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Note: No longer in repertoire!
Translation: Johan Bargum
Director: Pentti Kotkaniemi
Set design: Jyrki Seppä
Costumes: Irmeli Toivanen
Lighting: Jan-Erik Pihlström
Sound: Saku Korosuo
Cast: Sixten Lundberg, Nicke Lignell, Pia Runnakko, Mia Hafrén, Sampo Sarkola, Edith Holmström, Maria Lundström
DADDY’S BOYS – MORE FUN THAN EXPECTEDThe English writer Simon Mendes da Costa has succeeded in writing a play that can well be said to be good enough. The boy returns to his childhood home to bury his father, and in order to gain depth in the events, the past and present are actually played out at the same time, side by side. However, the whole thing is a success, thanks to director Pentti “Bono” Kotkaniemi.The young father Louis (Sampo Sarkola) lives a double life with Isabella (Edith Holmström) and his wife (Maria Lundström). The opening with a hot act of love in the large double bed grips the audience from the first second. The fact that it alternates between the present and the past 40 years ago makes the beginning a little confused, but once you get started, the times actually play out in a way that supports each other and makes the somewhat secretive life, which Dad has had, explain a lot to the boys who may not have the warmest brotherly relationship.The older brother Tony (Sixten Lundberg) and the younger successful yuppie brother Reggie (Nicke Lignell) are two completely different types. Tony is an “ordinary” man and in his jealousy and eagerness for the bottle completely different from his little brother who is handsome and has an elegant wife Elisabeth (Mia Hafrén). The older brother’s wife Sheila (Pia Runnakko) fits well into the picture, a little pathetic and silly. The actors for these roles could not have been chosen better. What a lovely soup it will be. Sixten Lundberg looks funny in himself, and does his role in a phenomenal way. Nicke Lignell charms the female spectators in particular, and Pia Runnakko is absolutely incredible with the empathy and body language she brings to the table. Yes actually, the spectacle, there we see portraits that could certainly be found as many as possible around the country.The whole spectacle takes place in a single room, the bedroom, where Dad has had hot moments with his mistress. The room is familiar to both boys from childhood, and in the same room they are now arguing about the inheritance and how the funeral should have been handled. Eventually, the audience will see that everything is not as it seems from the beginning. It alternates between funny lines and seriousness – but it is done elegantly and the audience is constantly waiting for what is to come.The fact that Lilla Teatern offers fun plays certainly makes the audience grateful. There is a demand for relaxing theatre in today’s busy society. Just hop on the bus and go to town – it pays off.
Read moreHUMOROUS LIGHTWEIGHTPlaywright Simon Mendes da Costa, who was present at the premiere of “Daddy’s Boys” at the Lilla Teatern in Helsinki, declares that theatre should primarily be entertaining, something his “Daddy’s Boys” definitely is. Personally, I appreciate plays that touch you deeply. And this comedy doesn’t, despite the fact that the show touches on big and difficult issues such as love and infidelity, death and inheritance disputes.“Losing Louis” is about two brothers who meet for the first time in ten years at their father’s funeral. Alternately we look at the present and flashbacks to the boys’ childhood. The father who leaves with the young tenant while the wife is heavily pregnant, and the five-year-old who comes on the trail of the secret. The tenant who, in turn, gets married and has children, but cannot free himself from his left-wing rustle. The spurned wife who loses a lot, but gets what she wants in the end. The situation breeds bitterness between the brothers, and when they see each other again, ten years after their mother’s death, old grudges blossom into full bloom. Their respective spouses further exacerbate competition and inheritance disputes. In Lillan’s version, the roles are played by a bunch of equally strong actors. Sampo Sarkola plays the hypocritical father who can’t keep his fingers off Edith Holmström’s cute party girl. Maria Lundström is the despised wife. Sixten “The Caveman” Lundberg makes a humorous portrait of the jealous older brother, a real loser. Little brother – a delicious Nicke Lignell – is his exact opposite. The elegant wife of the successful little brother is played by Mia Hafrén , while Pia Runnakko plays the slightly pathetic sister-in-law. Runnakko once again gets to show her forefeet as the incredible comedienne she is with her phenomenal mimicry. Another humorous dimension is given to the play by the cultural clashes between religions – the mother is a Christian and the father is Jewish. The play is recommended for anyone in need of a good laugh.
Read moreForty years per secondSame bedroom – different schedule. Funeral and baptism or weddings at the same time. It is time the English writer Simon Mendes da Costa playing with before our eyes. By more than forty years in a second disappears Through the door together with a character arises A connection, a condensed portrait by both Louis and his sons’ fates. The author has taken advantage of on secrets within the family located somewhere under the surface and often plague air in an incomprehensible way for future generations. In Daddy’s Boys, he has taken advantage of a whole bunch such: infidelity, jealousy, illegitimate child, death. All this packaged in – no not a gloomy tragedy – but A light-hearted comedy. On The premiere called the director Pentti Kotkaniemi on guest author for a poor man’s Chekhov – but a little more towards my father’s rule he probably plays at Lillans planks.
Read moreA WEDDING CAKE AT THE FUNERALIn Simon Mendes da Costa’s Daddy’s Boys , the stage is occupied by a double bed. It is the place where everything begins and everything returns to, also according to the theory of relativity mentioned in the play. The action takes place in the past and in the present, every other scene then and every other now, so seamlessly joined together that the illusion is created that everything happens on the same time plane, which should be impossible according to the same theory of relativity.Two brothers meet again after many years and the reunion is so heartfelt that the tears flow less. The reason is my father’s funeral, and possibly a hidden inheritance. The first bedroom scene is skilfully played by Edith Holmström and Sampo Sarkola , and the sequel follows when Maria Lundström , in the role of the wife, takes off her pants from her husband, who has lost a while ago. It’s a triangle drama about infidelity, betrayal and guilt, and about how dad may not be dad, and perhaps some of the excitement is taken away by the fact that these classic ingredients become so obvious as soon as the first card is put on the table.Sling and mediocrityClassic is also the constellation between the brothers, one prettier, and equipped with nicer cars than the other, so that old arm wrestles are what come to life when they meet again. As two completely different actors, Sixten Lundberg and Nicke Lignell clash so that the stops are dizzying, one as a testosterone-fueled sling and the other as a pale fat mediocrity who does not operate with his advantages. Pia Runnakko is a superb comedy who, together with Lundberg, forms a couple that would fit in any Family is the Worst series. Runnakko and Lundberg make the body speak, which is beneficial in a performance that is so largely based on words.A wordless climax occurs when the funeral guests slip in, soaking wet and shivering to the tunes of Chopin’s funeral march. Otherwise, it’s the dialogue that counts; At the end of the day, the direction is just a framework that keeps the style up. The dialogue pairs all have their own personalities: Lignell and Mia Hafrén as the opportunists who care about their façade, Runnakko and Lundberg as the not entirely polished couple who know each other inside and out, Sarkola and Holmström as the clueless lovers, and Sarkola and Lundström as the man who has something to hide from his talkative wife.Witty and entertaining Much is about the fatal consequences of random coincidences, but also about the human need for identity. It is a need that often turns out to be based on fictions about something that is not reality, or something that is constructed from a piece here and another from there.When a wedding cake appears at a funeral, it is a return to something that has never been processed. In the background, there is also a clash between the rituals of different religions, and the confusion that arises when you cannot read them. Some of the images are hilariously witty, such as the puddle in the pit as a symbol of the sea as a resting place, or the dead child about whom you wonder if it was dead.It’s a tightrope walk to combine a bottom of seriousness with a string of loose laugh points. The text is full of chatter, obligatory pouring of grog and a penis and clitoral humor of varying degrees of wit. The empty talk must be witty and razor-sharp, if it starts to drag it becomes murderously boring. The equally strong cast does not fully manage to cover up the hollowness of the text; It has many spreads that could be moved in different directions but stops in quite shallow waters. Losing Louis, smoothly translated by Johan Bargum, belongs to a brilliant British comedy genre where verbal wit comes first. The result is an entertaining performance with good acting, but now there are some worrying signs that Lilla Teatern is content with this kind of repertoire.
Read moreUncomfortable secrets in family drama at Lilla Teatern In Daddy’s Boys , we follow a family over two time periods. In one we learn how everything really happened and that father Louis (Sampo Sarkola) had an affair with the beautiful housekeeper Bella (Edith Holmström) and in the other we get to see the adult children who visit their father’s funeral with their wives. There is a lot you can recognize during the play. How differently we communicate, for example, depending on the surroundings we have moved in the most. It is especially amusing to watch when the brothers and their wives initially try to keep up some kind of conversation, even though they don’t really have much to say to each other. The brother Reggie, played by Nicke Lignell , drives in a luxury sports car and has so much money that he doesn’t even care about the inheritance, while the other brother Tony (Sixten Lundberg) has not fared as well, who feels unfairly treated. The wives, who are as if they had come from different planets, mostly get along in the women’s universal way by talking about trivial things, while their husbands, like masters, cannot avoid the obvious conflicts and misunderstandings that they have been thinking about over the years. It results in arm wrestling, drunkenness and a couple of cool dialogues about how it all really happened. It is Pia Runnakko, who, with her wonderful body language and her self-evident manner, is the one who causes most laughter in the auditorium. It’s also rewarding to play the slightly plump, poorly dressed wife who is interested in astrology and quasi-insteinian theories. Mia Hafrén, plays her well-dressed character Elisabeth at least as well, and it is when she, dirty and furious, has her little outbursts of anger, that she is most visible. As I watch the performance, I find myself thinking about how certain lines would have sounded in British English. And of course, it’s British humour, it’s jokes and puns that belong in another language, but despite that, most of it also fits well in Finland-Swedish interpretation. The women in the show are either stupid, dizzy, richly married or longing for a man – and the men are confused and weak for women’s beautiful charms. So we are not dealing with complex role personalities and that is not the intention either. Daddy’s Boys is a comedy that is really funny in places, a comedy that also has black undertones.
Read moreTHINGS GO WRONG AT A FUNERALInstead of Finnish anxiety, it’s refreshing to watch a British comedy in the theatre. Pappas pojkar is not idle laughter, but the play is a skilfully written comedy built around a serious matter.Pappas pojkar (Losing Louis), which premiered in London in 2005, is at the same time a light-hearted and touching play about brothers who meet years later at their father’s funeral. The older brother (Sixten Lundberg) is worse off than them: his hair is thinning, his wife is getting older, his child is marginalized, and he even has a Nissan as a car. The wife of a highly educated little brother (Nicke Lignell) is slim and stylish, the twins graduate with high grades and the family comes to the funeral in a Jaguar and Ferrari. Of course, not everything is as it seems, and like a comedy, things start to go wrong from the moment the hearse breaks down. In the midst of unsuccessful funeral arrangements, the brothers and their wives have to face the unresolved issues of their past.Everything takes place on the stage of Lilla Teatern in one bedroom. The time level varies between the 50s and the present day, but the sets are not moved. The performance is stripped of theatrical technical gimmicks, and the focus is on acting. Under Pentti Kotkaniemi’s direction, the actors create a snappy dialogue and bring out the nuances of the text. The Swedish in the play is quite understandable for a native speaker of Finnish, difficult literary expressions are hardly cultivated. The play’s scriptwriter, Simon Mendes da Costas, has a Jewish background, and this is also reflected in the text. The family has a Jewish background, but the tradition is being shaken both in the 50s and today. In the Finnish environment, the subject does not seem very everyday, but the translation and direction have clearly not wanted to change the text, the names of the characters or the setting of the events. Pia Runnakko’s role as the older brother’s vulgar wife Sheila is the most delicious in the play, and the performance is at its most raucous just when Runnakko gets to speak. Her comedic talent is well known, of course, but Sheila’s role is a hit with Runnako. His replications, gestures, and timing make the audience howl with laughter. And yet, while her character is funny, she also feels sorry for her. Runnakko and Sixten Lundberg (Tony) are a small-minded married couple whose insecurity and jealousy are familiar from everyday depictions of people. Nicke Lignell (little brother Reggie) and Mia Hafrén (Elisabeth) play a successful couple whose relationship turns out to be anything but serene.In the scenes of the 50s, the gaze turns to Irmeli Toivanen’s delightful costumes that reflect the spirit of the time. Sampo Sarkola , who plays the brothers’ father, slips naturally into a 50s dad who is trapped by two women. His simple wife (Maria Lundström) gets a rival in the sharp-headed Bella (Edith Holmström). Secrets are created, and in the play it happens, as is often claimed: everything is revealed in the end.
Read moreBETTER A GOOD COMEDY THAN A BAD TRAGEDYPappas pojkar, a rejoicing by the English composer Simon Mendes da Costa, which has sailed into the Lilla Teatern programme, offers an evening entertainment of just under three hours, directed by Pentti Kotkaniemi. And to refer to an exchange of opinions in recent weeks: better a good comedy than a bad tragedy.Mendes da Costa came from great obscurity to the limelight of the London theatre world with the play Losing Louis. Soon, the play popped up in different parts of the world, including in Tampere under the name Mullan alla.The fact that Mendes da Costa came out of nowhere was underlined by the fact that he had begun writing the play while sitting on a train on his way to Scotland. He also confirmed this when he visited the premiere in Helsinki. Before that train journey, he had been in the computer industry for a long time. In his longing for company, he had sought out the circle of amateur actors. When the relationship with the found acquaintance broke down, the man changed scenery to the writers’ club.When he was asked what kind of plays he had written, he was faced with a real situation – luckily he was travelling by train.
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