Review: Pieni merenneito

The Little Mermaid / Helsinki City Theatre

First of all, I have to say that get your ticket to The Little Mermaid now. They are guaranteed to sell like hot rocks and if you feel that it is expensive, every euro is worth it and you are guaranteed to get your money’s worth.

This next post could also be acknowledged with one word, and that word would be WAU written in the largest possible font. I already had a strong feeling that some breathtaking visual blast and unprecedented wow effects were coming, but despite that, I was completely surprised and afterwards I felt like I had really fallen off the boat and drifted into the middle of a supple school of fish somewhere among corals and all kinds of marine creatures. I wonder when I got the flu the very next day, despite the heat, I managed to catch a cold. That’s what you get when you immerse yourself in the underwater world completely! So I’m in a fever as I’m writing this, so let the small excesses go down to that…

For those heading to the premiere, the dress code was “Under the Sea Glamour” and I was extremely annoyed that I don’t own any sea-themed dresses or anything like that. Well, during my morning workday, my husband had made jewelry-like things out of plastic creatures bought from Sea Life with pins, tape and a staple gun, and so I had a stingray on my neck attached to my shirt and a starfish in front of me, and my companion was accompanied by an octopus. If there had been power glue, I would have glued everything to my face and pretended to be Bill Turner straight out of the hold of The Flying Dutchman (those who have seen the Pirates of the Caribbean movie remember) – and this made me wonder what kind of a revelation the tentacle-faced Davy Jones would be on stage! On the way to the stands, we also grabbed some glitter in the corners of our eyes (the red color wasn’t the most sensible idea, because when I got home at night I looked like I had been badly fisted when the mascaras were on my cheeks and flakes too).

I was 19 years old when Disney’s The Little Mermaid cartoon came out, and I can’t remember where and when I might have seen the movie for the first time. I’ve mainly remembered Ariel’s red hair, the playful Sebastian crab and the sea witch Ursula – something though. A year ago in the spring, I was sobbing in the auditorium of The Lord of the Rings in Turku, just because I will probably never see anything so wonderful again. I didn’t know then… Now, in the auditorium, I was moved to tears during the first few minutes, when the magic of the theater swept me away. I forgot about projections and similar gimmicks – there we were among jellyfish and fish, and so I was properly carried away for the next few hours and in the bubble rain at the end. Perfect experience!

The beautiful-voiced Ariel (Sonja Pajunoja) doesn’t feel at home under the sea and she has collected a nice collection of “human things”, she just doesn’t know the purpose of the strange objects. The world of people attracts and every now and then the maiden swims to the surface to yearn for something else. On one occasion, a ship sails nearby, where the slender Prince Erik (Martti Manninen) and his crew catch Ariel’s attention. Even the prince doesn’t really see himself in the castle pasting, but sailing on the seas. The young man’s guardian Yrjö (Matti Olavi Ranin) has a different opinion. Erik is on the threshold of adulthood and soon he should find a suitable wife and settle down. Appropriately, a storm hits at that spot, a man overboard and we see something u-s-k-o-m-a-t-t-o-m-a-n great and skillful. Again, the crying comes from us. Erik is about to drown in the beckoners when Ariel swims in and rescues him by bringing him back to the surface. Yes. Here we really swim and make such swirls out of it as if in weightless space. I know and at the same time I don’t want to know how everything is done, I don’t want to break the magic by thinking about it any more. Everything is so wonderful and beautiful to cry.

Erik wakes up and wants to find his bright-voiced savior. It’s not that easy after all. We have to organize the ball and all the young girls who can sing nearby. On the other hand, Ariel has fought against the authorities and gone to do something quite wild: in exchange for a few days without a tail in the human world, Ariel has given her beautiful voice to Ursula, and if she does not receive a kiss of love from the prince within a certain time, she is condemned forever to be a witch’s slave in the depths of the sea. Wild and exciting! I wonder what will happen…

Yes, there is eye candy. Colorful clothes and enchanting sets, tails bobbing here and there according to the movements of Ariel’s sister flock and a little swimming movement all the time. Huge stingrays. Jellyfish. A huge shark (Peter Nyberg) with a small fish poss. Octopus. What sea sausages and coral creatures. The gull Skuutti (Tuukka Leppänen) and the rest of the tap-dancing seagull gang. Ariel’s resinous little fish Splash (the captivating Alek Pèrez Lahtinen in the first school) with his skateboards. Frog choir and butterflies. “Under the Sea” would have to be seen ten times to properly see all the great dancing and dancing characters, and even that probably wouldn’t be enough.

As a child, I wrote a storybook (I still have it) where one of the fairy tales is called “When the Crab Escapes”. In it, the red crab does not run away, but says that he will go to school in the first grade in the autumn and what else it entails. I think it was the premonition. Here, the superbly puppeteered Sebastian crab (Tero Koponen) escapes and properly when he is just about to be eaten. What follows is a traditional slapstick-style chase scene in which a cunning crab pushes away and French chef Chef Louis (Tuomas Uusitalo), who just moments earlier lurked a song of praise to the fish, tries to catch the creature with a black moustache. At least there was no lack of speed! And yes, now the mustache fan was spoiled with a lot of work!

What about “King Muscle and the Underwater Gadgets”? Oh my gosh, there was King Triton (Mikko Vihma) with his six-packs and sledgehammers, he didn’t really know where to look when the gentleman moved away. For a moment, I had time to wonder that sparks seem to fly even under water and the plough had such a tuning that it can be used to make an altar-like thing made out of people’s belongings burn. Nothing is impossible to see.

Perhaps the most I was looking forward to the first appearance of Ursula and yes, now Sanna Saarijärvi is in the swing of her life and in such a role that the cattails are off. At the same time, this Ursula with her tentacles in constant motion is horribly horrible and so wonderfully horrible. Applause and cheers resounded in the audience every time Ursula slipped (or should I say rolled?) onto the stage, accompanied by the ever-lovely wriggling electric eels Kiero (Antti Timonen) and Liero (Paavo Kääriäinen). What style and attitude, what humor and self-irony! #TeamUrsula is an asset this autumn!

Oh, and the intoxicating main couple, whose confident and convincing progress made me cry with sheer joy and pride. Fortunately, I have been able to follow both of their careers with interest (partly by chance) for years. I saw Sonja Pajunoja on stage by chance for the first time in the spring of 2011 with the Stage program, and she stuck in my mind all at once. I saw Martti Manninen, who was still studying at NÄTY, in Tampere Theatre’s Blood Brothers in 2013 and at that time I already predicted that the name would come to mind, because people will hear and make a fuss about him again… And now both are on the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre, singing themselves straight to hearts and into the consciousness of new viewers. It has been a great pleasure to follow the careers of both of them and see all the development, growth and successes. Charisma, sensitivity, the whole being on stage, chemistry – the perfect choice for the main couple of the musical! I still predict a great career for both of them together and separately.

Samuel Harjanne is now in such a streak with his directions that he can’t help but clap his hands tenderly and make waves. Kinky Boots, Billy Elliot, The Little Mermaid… Great work, and especially great work from the whole team! What a lot of working hours, sweat and tears are already behind us and a long series of performances is ahead. Incredible work from all areas in every performance, so that we in the audience could sit, marvel and enjoy. A separate round of applause to all of you invisible people who keep the package going and together every moment. My great appreciation!

I’ll have to go see this again (actually, already at the end of September), because in the role of Prince Erik, I might be able to see my other guarantor, Peter Nyberg (who, by the way, is in the Marlon shark’s gear and ensemble work at any time).

From this link you can find all kinds of additional information and amazing trailers, and then go to the ticket offices. By the way, I also feel like going to Sea Life to see all kinds of sea wonder creatures live!