Review: Kinky Boots

Helsinki City Theatre’s Kinky Boots will get the audience going wild even during the daytime show.

Helsinki City Theatre’s major performance of the autumn is the blatant and raunchy Kinky Boots. The musical, composed by Cyndi Lauper, premiered in 2012 and is now being performed in Finland for the first time.

Charlie Price (Petrus Kähkönen) has never wanted to be the head of a shoe factory, even though generations before him have made their life’s work with high-quality men’s shoes. When Charlie’s father dies unexpectedly, Charlie, who has reluctantly taken up the manager’s job, finds out that things have been going badly at the factory for a long time. Buyers are no longer interested in quality when you can get so many pairs of shoes at a low price that their soles do not have time to wear out in use.

The savior of Charlie and the entire factory appears in a surprising form when Charlie gets to know Lola (Lauri Mikkola). Lola – or Simon as she goes by her Christian name – is an admired drag queen who, with her dance troupe, shakes the boundaries of small-town decency. Could glittery boots made for men help a shoe factory take a leap out of the financial hole?

Kinky Boots is a story about the pressures that outsiders put on us. However, it is even more a story of self-discovery and acceptance of these findings. It is useless to judge others, but it is at least as stupid to judge one’s own self.

Lola’s dance troupe’s choreographies are almost acrobatic, and the entire cast has certainly learned to march with high heels. This is the famous eye candy.

Kähkönen’s and Mikkola’s vocal parts, on the other hand, are so full of overwhelming emotions that you can’t help but get your eyes wet. Anna Victoria Eriksson’s totally exaggerated infatuation song is also downright stunning, showing what is the best thing about musicals. Those feelings, that is.

At the moment, something magical and absolutely wonderful is being done on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. If every spectator carries in their hearts at least a crumb of the acceptance of themselves and others cultivated in the play when they leave the theatre, the working group has done a tremendous job.

Even during the daytime show, the entire audience stands up to join in the resounding applause. There will be young and old, and there will be plenty to talk about after the performance. One white-haired viewer says that this was better than Maija from Myrskyluoto.