Review: Diivat

COMEDY OF DISGUISE AND SEXUAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS

The City Theatre’s Diva farce counts down its power to the rapid role changes of skilled actors

The Helsinki City Theatre’s annual farce is a new American hit, Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies. The play offers brilliant female roles to the “leaders on stage” duo Asko Sarkola and Esko Roine.

When the starting point of the story is the blowing gig of two Shakespeare actors who are still exploring the periphery and have worn out their tours, laughter is torn onto the stage from the merciless backyards of the theatre. The theatrical quotes from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Epiphany Eve run as parallel themes to farce foolishness, so that we are at the roots of the performing arts! Right?

As a theatre, the doubling diva and the charisma of popular actors may have increased the popularity of Ludwig’s play everywhere it has been performed.

Helsinki will not be ashamed in that respect, as the City Theatre has local “divas” to throw on stage, in addition to the directors, Satu Silvo or Santeri Kinnunen , who are rarely seen on stage these days, and Marjatta Raita, who plays the vital grandmother.

The farce is not a great breather, but it is witty in its kind and especially in the second half it is even sparklingly fast spinning of wrong entrances.

The plot elements are feather-light and based on gender misunderstandings. The laughter is kicked off in the name of an extraordinary gig invented by the actors from a newspaper report. The comedy is tied to the masculine charm and love affairs of millionaires.

To make it even more funny, the old lady of steel who leaves an inheritance refuses to die. The reward is still a happy ending. The actor has also earned a home, neighbours and a wife.

But nothing new under the sun. For example, Billy Wilder’s Dirty Places or Brandon Thomas’ classic Charley’s Aunt are better models for farce, and the traces also lead to Ludwig’s successful play Shakespeare in Hollywood.

The traditional stage shots of palm trees and moonlight hissing in Pennsylvania evenings take us to the original locations. In the shadows of the operetta stairs, which make it easier to stumble, you wrap your dresses under your arm and sway around in high heels.

On the fly, the double roles that change from men to women or vice versa offer Asko and Esko plenty to do, which is sweetened by Satu Silvo’s radiant enchantress, actress-worshipping cousin Meg.


Neil Hardwick has directed the entire concoction into a harmlessly smooth theater, where laughter is elicited by disguises and false kisses.

The first half freezes to bloom on the sausage-and-egg line of ambiguity. The latter part raises the tempo much.

In particular, Sarkola’s rubbery mime interpretation of the role of ingénue as a potential heiress shows what a drag queen we have lost in the theatre director. Roine’s Maxine is a bit more masculine, but phenomenally fast in her wig changes.

Kinnunen’s ankle pastor, Pekka Strang’s clumsy suitor Butch, Eero Saarinen’s doctor and Vappu Nalbantoglu’s nimbly self-conscious girl next door complete the gallery of characters, which flutters lightly in the directions required by the plot.

For comparison, it should be mentioned that the big stage of the Stockholm City Theatre also moves in the atmosphere of the end times of Shakespeare actors. The long and even boring interpretation of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser is an absolute box office magnet for the theatre.

It’s just that the genre of theatre is very different. The golden age of the great actor, which has already gone down in history, is finally cut short by the bombing of London in 1944.

I’m not sure if Helsinki has to boost cash flows along the lines of musicals and farces either. So be it if it is the only way to make possible the premiere of Ari-Pekka Lahti’s heart-scratching and impressive Heartland , which will be performed in Pasila.

It’s not easy to be a Shakespeare actor!

Their weathered charisma could have been feasted on at the beginning of the Divas by adding mud. Now the starving couple, measuring their lives from the windows of the train, were very stylized.

Alongside the glamour of discount stores, a touch of the actor’s brutal everyday life could have been added, carried by Ludwig’s advice: Learn the text and don’t bump into the scenes. That is what this farce confirms.