Review: Once (på svenska)

Lillan’s new musical manages to convey the magic of music

Already during the first notes of the prologue, it is a clear fall. Music plays the main role in Lilla Teatern’s musical Once and to convey its magic, they have assembled a top-class ensemble.

Once is one of the film world’s real Cinderella fairy tales in the zero zeros. From mini-budget and documentary touches to smash success and an Oscar for best song. Like so many, I was also captivated by John Carney’s film, by its strong music and by its intimate, almost fragile narrative approach.

The musical version has been performed all over the world and now has its Nordic premiere at Lilla Teatern, where the new director Jakob Höglund has once again conjured up a physical and aesthetic whole, where all art forms strive hand in hand towards a common goal. The performance is an impressive sample of ensemble work that has been honed down to the smallest detail.

In the musical version of Once , the music continues to play the main role and a certain do-it-yourself spirit remains. The lines are much more numerous than in the film and at times I can’t help but experience them as transport distances between the music sections. But the spoken posts offer some nice surprises and also deepen the characters a bit. What is completely unnecessary, however, is to depict otherness through stereotypes. I hope that one could eventually refrain from placing certain people in a box via exoticizing elements such as Slavic and Spanish tones, and here they do not add anything essential to the core of the performance.

Singing, acting, playing

Music is and remains Once’s strongest side. It’s punchy and well-made, with its feet firmly planted in the soil of roots music – everything is played organically by real people (even sound effects such as the sound of the waves).

Several songs are seemingly simple, such as the ingenious signature melody built up in C major with a few chords. Especially for those who are trying to fill Glen Hansard’s big shoes in the male lead, they are vocally demanding. Hansard wrote for himself, for a voice with an incredible range that offers both roaring primordial power and soft falsetto (there are certainly few who can spot the signature melody’s great septimal jump like the original).

In the fine ensemble Lilla Teatern has sifted out for this performance, multi-instrumentalism is just the beginning. Everyone sings and acts physically, playing dozens of instruments in turn.

Today’s wireless audio technology makes it possible, but it still feels like a generational shift, as if a different kind of artistry is encouraged today. Gone are the days when actors, singers and musicians had to stick to their own (and when you sometimes had to be nervous about whether certain actors would measure up as singers).

Here, everyone contributes at an astonishingly high level with what is required, whether it was playing the cello and dancing at the same time, but never as an end in itself, but always to serve the whole.

The string inserts are especially enjoyable – string instruments are extremely revealing and thus not the easiest to play from time to time. Already in the prologue they show a show of swing and joy of playing with a bunch of Irish songs. In other respects, too, the ensemble often paints the city of Dublin and the different environments.

Fine performances

Compared to the film, several of the supporting characters develop more in the musical and I am particularly drawn to Joachim Wigelius’ touching pappage statue and Robert Kock’s fascinating authority as a music merchant.

The main roles, the sibling souls, really demand their husband and woman, and here too they have managed to engage credible musician-actors. Both Emma Klingenberg and Tuukka Leppänen are the safety themselves and also fix the instrumental without any problems.

Leppänen does an excellent job in his first major role in Swedish and when he gets warmer in his clothes, he might find a little more unbrushed nuances in his local hero – vocally, I’m especially impressed when he pushes like a savage.

Among the other contributions to the whole, I especially note Tobias Zilliacus ‘ song lyrics, which, just like in Höglund’s and the gang’s Kalevala , go straight to the heart. The existence and non-existence of Finland-Swedish (songwriting) music is a complicated eternal discussion, but personally I place a clear order on this particular form of Finland-Swedish music: brave, direct, organic.