Review: Kinky Boots
REVIEW: Kinky Boots – A Musical with a Full Ten
Sometimes you have to give a ten. When everything is like something out of a textbook, but the moist corners of the eyes cloud the analysis. When we are at the heart of traditional awareness, but fresh and fresh. When not a single element in the whole cracks, but stands out as professionalism. When there is a message, but not rubbed in the face. In the case of a theatre that has the power of Lumo crossing the ramp, so that a play about overcoming prejudices gets everyone in the audience of the Helsinki City Theatre involved in the dance.
Kinky Boots’ story of a shoe factory in a declining industrial town, far from glamour and urban postmodernism with its tolerances, is based on a film based on a TV documentary based on true events.
Charlie Price (Petrus Kähkönen) inherits a factory that is on the verge of bankruptcy. A collision with drag queen Lola/Simon (Lauri Mikkola) leads to an attempt to save the factory by converting the production line into women’s boots that can withstand men’s weight. The secret is a reinforced iron rod inside the stiletto heel.
The inner strengths in a world that produces images of men and women are the content of the development stories, but fortunately through surprising twists and turns. The different layers have been sewn into a beautiful seam with director Samuel Harjanne’s pitch thread, and even the small supporting roles breathe in it like the main roles. The orchestra conducted by Eeva Konnu reliably produces the songs composed by Cindy Lauper from under the stage floor. Kinky Boots is also very dance-heavy even for a Broadway musical.
The musical has continued its triumph now six years after its Chicago premiere, the film already thirteen. But W.J. Brooks’ real-life shoe factory only got a short extension with its Divine collection. Cheap imports from Asia forced it to close its doors already a year after the TV documentary.