Review: Stepataan pois

LIFE IS FUN WHEN YOU DARE TO BREAK IT

Theatre director Asko Sarkola has an excellent sense of box office songs, as the latest comedy, Stepataan pois, which has just premiered, is also expected to be a solid audience success. It’s funny, insightful and spectacular, and of course, quite entertaining. Richard Harris’ play will blossom magnificently at the Helsinki City Theatre under the direction of Neil Hardwick.

The phrase “light communality” picked from the programme leaflet, which already has power in it, is particularly well suited to this day and in Finland, even though the award-winning play is already a decade and a half old and primarily characterises washable Brits.

Both tap dancing and, for example, step aerobics and many other sporty gym sports meet a wide range of needs in the lives of their enthusiasts. They improve not only physical fitness, but also the mind and thus the quality of life.

The sense of community is mostly quite superficial and people want to keep it that way. The façade is protected and sometimes downright false. The hobby also becomes a kind of social game, which can also bring pleasure.

The team held by Hardwick and choreographer Tarja Rinne is excellent. The roles offer an opportunity for loose interpretations, and they have also tackled it eagerly. The important thing is that you can sense the upward trend of the play all the time, the masks are taken off little by little. The audience is kept in suspense because the sugar is at the bottom.

I want to share these attributes with everyone, from the funny horrible Ulla Tapaninen to Miitta Sorvali, who develops art out of inhibition, or to Sanna-Kaisa Palo, who grieves life like a member of the Women’s League. Eija Vilpas also elicits many laughs, Hannele Lauri has a new kind of substance, Nora Rissanen has a childlike freshness. Aino Seppo and Leenamari Unho are both pretty and snappy and Jyrki Kovaleff is like a cuddly toy. Pirkko Hämäläinen as the leader of the tap group has style. Just listen to the replication, look at the mimicry and maybe that person was born to be a tap dancer.

It is precisely from the area to which the play’s title clearly refers that real surprises can be expected in the performance. So that only the big stages wouldn’t fight for this group yet. The rot of a comedian and this time an even more emphatically comedian, at least there is no harm in stage genres.

Good, Niilo and Tarja!

(caption: Stepataan pois is funny, insightful and spectacular, and at the same time, of course, quite entertaining.)