Review: Tenorit liemessä

In the farce of the arena, everything is in place: lots of doors, falling pants and crazy people

A good farce is such a fast-paced skill that it doesn’t help to lie in the fire. Thus, the Helsinki City Theatre has pressed straight to the sequel without going through the basic work. Ken Ludwig’s comedy “The Loan Tenor”, which has been very popular in many provincial theatres (including Lahti, Kouvola, Savonlinna, Mikkeli, Tampere Theatre), has not  been performed at the City Theatre, but its sequel “Tenors in the Broth” has been the first to be tackled in Finland, even in the entire Nordic region.

And while watching the misadventures of tenors, their wives, mistresses, daughters, managers and piccolas, questions about the backgrounds or previous encounters of these people never popped up in my mind. The farce now is now, and the future is three seconds away unpredictable – five of the past.

Ken Ludwig probably knows that too, most of whose comedies have been performed in the heart of the theatre world on Broadway or in London’s West End. This latest of his, the hilariously Shakespearean titled “Comedy of Tenors”, premiered in Cleveland, USA, about a year and a half ago and has since taken over theaters around the world. This is not surprising, as the story has a universal “message”.

Saariluoma passes its test by fire

Jaakko Saariluoma, who has a diverse comedy and entertainment career on stage, film, TV entertainment and, in recent years, especially stand-up gigs, makes his debut as a tenor director at the Helsinki City Theatre.  Farce is known to be a demanding genre; In order for it to make you laugh at the ruin, you need the rhythm and timing to be perfectly right. If you don’t feel like it almost to death, you’ve been left halfway or failed. In the arena, breathtaking and dripping are often close in the most intense phases, so Saariluoma’s trial by fire should be considered a successful one.

The beginning is a bit slow, though. The preparation of the confusion pattern seems to be too thorough, and the positioning of the characters in situations prone to humiliation is even lingering. But when it tears, the avalanche is breathtaking.

You should never open up the plot twists too far in such comedies, the spoiled farce is completely pointless to watch. I dare to reveal that the main roles are played by three tenor divas and their nerve-racked managers, who are in Paris in 1936 preparing for the concert of the century. The opera stars, who are passionately devoted not only to their art but also to their women, start to heat up for each other, their manager, family members and a little bit of the whole world for various reasons, and finally the realization of the concert begins to be in the balance – a few hours before the hour…

An ensemble of actors who dominate amusement

Saariluoma has directed some of the best comedy forces at the Helsinki City Theatre, and it has been good for him to trust them as he himself is a little less experienced with the farce genre.

The whole crew is worthy of trust: Riitta Havukainen, Jonna Järnefelt, Taneli Mäkelä, Eero Saarinen, Santeri Kinnunen, Iikka Forss and also the ensemble’s soon-to-be-thirty-year-old  “junior” Oona Airolatake over the reverse treatment immediately. They ramp on the four doors with the required precision, are in just the right places at the wrong times, are caught in amazement on every possible and impossible trap, fall from balconies, etc. etc. For once, Eero Saarinen gets to shine in the lead role in the City Theatre’s comedy, as it were, and even in a double role. She takes all the joy out of both opera diva Tito Merelli and hotel piccolo Babbo and shares it with the audience.

Jonna Järnfelt, who is aristocratic by nature, is always a treat to watch in such comedies: the more noble the character, the more violently you are disgraced. This is also the case now, even though his Russian diva Tatyana Racón tries to keep her façade together until the very end.

Iikka Forss, who has been part of the City Theatre’s staff for six years, has become an excellent farcist alongside the veterans.

Farce is a stage genre that is unnecessarily underestimated and classified as of little value. Helsinki City Theatre’s Tenors in the Broth shows that when the basics are mastered and quality criteria are met, theatre with high entertainment value is created. Such a thing has nothing to be ashamed of compared to royal dramas and family hell tableaux.