Review: Fantasticks

Musical delights at Helsinki City Theatre
Fantasticks is real theatre

The open-minded classic musical pleases with its performances, laid-back music and manages to create grand illusions from a small setting.

Fantasticks, which premiered on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila, reinvents the perception of the musical in a fresh way – not badly for a song that is, after all, the most performed of all time.

Fantasticks is a different kind of musical. Gone are the large sets, costumes and large choir scenes. Fantasticks has a small wooden stage and a coffin on the stage. The set is skilfully created with lights and a couple of sheets, which are tuned as the story progresses.

On an empty stage, Fantasticks proceeds on the actors’ terms. Theatre is being kicked into the air out of nowhere, right there in front of your eyes. It’s nice to watch, especially in a musical. The illusion of a complete, larger story can be created with the meager necessities that fit into one coffin: a great victory for theatre. At the same time, director Neil Hardwick has managed to keep his musical sinewy and rhythmically progressing.

Americans Tom Jones (not the singer) and Harvey Schmidt put together their musicals from exciting material. Shakespeare is quoted vividly, the actors are borrowed from the ancient tradition of Commedia dell’arte , in which artists play well-known old men, cunning servants and lovers in the square. And the dancing and playing is from the Broadway tradition.

Esko Elstelä, who translated the musical into Finnish, deserves a big thank you for his work. The performance runs with the help of the narrator, Sami Hokkanen, and the mute prop manager, Helena Haaranen. It works great, like in a circus. Clowning is performed by Mika Eirtovaara, it’s really worth seeing!

The story itself is a variant of Romeo and Juliet, an innocent fairy tale. Antti Timonen and Mia Hafrén play a lot of silly roles.

Fantasticks has a few handsome songs and good-natured parody dance scenes. In them, especially the fathers of the story, Jarkko Rantanen and Markku Huhtamo, succeed perfectly.

Fantasticks is not really a “musical of well-known melodies”, except for the very beautiful duet You Only. Instead, the music is skilfully written into a living fabric, and a small orchestra is brought into view on stage.

At the premiere, the playing leaning towards jazz made the audience nod leisurely in time.

The combination of piano, percussion, upright bass and harp brings out both sugary delicate and thunderous effects. Above all, however, the musical band swung loosely, like the entire Fantasticks.