Review: Diivat

FARCE AS GUARANTEED WORK

Take a big pot, throw in two sixty-year-old comedy masters, Asko Sarkola and Esko Roine, director Neil Hardwick, a bunch of competent supporting actors, and drag comedy in the spirit of Piukat paikat to spice it up.

That’s what it was supposed to be, so in that sense, the sure bait of the Helsinki City Theatre’s upcoming Christmas party season, Diivat, is a piece of precision stuff. Its purpose is to entertain and laugh one hundred percent, and it can be said that the performance is mostly successful. The tuning phase of the first act is, however, slow and iron-bending at times, director Neil Hardwick could have put a little more forss into the farce, if the writer Ken Ludwig has really been stuck that much.
But once we get going, then we go and there is a real battle for the legacy of the widow Florence Snider, who is tormented by the bullying of a Tuscaloosa, in which lies and seduction, deception and naivety are the tools of the game.


So much to laugh about

In general, there is no point in explaining the plot of farces, such a messy tangles they always are, even though miraculously at the end they open up to a common bliss, where even those who have burned their fingers calmly settle for their fate.

The basic pillars of Divas are exactly right in this sense.
What can be explained now is that the primus motors are two British actors who are harping on to Shakespeare’s classic scenes, and who, on a tired American tour, are presented with an opportunity not to take advantage of.

The inheritance of the age-old manor owner awaits two missing relatives, who are unfortunately named Maxine and Stephanie, not Max and Steve, as the actors first realize. But there is a need for professionalism when our heroes dress up in women’s handles and go to the hall division. Of course, there are others, such as the greedy and closed-minded pastor Wooley from the small town of Tuscaloosa, Dr. Myers, aka Dr. Death, who seeks dividends through his son’s love affairs.

In these settings, we go on, we run at doors, misunderstandings are caused, complicated and shortened as much as we can, and of course, men dressed as women fall head over heels in love with beautiful young women. (By the way, Sari Salmela’s costumes already have funny touches in themselves.) That’s how it goes and you can squeeze laughter out of it, sometimes by squeezing it in a concrete way.

Skilled type makers

Farce is a theatre of typing and timing, and that’s where this Hardwick crew is at their best. Esko Roine and Asko Sarkola have practiced this sport so much that even these genderblender roles come straight from their spinal cord. Sarkola is an asset as Jack/Stephanie is controlled mimeness, while Roine as Leon/Maxinen is at her best when it comes to dropping snappy lines.

The main couple’s detachment is most powerlessly supported by Santeri Kinnunen as a crooked clergyman, and his reptilian movements alone speak of wickedness. Vappu Nalbantoglu is a delightful little girl Audrey, who floats on the wings of dreams in the confinedness of a small town.

So everything you need is in place in Diva, but you can say that there is nothing extra in it that would somehow make it stand out from the rest of the genre. Maybe that’s what we’ve been looking for, let’s give those looking for easy-to-digest entertainment a guaranteed moment of cheering in the middle of the polar night.