Review: Ladykillers – Sarjahurmaajat
The dark-toned comedy Ladykillers had its Finnish premiere on the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.
The thrilling Ladykillers is based on the British film The Ladykillers (1955), produced by Earling Studios, which depicts the post-war period in England. The play, which cultivates wild humour, premiered in 2011 at The Liverpool Playhouse in the UK. Ladykillers is a black farce about a criminal gang plotting a total heist from the rented room of the sweet Mrs. Wilberforce.
The lovely widow Wilberforce (Pirkko Mannola) is a slightly suspicious old woman who runs the authorities sometimes because of suspicions of Nazi infiltration, sometimes because of little green men. The lady rents out an extra room in her house and she gets a gentlemanly dude, Professor Marcus (Asko Sarkola), as her tenant. Soon, Marcus’ colorful gang gathers under the roof of Wilberforce to plan an all-out bank robbery while performing a quintet that plays classical music for the widow as a hobby. The silly Mrs. Wilberforce unknowingly puts a spanner in the works of master criminals.
A stage full of star charisma
The cast of the play is well-known and certainly familiar to most people. The director is Neil Hardwick and in addition to Mannola and Sarkola, the cast includes Mikko Kivinen, Risto Kaskilahti, Rauno Ahonen and Sauli Suonpää as the foxes of the criminal gang. Eija Vilpas and Hannele Lauri, among others, will also be on stage to delight in the roles of mature women.
Wilberforce, played by Pirkko Mannola, is wonderful in all its silliness, because everyone recognizes the character traits of a widow and the courage brought by age. Professor Marcus’s monologue-like lines are quite verbal, but at some point they start to get a little numbing next to the taciturn accomplices. The story presents the villains and their backgrounds in a very human way. For this reason, the unexpectedly wild slapstick scenes in the story feel almost dramatic, as the viewer feels compassion for the villains.
Cinematic action
The staging is incredible. The black and white world of Ladykillers is coloured by quite colourful characters, and the set design supports that. The rotation mechanism of the large stage is used together with the cityscape backdrops that move at the front of the stage. Together with the lights and soundscape, the movement creates downright cinematic cuts and transitions, as well as dreamlike images cut in between: a passing train and the pulse of an English city. The stage mechanics are not just eye candy and icing on the cake, but they bring the events of the widow’s apartment closer to the viewer and enable the story’s wild cinematic twists and turns to be realized on stage.
All in all, Ladykillers is a high-quality play on the big stage. The first half of the play progresses slowly. After the intermission, the train pushes forward at full steam and the turns follow one another. However, I and my companion had the feeling that the play was a reserved farce. The magnificent and professional cast would certainly have mastered even the bolder and faster-paced twists of the dark-toned comedy bravely.