Review: Sufflören

The Sufflören at Lilla Teatern is an uplifting performance that breathes love for the theatre

The soufflér takes the floor in Lilla Teatern’s monologue performance with Joachim Wigelius in the lead role.

Below the stage at an institutional theatre, the soufflé (Joachim Wigelius) sits every evening. His task is to slip in unseen among the audience, and unseen and unheard, act as a lifeboat for the greats of the actors on stage.

He also cultivates an impressive professional knowledge of the kind that in its anachronism appears vaguely tragic as technical innovations constantly threaten to make him redundant.

The soufflér himself is a small and timid person with human dreams of esteem and greatness.

Slowly, he becomes embittered under the weight of the small humiliations that the outside world exposes him to.

Satisfying climax

At the same time, the play fundamentally exudes a love for the theatre. The theatre is like the interesting, different person in Uncle Vanya who appears and shines like the moon in the horrific boredom.

Andreas T Olsson’s intricate text abounds with such references to famous theatre pieces.

The references are used both to portray the protagonist’s love of art but also to support future developments in the plot.

And it will come in handy! Because when the performance has groped through a long sequence of such diminutive violations of the sommelier’s human dignity, I gradually begin to wonder when, like Knut Hamsun, he will join some notorious far-right party.

Then the gods from the theatre machine intervene and set everything right in an unexpectedly satisfying dramatic conclusion.

Sufflören is a pleasant and uplifting theatrical experience.