Review: Lainahöyhenissä

Drag musical – hilarious stuff

The story of the musical Borrowed Feathers is certainly familiar to almost everyone who seeks out the Arena stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. Anyone who is even slightly interested in theatre has not avoided coming across a version made from its source.

La Cage aux Folles was first performed as a play in Paris in 1973 and premiered as a Broadway musical ten years later. Many people probably remember the play as Mike Nichols’ film Birdcage (1996).

The story in the musical is simple. The owner of the nightclub and cabaret queen Zaza is a gay couple. The former has a son from a previous relationship. Events set her intentions to marry her, as the boy wants to marry a girl.

Unfortunately, the girl’s father is an ultra-conservative. There is no way you can reveal to him the reality of your daughter’s chosen family. After all, it will be revealed in the end. The conservative is shown the place of the closet and the ingredients for a boisterous but happy ending.

There is no doubt about the message of the script. It is about love, prejudice and overcoming them. In its own territory, the play always fights for the acceptance of an excellent topical topic, inequality. The means used are the means of a musical – humour, in the realisation of which the appearance of men as women always works.

A drag musical should be judged by means, and based on what the viewer’s mind is after a show of less than three hours.

As a director, Neil Hardwick has resorted to two things: great music and pacing. The six-member dance group responsible for keeping the pace is skilled in dancing, but singing should be left to others.

The musical expertise of the main actors, the performers of the gay couple – Pertti Koivula and Santeri Kinnunen – is strong. The latter also has the burden of getting into the satins. It went well, and there was no routine performance, even though it wasn’t the first time Kinnunen was on stage in women’s clothes.

The Arena stage is well suited as an arena for such a musical. The atmosphere is suitably dense.

Special mention: The program was made with piety. It’s storage stuff.