which is set in a modern city, shows contemporary phenomena. Anneli is drinking Battery (energy drink), and Raw Dog, who thinks “things are tricky”, asks: “Do you want to make a pot, urpo?”

Pressing the poop button doesn’t seem to produce the results the creators calculated, while the song about the boob bra monster sunk in at least the premiere audience.
However, the greatest joy is caused by the opportunity to influence events. The children are addressed from time to time, and when they have been encouraged to shout “You pee”, for example, they will continue to participate later. “Confess already!” echoes from the audience at a critical moment.


Laura Pählapuu has conjured up a costume for Raimo Reiska Raksa , which you look at with a smile of pleasure.

Studio Elsa’s panoramic stage is a bit dreary despite the fine cardboard scale models of Helsinki and all the funny props, and the referential animations made in the background are completely unnecessary in my opinion – but the Raw K band blessed with guitarist Marzi Nyman is top!

Many of the songs swing blissfully, and even though the song called Missing Loop sticks in my head, the highlight for me was Anna-Maija Tuokko’s cryingly beautiful performance of her mother’s creed How You Shine, in which the performer was visibly moved herself.

Raimo Reiska Raksa, which lasts for a suitably round two hours with intermissions, is reminiscent of a rock concert, which does not seem to please the youngest spectators. Smoke is thrown onto the stage (except for the factory scene), and the volumes are quite loud despite the plexiglass placed in front of the drum battery.

It’s a bit comical when more than half of the audience – children, that is – hold either their noses or ears half the time. But not their eyes.

The best proof of the performance’s effectiveness comes at home: the lines of the play fly out of the mouths of 6- and 9-year-olds, as if heard many times.
“Wake up, mom!”