Review: High School Musical

THE BIG VERSION OF SMALL FINLAND

High SChool Musical is not a rustic cousin version of the American show, but just as sparkling and fast-paced.


Spectacular and skilful – just like the original film musical itself – is High School Musical, produced by the Helsinki City Theatre for Peacock. Actually, the Helsinki version is like a version of the original dubbed into Finnish – and this is both a praise and a reproach.
So it’s not a country cousin version, but just as sparkling and fast-paced as its premise. The Finnish education and hobby system seems to produce brilliant young people for singing, dancing and playing, and large productions attract the best performers.
There also seem to be enough willing people: 900 young people showed up for the open High School Musical audition held at the Helsinki City Theatre in December. The upcoming Idols trial will also attract a record number of aspiring singers. So the desire of a young Finn to perform is still strong.

The reproach then . The Helsinki version does not differ from the original except in the way it is presented. The theatrical version is necessarily different from the film, because the transitions and cuts are different from the film.
In fact, Marco Bjurström’s direction has an insightful use of space, which makes the film version seem rather unimaginative in its execution. In other words, the director has been able to make use of the means of theatre and has not been trapped by them.
But when it’s basically the same performance as the original – only the language is different. Of course, this is what living in a format world is like, but why on earth do we need all the identical versions of the same thing.

But I think my Pre-School theatre troupe wasn’t too wrong when they said in the midst of the massive applause at the premiere that it was a great success.
And in the musical, you ask for the right thing. Why on earth do we humans, both young and old, so greedily compartmentalize ourselves and each other and then look at ourselves and each other through these compartments.