Review: ”Suurenmoista!”

WONDERFULLY MAGNIFICENT!


“Real life is overrated. Having your head in the clouds is so much more fun!” says RIITTA HAVUKAINEN in Peter Quilter’s comedy “MAGNIFICENT!”
Directed by Neil Hardwick and premiered on 19 October, the new film for the big stage is a simply comfortingly gentle and even sharply funny play for all the “ugly ducklings” and all of us who have not dared to do what we would have liked to do in our lives.

“WONDERFUL!” tells the story of FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS(1868-1944), whose passion in life was singing.
For everyone else, singing was a kind of abomination, because Florence really couldn’t sing.
But Florence still had the opportunity to fulfill her big dream and live her life singing.
Florence experienced the peak of her dreams when she even got to sing at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1944 for 3000 spectators. Tickets for this concert were also fought over and sold on the black market. Florence became a star with a peculiar personality, whose recordings are still collector’s rarities today.

The play is about amazing courage, friendship and love.
As Florence’s English boyfriend, PERTTI KOIVULA is a bit of a boastful gentleman, but still clearly loving and appreciating Florence. JOUKO KLEMETTILÄ , who has to accompany Florence, charms with his facial expressions, and even though the accompanist does not understand Florence’s motives at first, he also learns to genuinely love Florence.

HEIDI HERALA’s succulent Mexican chef Maria is not lacking in fire and puffin, and the role is also telling, even if not with her lines.
EIJA VILPAS is making a fuss on stage as her usual friend who has fallen in love with Florence. And as a supporting character , EEVA-LIISA HAIMELIN is a rude and mean critic of Florence.

The costumes were also very entertainingly fun (even the real Florence made her strange costumes herself!) and, above all, the sets! It’s great that the City Theatre uses all its capacity every now and then and moves the elements around the stage, and the whole time of the play is not spent in the same backstage.

Riitta Havukainen plays one of the roles of her life as Florence. She seems to internalize the American aunt strongly, both mentally and physically. And I have to admire and cheer from the bottom of my heart when Havukainen as Florence sings so blissfully genuinely and liberatedly skilfully wrong. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Queen of the Night’s aria from the opera The Magic Flute is still playing in my head hours later…. and wonderfully next to the note!