Review: Otetaas toiset!

Helsinki City Theatre’s Otetaas toiset! is sure to make you laugh during the Christmas party season.

Tickling Take Others Again! is based on the book Fair and Warmer by American playwright Avery Hopwood. The work, which premiered in 1915 at the Eltinge Theatre in New York, is a classic that still makes you laugh today.

Helsinki City Theatre’s Otetaas toiset! Set in New York in 1929, the time before the Great Stock Market Crash. In a private apartment located at the height of a skyscraper, couples who live as neighbors prepare to spend a night at home. Bored with her marriage and especially her husband, Laura Bartlett (Jonna Järnefelt) announces that she is going to the opera with her ex-fiancé Philip Evans (Eppu Salminen). Jack Wheeler (Jari Pehkonen), a neighboring couple, also announces that he is going to the club. The quieter halves of the couples, Billy Bartlett (Jouko Klemettilä) and Blanny Wheeler (Heidi Herala), remain at the evening gathering.

These neighbours, who have a calm attitude towards their lives, feel betrayed and therefore decide to tear up properly. Completely unaccustomed to alcohol, they mix cocktails from all the food in the bar cart. Drinks consumed on an empty stomach cause an expected reaction in our heroes. As the night progresses, the spouses arrive home and the ingredients for the farce are ready. In the second half of the play, we wake up to the next morning, when the events of the previous night are investigated and explained. There are still plenty of surprises behind every door in the morning.

THE CLASSIC PLAY is breathed a whole new lease of life by virtuoso actors. Both the Bartletts and the Wheelers are incompatible couples, but in a believable way. The frustration of the temperamental and sarcastic Laura and her thirst for old salt is palpable with Jonna Järnefelt’s performance, and Jouko Klemettilä’s Billy is infuriatingly tired. Heidi Herala’s incredible expressiveness and physical prowess bring to life Blanny, who has moved from the countryside to the countryside. Jari Pehkonen’s Jack and Eppu Salminen’s Phillip are style examples of two different fiddler characters. Marie-Claire, a French maid at the back of the set, is a delightful bystander and commentator of the farce. Vappu Nalbantoglu’s hilarious maid character speaks with a strong French accent without much surprise at the host family’s escalating frenzy. The actors’ chemistry seems to work well on stage and the joy of doing is conveyed to the audience.

The era of the 1920s has been charmingly brought to the Arena stage of the Helsinki City Theatre under the direction of Arn-Henrik Blomqvist. Antti Mattila’s set design and Sari Salmela’s costumes support each other together with a soundscape based on late 1920s jazz designed by Eero Niemi. The whole is complemented by Ville Aaltonen’s lighting design, which beautifully highlights the changes in the time of day.