Review: Pieni merenneito

ENCHANTED BY THE DEPTHS – THE LITTLE MERMAID

On Wednesday, I saw a clip of the Helsinki City Theatre’s new major musical The Little Mermaid on Yle news. How great everything looked! The underwater world looked real, everything was wonderfully colourful and Ariel swimming in the water moved smoothly up and down the stage with her tail.

With my heart pounding, I watched the news clip, and a sweet smile appeared on my face. Tomorrow would be the premiere of the musical, and I would get to see HKT’s big investment live. If only I still had the patience to sleep over one night!

The last time I went to the theater was to see the hit musical Kinky Boots and I loved it. That musical, which turned out to be a hit with audiences, was something I had never seen before in Finland. I knew that The Little Mermaid would also be something big, but I was a little nervous about whether anything would feel like anything anymore after the exceptional energy of Kinky Boots.

So what happened? Did the Little Mermaid feel anywhere? Oh YES!

If you want to be amazed, infatuated, overwhelmed, excited, empowered, cry and laugh, The Little Mermaid is your thing! The Helsinki City Theatre’s theatre technology, which was recently renewed, made it possible to do completely incomprehensible things on stage.

Especially the first show, which mostly took place below sea level, made me gasp so many times in amazement that I was already completely exhausted during the intermission. The first act also brought me to tears a couple of times, and only because everything that happened on stage was so beautiful, skillful, wonderful, precise and finished.

“How on earth was that done? Was that a projection, or was there a real person in it? What’s going on here,” my husband and I whispered to each other a few times. We still don’t understand how a few transitions were made, and that left us both bothered. I might have to go see the performance again, and be super careful!

The Little Mermaid is familiar to many as a story, and its theme is perfect for today. How does it feel when you don’t feel like you belong? Many of us sometimes feel like a mermaid who is not at home in the sea, but wishes she was something else, somewhere else.

Although the message of the story is important, I think the appreciation of difference and the importance of finding one’s own place was brought out more deeply in Kinky Boots. I was so delighted with the set design and amazing costumes of The Little Mermaid that in the end, the story itself didn’t feel in my heart. Good triumphs over evil (of course!), and prejudices are made to be overturned. These things became clear from the story.

HKT’s The Little Mermaid is all in all dazzlingly wonderfully executed, and deserves a really warm recommendation. Go, fall in love and be empowered! You no longer have to go all the way to Broadway to get overwhelmingly wonderful theatre experiences. We know how to do it here as well. Dear Finland, dear HKT!