Review: Min fantastiska väninna

I was really looking forward to the premiere of this play! My amazing friend brings Elena Ferrante to the stage of the impressive Naples series. Four wonderful books have been condensed into a three-and-a-half-hour play. We, Ferrante fans, experienced an emotional reunion with the main couple of the book series, Lenú Greco and Lila Cerullo. The other characters in the Neapolitan Quarter are also involved, but in clear supporting roles.

The premiere of My Amazing Friend was at Lilla Teatern on Thursday 15.9.2022. Airi and I recorded our mood immediately after the applause into a podcast episode. Click the arrow in the image to listen or directly from Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

The story of fantastic girlfriends

My amazing friend follows the events of the Naples book series. The main points have been picked up and adapted for the stage. When Lenú is on stage at Ischia or Lila at the sausage factory, memories of scenes from the books flood in and complete the whole.

Heli from Kirsinbookclub had gone to see the performance without reading the books. He said that he kept up with the story well, for example, with the help of the background texts of the stage, which included the years.

Kirsi’s Book Club has discussed each book in the series, and the best way to get an idea of the events of the book series is to read the stories in order:

1. My Brilliant Friend, Childhood and Adolescence – by Varpu Olsonen
2. The story of a new name – written by Airi Vilhunen
3. Those who leave, those who stay – written by Airi Vilhunen
4. The Story of a Lost Child – written by Kirsi Ranin

The main couple of the play, Lenú and Lila

I met Pia Andersson and Cecilia Pauli, who play the main couple, at the theatre’s autumn info. Already at first sight, I fell in love with them, they corresponded excellently to my images of Lenú and Lila that I created based on the book series.

The impression only strengthened when I saw them on stage. In our Podi episode, Airi highlights how actors were extremely believable in their roles at different ages.

Here is a quote from our blog article, which is also well suited for introducing a theatre performance:

Lila is Lenu’s mirror. She compares everything she does, her skills and her appearance to Lila, and feels that she is left in second place. Lilac is smarter, more beautiful, more capable. The story of the book progresses in turns: Lenu succeeds in school and learns new things, and soon Lila shows that she can do the same things and better. Lenu admires and loves Nino and feels that she gets love in return, but soon Nino is completely in love with Lila. The friendship of young women sometimes cools down and the friends separate from each other only to return to being close again.” (Airi in the blog post of the story of the new name )

Riikka Oksanen’s fantastic direction

I was there to see the open rehearsals of My Fantastic Friend in August at the Night of the Arts. Now it was great to see how the scenes we saw then had developed. All in all, we can thank director Riikka Oksanen’s vision of how the extensive entity has been brought to the stage in an excellently controlled manner and without a sense of urgency.

It was only afterwards that I read that Riikka’s previous direction was KOM-teatteri’s Lou Salomé, which I also loved (but about which I didn’t write about in the blog) and before that, the same theatre’s The Boy, which was a heart-touching performance. How had I not realised before, or even when I met at the Riga City Theatre’s autumn info, that she was the woman behind the performances I was talking about? Now follow Riikka Oksanen, I will no longer miss any of the works she directed!

Thumbs up and a strong recommendation

At the end of the Podi episode, we give the performance a thumbs up. Airi had a little reservation, the tip of her fingernail down, but I got both thumbs up and toes up. Of course, small shortcomings could be listed, but what about them, when my own experience in the stands was so strong: BRAVO!

I loved the book series, I didn’t like the TV series, and I found Lillan’s play charming and touching. The same question is still open, which I wrote in my blog post about the fourth book in the Naples series, The Lost Child:

“The question still in my mind is who is the ‘great friend’. Is it Elena who has risen to become a well-known and respected author? Elena, who has graduated from university, has achieved an independent position that visits current affairs programs to comment on the status of women and highlights the actions of the mafia that ruled the block.Or is it Lila, the talented and capricious woman who finished her studies in a secondary school with Pippi Longstocking and Lisbeth Salander? Lilac, who does not bend in the face of adversity, but stubbornly continues even if it is not always worth it. Lilac, who can enchant everyone if she wants to, but most of the time she doesn’t.”