Review: Omaka par
When right becomes really wrong
If you don’t like comedy, you might as well look for a theater house other than Lilla Teatern. But if you feel like the humor genre, the new play Omaka par is an example of comedy at its best.
As usual, everything stands or falls with the script, direction and acting. And when it works as well as in Neil Simon’sclassic from 1965, you are almost forced against your will to fly the white flag instead of groping for the plague flag.
Odd couples, or in the original language The Odd couple, have been shown countless times on theater stages but also on film, where such big names as Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have played the main roles. When Pekka Strang and Sampo Sarkola at Lillan receive the baton, at least one thing is certain: the radar duo is at home on their mother’s street.
There are many who snort as soon as you mention the word comedy. Then you should at least be honest enough to admit that good comedy is difficult to make. The timing must work and the lines must absolutely not be mumbled away or expressed without gesture. No, every gem must be managed with both well-accented gestures, art breaks and an inexhaustible arsenal of crazy moves. An amateur theatre group would therefore most likely have had enormous difficulties in coping with what Lillan’s actors perform.
Classic mismatch
Mismatched Couples is the classic story of two diametrically opposed people who start to get on each other’s nerves to the point that you soon feel the weathering of evil sudden death around the corner. In fact, it doesn’t matter to the point that neither double diapers nor a battery of potty would have been a cure.
And no wonder. Pekka Strang in the role of the husband Felix, who has been thrown out of the home, is not only sensitive, easily offended and tearful, but also a completely cleaning-crazy pedant. This is something that the lax, careless and divorced Oscar has to try carefully when he offers his friend a place to stay at home in his fancy apartment.
Soon the poker nights with the guys (Robert Kock, Peter Kanerva, Peter Ahlqvist and Marc Svahnström) are a thing of the past, and when Felix isn’t clattering in the kitchen, he runs around with the vacuum cleaner – proof enough that excessive cleanliness is the closest raw neighbor to madness.
No marathon
When the duo then gets dinner visits from the house’s two hen-like but oh-so-adorable neighbor girls (Nelly Hristova and Heidi Lindén) – two ladies you would have loved to have stumbled upon a little more often during your shy teenage years – the irritation seems to turn into fuss, but no. The pain gets worse and the right thing is really wrong, only to finally escalate into a typical devious ending for the farce.
In contrast to the confusion comedy’s marathon of doors and constant attempts to hide the true state of things, Mismatched Couple is a comedy garnished with inspiring madness. And the apple in the pig’s mouth, this is evident in the interplay and stage chemistry of Sampo Sarkola and Pekka Strang.
The other, hard-tested guys in the poker gang also invite spontaneous laughter. Admittedly: those who seek depth and message can look for it in the moon, but the happy sun of humour, it radiates from a clear blue sky.