HOMO SECUNDUS
(SECOND-RATE HUMAN / MARX'S REVENGE)

Theatre Telakka & Dance Theatre Minimi & Tsuumi Dance Theatre

(Marx's Revenge)

27.9.2019–

Language: Finnish, with English surtitles in Espoo City Theatre.
Duration: 2h 50min, with intermission.

Performances at:

Theatre Telakka
Espoo City Theatre

Kuopio City Theatre

Koko Theatre (Helsinki)

Short trailer & Long trailer.


HOMO SECUNDUS — MARX'S REVENGE is a theatre piece about the rich and the poor, about love — and what comes after human kind.

It's also about the communism: what does the word mean, what kind of utopia does it refer to and does it offer us any kind of practical tools for better living?

It was written by Miko Kivinen & Teemu Mäki and directed by Teemu Mäki. It has been produced by three Finnish theatres: Theatre Telakka, Dance Theatre Minimi and Tsuumi Dance Theatre.

The play is a mixture of drama theatre, contemporary dance, post-dramatic practises, documentary video and both live and recorded music.

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The main threats we face now are: the climate change, the 6. mass extinction, the collapse of labor market and the concentration of wealth & power into the hands of the richest 1 percent of humans.

Could Karl Marx save us now? Hard to tell, because he is dead. But what would he say and do now? And what kind of theatre would one of his dead disciples, Bertolt Brecht, make now? We presented these questions to both of them, by the means of telepathy. And got the answers. As a side order we also found the final and certain answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?"

—

The play's title refers to "human kind vol.2" in other words to the new and improved version of us, which might at some point take over. But the title also refers to "second-rate human", to the people that the shrinking labor market throws away. Thirdly it refers to the human kind, which seems to be making the same mistakes again and again, only worse, and thus fails to reach its own norms of "normality".

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Don’t suck a tycoon’s hose
Beware of Stalin’s ploys
    Everything must be shared
Free every slave
Put the oppressors in the grave
    Out of the ashes, that which is shared
Forgive everything
None shall be a plaything
    Illnesses are shared
Don’t get stuck on things
Don’t hang yourself on power’s strings
    Loneliness is shared
Don’t demand immortality
Praise the soil’s generosity
    To soil, everything is shared
You must step up
Trust in equality’s buildup
    Accept the challenge shared
Learn from the flower
How to give and devour
    Because everything is shared

(Karla, in a rap workshop at a coming-of-age-camp last summer.)

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Director: Teemu Mäki
Scriptwriters: Miko Kivinen & Teemu Mäki

The performers:

Miko Kivinen
Salla Korja-Paloniemi
Marja Myllylä

Riikka Puumalainen
Tanjalotta Räikkä

Marja Myllylä celebrates her 50-year long acting career with HOMO SECUNDUS. Congrats!

Choreography: Riikka Puumalainen
Sound Design: Antti Puumalainen
Light Design: Nadja Räikkä

Video: Teemu Mäki
Scenography: Mirkka Nyrhinen, Nadja Räikkä
Costumier: Mirkka Nyrhinen

Dressmaker: Tiina Helin

Technician: Perttu Sinervo

Production:
Theatre Telakka
Dance Theatre Minimi
Tsuumi Dance Theatre

PG 13

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MUSIC

These compositions are performed live:

Kuolio (Miko Kivinen): Hän teki itsarin, Miksi pelkäät rakkautta?, Lapsityöläisen laulu, Ei ole vielä aika kuolla, Kukaan ei välitä susta, Paha enkeli, Onko kenelläkään hyvä olla? (2017–2019).

Eero Ojanen: Olen kommunisti (1974, lyrics by Nazim Hikmet).

And these compositions are played from recordings:

Muslimgauze: Aziz Al Mufarr (2000).

Señor Coconut: The Robots (2000, orig. Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos, 1978).
Dmitri Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues #2, #4 and #12 from 24 Preludes and Fugues (1950–1951), played by Tatiana Nikolajeva.

Terre Thaemlitz: Elevatorium (1995).

...and incidental music by Antti Puumalainen, made for this play.

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FUNDING

The Finnish Cultural Foundation.


THANKS

Espoo City Theatre, TTT-Theatre, Crossfit Tampere, Näty, Wardrobe of Kuopio City Theatre, Aila and Simo Sinervo, Terhi Hartikainen.

 
FEEDBACK

Press (in Finnish only):


PERFORMANCE HISTORY & FORTHCOMING GIGS

Premiere: September 27, 2019, Theatre Telakka, Tampere, Finland.