Review: Päiväni murmelina
My Day as a Groundhog continues the series of wonderful musicals at the Helsinki City Theatre
Helsinki City Theatre will once again cap off the theatre autumn with a top musical.
Samuel Harjanne did it again! The director has raised the Helsinki City Theatre to international musical level with Kinky Boots (2018) and The Little Mermaid (2019), and the new My Day as a Groundhog continues the same, high-quality line.
My Day as a Groundhog is familiar to many as the movie that Bill Murray unforgettably starred as celebrity meteorologist Phil Connors. The film was released in 1993, but the musical comedy written by its screenwriter Danny Rubin and Tim Minchin , who is responsible for the music and lyrics, premiered in London in 2016 and is set in the present day.
Connors ends up in the small town of Punxsutawney to report whether or not the marmot Phil sees his shadow. The shadow would mean that the winter would continue. Punxsutawney, Phil the marmot and the whole tradition are real, even though the story is otherwise a figment of the imagination.
The groundhog tradition provides the framework for a plot in which the rather unpleasant and self-centered Connors wakes up in the morning over and over again to the same marmot day – even though it is the first time for everyone else. That is the beginning of a journey in which Connors’ approach and range of emotions range from self-interest and hedonism to loss of hope and, finally, with the gentle example of her producer Rita Hanson, to a desire to do good for others as well.
Lari Halme takes the pot
The excellent Lari Halme is almost non-stop in the lead role and brings more physicality and physical comedy to the iconic role, where even small gestures are well thought out and support the whole. The energetic Maria Lund is lively as the endlessly cheerful Rita Hanson, who just tries to do her job with honor despite the TV star’s erratic behavior.
At the City Theatre, the set design tends to be top-notch, and even now, Punxsutawney comes to life with it. Beforehand, I wondered how the film’s montages, for example, of constantly waking up to the same day, would succeed on the stage of the theatre, but the matter has been solved in an inventive way, and as if by magic, Lari Halme always manages to get back to bed before waking up, despite the fast pace! The thinking cap has also been firmly on his head in the chase scene, where Connors and his drunken buddy escape from the police in a marmot-powered car.
The importance of lighting is emphasized especially in the darkest episode of the musical, when Connors no longer has the energy to live the same day over and over again and seeks a final solution to the matter with shadows on his heels.
An exhilarating comedy leaves you in a good mood
The coronavirus period makes the musical particularly topical. Many remote workers have now been able to personally experience what it feels like when the days repeat themselves even month after month. Even though My Day as a Groundhog is a comedy, it evokes thoughts in the viewer about what each of us would do if we could live the same day over and over again and there was endless time. And in real life, how do you use your time and how do you value it? Every day is the last for someone, but is the time lived spent on living or thinking about when?
Despite the range of emotions, My Day as a Groundhog is above all funny. It manages to combine escapism and relatable realism. The plot itself is fantasy, but its themes from being trapped to wanting to grow as a person are familiar to everyone.
Joyful crowd scenes and the charisma of the main couple make the musical fly and the action only gets better towards the end. After the performance, the viewer also has a great feeling.
During this time, it is impossible to write a theatre review without taking the pandemic into account. Many people are probably wondering if they dare to go to the theatre now during the coronavirus pandemic, and I was nervous about it beforehand. However, we felt quite safe on site, as the majority of the audience wore masks, safety distances were often reminded and the stands were more spacious than usual.