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Note: No longer in repertoire!
Book and lyrics Tom Jones – Music Harvey Schmidt
Finnish translation Esko Elstelä
Director Neil Hardwick
Conductor Lasse Hirvi –
Set and costume design J-P Kiljunen –
Lighting design Teppo Saarinen –
Sound design Ari-Pekka Saarikko –
Cast: Mia Hafrén, Antti Timonen, Mika Eirtovaara, Helena Haaranen, Sami Hokkanen, Markku Huhtamo,
Jarkko Rantanen
Official musical website
“Eirtovaara makes a completely unrestrained, uninhibited, shameless and acrobatically incomparable caricature of the essence and activities of a decadent actor.”
Read moreFantasticks, a fun crazy clubLet’s take a stupid girl and a boy and their crazy fathers and one vagabond who makes the whole group’s lives mess up, but in the end that’s exactly why they get on the right track. Add beautiful music, plenty of comedy and absurd theatre, and you get the musical Fantasticks. The success of the musical, composed by Harvey Schmidt and written by Tom Jones, in New York is unparalleled: the work was performed from 1960 to 2002. The popularity is understandable, as Fantasticks is a funny and humane musical. The rather small presentation apparatus gives an intimate atmosphere. In addition, Harvey Schmidt’s music is rich but pleasantly unpretentious. Actually, music is reason enough to head to Studio Pasila on Ratamestarinkatu to see Fantasticks, which is now playing in the Helsinki City Theatre’s repertoire. In Studio Pasila, the orchestra played absolutely delightfully. The combination of piano, harp, bass and percussion conjures up an ear-pleasing musical world.
Read moreGentle under the paper moon The story development of this musical, which is quite minimalist in its setting, seems downright plain and simple at first. There is a stage, a curtain, a girl and a boy and, a bit like in Romeo and Juliet, two fathers plotting plots, and a narrator who, leading the events, explains to us what is going on. ´The longest-running musical performance of all time was performed more than 17,000 times in Greenwich Village, in 41 years. It has also been seen in almost 70 countries and filmed a couple of times. The financiers of the New York show received a 20 percent return on their investment, so the business idea worked brilliantly. The Fantasticks, 1960, is based on the late 19th-century play Les Romanesques by the French dramatist Edmond Rostand, best known for his Cyrano de Bergerac.The musical also borrows ideas from Shakespeare – who famously borrowed his predecessors from antiquity – and draws on the old traditions of commedia dell’arte, variety shows and vaudeville. The paper moon and the sun are enough as sets. Fantasticks has also been made in Finland all the time, in 13 theatres, including the Tampere Theatre in 1963 and the last time at the Helsinki City Theatre in 1966. The musical’s (only) hit is the evergreen Remember September. Retro interpretation The Hang of FreshnessIn addition to piano, percussion and bass, jazzy music is created in Pasila’s studio with harp; The orchestra, led by pianist Lasse Hirvi, plays with a light and precise touch. The Finnish translation sounds very much like the 1960s. The costumes and the heroine’s make-up and backcombing also refer to the same decade. Daddy grandfathers Markku Huhtamo and Jarkko Rantanen, who are busy in their vegetable gardens, are kind-hearted bastards whose pasteuristic duets are endearing. The children, Mia Hafrén and Antti Timonen, are fresh musical professionals who have mastered singing, movement and light comedy. Hafrén has a welcome feminine, fearless radiance to the naïve role. It is needed when quite a large part of the role is tableau-like standing or sitting on the stage or on the side of it, looking somewhere over the audience’s heads. Sami Hokkanen, who has just graduated from the Theatre Academy, sings effortlessly handsomely as a narrator-magician. Helena Haaranen is his chewing gum-grinding, mute assistant. Mika Eirtovaara takes care of both the time-worn but uncontrollably passionate, two-year-old itinerant actor and his invisible colleague, who are hired to marry young people. After all, the ragged Shakespearean warhorses act out the death scenes in such a way that they turn into heart attacks – Eirtovaara’s unrestrained farce is hilariously frenetic. In the 1960s, Fantasticks had to have something particularly fresh and different from the usual entertainment. New York’s population of millions and tourists will then have enough viewers for various productions that will become cult performances – as well as London, such as Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. There is a hint of freshness left in this retro interpretation served at the time of the Christmas party.
Read moreBetween fun and alvarFantasticks. Music: Harvey Schmidt. Libretto and lyrics: Tom Jones. Translation: Esko Elstelä. Director: Neil Hardwick. Conductor: Lasse Hirvi. Set design and costumes: J-P Kiljunen. Choreographer: Anneli Rautiainen. Cast: Sami Hokkanen, Mia Hafrén, Antti Timonen, Jarkko Rantanen, Markku Huhtammo, Mika Eirtovaara, Helena Haaranen. Preview at Studio Pasila 6.10. Fantasticks is a puzzling concoction of genres and stylistic devices. It is called an integration musical in the program leaflet, which undeniably sounds apt. Elements have been picked from e.g. Ancient dramas, commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, buskis and circus clownery, and the performance moves in an equally fascinating and, at times, annoying way in the borderland between fun and seriousness.Or at least something that resembles seriousness. It’s not good to know where you have the characters in Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s hit from 1960, which ran for a full 42 years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York. If anything, it is a testament to the local audience’s ability to break with the Rodgers & Hammerstein style and embrace a musical theatre that is both intelligent and unconventional.Here, of course, we find the loving young people à la Ovid or Shakespeare, who are separated by the wall erected by the vegetable gardening fathers. In this slightly twisted alloy, however, nothing is what it looks like. The schism is just one of the play’s many sets, intended to get the kids married off to each other.As a ladle in the soup, master of ceremonies and world-wise archvillain, we have El Gallo – a superb Sami Hokkanen – who, with the willing help of actor Henry/The Man Who Dies (Mortimer) – a hilarious Mika Eirtovaara – stages both one or two small plays in the play on the primitive stage on stage and, unsurprisingly, draws at least one of the long straws of the ending. Satirical anti-musical
Read moreMusical delights at Helsinki City TheatreFantasticks is real theatreThe open-minded classic musical pleases with its performances, laid-back music and manages to create grand illusions from a small setting.Fantasticks, which premiered on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila, reinvents the perception of the musical in a fresh way – not badly for a song that is, after all, the most performed of all time. Fantasticks is a different kind of musical. Gone are the large sets, costumes and large choir scenes. Fantasticks has a small wooden stage and a coffin on the stage. The set is skilfully created with lights and a couple of sheets, which are tuned as the story progresses. On an empty stage, Fantasticks proceeds on the actors’ terms. Theatre is being kicked into the air out of nowhere, right there in front of your eyes. It’s nice to watch, especially in a musical. The illusion of a complete, larger story can be created with the meager necessities that fit into one coffin: a great victory for theatre. At the same time, director Neil Hardwick has managed to keep his musical sinewy and rhythmically progressing.Americans Tom Jones (not the singer) and Harvey Schmidt put together their musicals from exciting material. Shakespeare is quoted vividly, the actors are borrowed from the ancient tradition of Commedia dell’arte , in which artists play well-known old men, cunning servants and lovers in the square. And the dancing and playing is from the Broadway tradition.Esko Elstelä, who translated the musical into Finnish, deserves a big thank you for his work. The performance runs with the help of the narrator, Sami Hokkanen, and the mute prop manager, Helena Haaranen. It works great, like in a circus. Clowning is performed by Mika Eirtovaara, it’s really worth seeing!The story itself is a variant of Romeo and Juliet, an innocent fairy tale. Antti Timonen and Mia Hafrén play a lot of silly roles.Fantasticks has a few handsome songs and good-natured parody dance scenes. In them, especially the fathers of the story, Jarkko Rantanen and Markku Huhtamo, succeed perfectly.Fantasticks is not really a “musical of well-known melodies”, except for the very beautiful duet You Only. Instead, the music is skilfully written into a living fabric, and a small orchestra is brought into view on stage.At the premiere, the playing leaning towards jazz made the audience nod leisurely in time.The combination of piano, percussion, upright bass and harp brings out both sugary delicate and thunderous effects. Above all, however, the musical band swung loosely, like the entire Fantasticks.
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