Same register. Same instrument. Same dimensions.
Actor Timo from Ruuska and Tapio Rautavaaraa (1915–1979) combine a bass baritone, a guitar and a height of 188 centimeters. Apart from being a singer and film actor, Rautavaara was also a famous sports hero.
When Ruuskanen started planning the show about Rautavaara a few years ago, he thought about how he could slip into the shoes of the Olympic javelin champion.
The similarities helped.
Tapio Rautavaara recorded more than 300 songs during his singing career.
Ruuskanen has earned a reputation as a red-faced performer. The founding member of the clown theater Red Nose Company, chosen as the Theater of the Year 2023, recently played the life of the national author with his clown partner Tuukka Vasaman with in the acclaimed performance Aleksis Kivi.
The Rautavaara show did not become a clown theater because Ruuskanen wanted to get really close to the character.
“It felt natural to do without a nose,” he says.
First the idea of making a show came about when Ruuskanen and Vasama performed in a service building Ilmari Kiannon a clown theater performance based on the work Red line. The duo's performances contain a lot of music, and the now elderly viewer wanted the clowns to play “some old Finnish songs”.
The clowns worked as ordered, and sang a couple of Rautavaara evergreens.
“The audience came alive”, Ruuskanen recalls.
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“When I started reading about his life, all I knew was success.”
Ruuskasen Rautavaara was a childhood sports hero and a familiar voice from Mummila's record player. Traveler and cat mixed Blue Dream made an impression on the young Ruuskasen. Later, he noticed that interpreting Rautavaara's songs seemed easy, because they fit his vocal range.
“When I started reading about his life, all I knew was success. It turned out that Rautavaara's childhood was one of survival.”
As a child of a poor single parent, hunger was real for Rautavaara. Numerous stories tell about the boy's ingenious ways of making money, for example by catching rats.
“You got paid for the rats' tails. “Rautavaara knew a hollow log where rats frolicked, and he figured out how to drill holes in the log,” says Ruuskanen.
“When the rats peeked through the hole to get the treat placed as bait, their tail peeked out of the gap and could easily be snapped off. When it was noticed that there was an amazing number of tailless rats, Rautavaara was fired from the rat killer's office.”
How exactly did Tapio Rautavaara become the Olympic javelin champion? In Timo Ruuskanen's performance, that will also be clear.
Confluence Between Rautavaara and Ruuskanen is also the life of a traveling artist. Rautavaara toured diligently singing from the 1940s to 1963. Ruuskanen accumulated 15,000 kilometers on domestic roads from last year's performance tours.
Please Horilan directed and premiered at Riihimäki theater last fall, the theme of going around was the starting point, but in the end meeting the audience became a big topic. It is also one central element of clown theater.
“Rautavaara's special skill was meeting people,” says Ruuskanen. “He sang to everyone, to the workers in the brush and to the gentlemen in Kämpsi.”
Ruuskanen wants to do the same.
Rautavaaran the story depicts the story of Finland, where a nation divided in the civil war unites during reconstruction, only to be divided again. Rautavaara experienced a split in his sports career in the war between the TUL of the Workers' Sports Union and the Finnish Gymnastics and Sports Association SVUL.
When writing the script for the show, Ruuskanen wanted to mirror the old dividing lines to today's bubbling.
“Nowadays, everyone is pushing their own thing, and no one wants to hear what others have to say. Tapsa was ready to face both the whites and the reds, he didn't agree to be a person of only one group.”
While making the show, Timo Ruuskanen has also considered aging.
Last Timo Ruuskanen, who turned 50 in While preparing it, he has been thinking about aging and its relationship with performance.
“When he was younger, Tapsa was still masculine, but as he got older, his presentation dropped and his presence deepened. He also made his best songs when he was a little older”, Ruuskanen analyzes Rautavaara's stages.
“The same thing happens with many performers. When you're younger you go with energy, when you're older you find more registers.”
Rautavaara died at the age of 64 after falling in the swimming pool.
Rautavaaran according to Ruuskanen, the monologue performance with songs is faithful to historical facts. However, at some point, “a quick story strikes in the spirit of Rautavaara”, he admits.
The last blessing for authenticity came when Rautavaara's children went to see the show last year at the Riihimäki theater.
“I received a beautiful letter of thanks from them. There were also a couple of small corrections. I said in the show that Rautavaara's wife Alice called her husband Tapsa. However, the children said that their mother always called him Tapio.”
Rautavaara – icon and person Theater Open doors 5.2.–27.4. The performances continue in the Riihimäki theater. Additional information: opentovet.fi.
Correction 7.2. 7:21 p.m.: Tapio Rautavaara was 64 years old when he died, not 63 years old as the story said earlier.
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