HKT starts the autumn season with the Hound of the Baskervilles starring top comedians
Helsinki City Theatre will begin its autumn season with the detective comedy The Hound of the Baskervilles on the Arena stage on 25 August, and the audience will be able to follow the work of the world’s most famous detective Sherlock Holmes, enjoy virtuoso acting and thrill to see how top comedians survive almost lightning-fast role changes impossible challenge.
"Training the Hound of the Baskervilles has been a staggering hike, during which all the hassles of the outside world have been completely forgotten. I warmly hope that the audience will have the same kind of invigorating experience," says director Sakari Hokkanen.
The main roles are played by virtuoso veteran actors, Santeri Kinnunen as Sherlock Holmes and Risto Kaskilahti and Eppu Salminen as Dr. Watson, who fills in for Watson in some of the performances and performs at the premiere. The other 34 roles in the play are handled with super-fast role changes by just three actors. The challenge is taken up by amazing comedians Emilia Sinisalo, Sauli Suonpää and Mikko Virtanen.
Santeri Kinnunen, who has been a member of the City Theatre’s cast for 30 years, steps into the shoes of the popular detective.
“Everyone has their own, strong images of Sherlock, with his pipes and hats, which makes it undeniably challenging. But in rehearsals, the character has gradually been shaped and polished, and it has found its own exciting angles,” Kinnunen says.
“Situations change terribly quickly. The actor leaves the stage as one person and after two lines comes in as a completely different person,” says actress Emilia Sinisalo, who switches between the 13 roles she has performed 22 times during the evening.
Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of the detective comedy The Hound of the Baskervilles (2015) is based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s well-known classic The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901). The Hound of the Baskervilles) and combines a powerful detective story that has been remembered by many with fast-paced theatrical play. The play has been translated into Finnish by Reita Lounatvuori.
Detective Sherlock Holmes faces the strangest case of his career. On the misty moors of Devon, the men of the House of Baskerville seem to be haunted by a curse. Legend has it that Sir Hugo Baskerville was killed at the teeth of a nightmarish monster dog. A hundred years later, the heir to the Baskervilles is found mysteriously dead, with the tracks of a huge dog next to him. While investigating the case, Sherlock Holmes and his loyal sidekick, Dr. Watson, encounter a dangerous adversary, and soon the life of yet another Baskerville is threatened.
The set design for the detective comedy set in 19th-century England was designed by Katariina Kirjavainen and the costumes by Elina Vättö. The lighting design is by Paavo Kykkänen and the sound design by Jaakko Virmavirta. The camouflage was designed by Aino Hyttinen.
Author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the modern detective novel. He was a versatile and diligent writer who wrote not only detective novels, but also historical novels, plays, poems and non-fiction. The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the best-known Sherlock Holmes novels and one of the immortal classics of crime fiction, and no less than twenty film adaptations have been made of it.
Ken Ludwig, who dramatized the play, is an American writer and theatre director, whose works have previously been performed at HKT in Diva (2005) and Tenors in the Broth (2017).
The Hound of the Baskervilles premiere on 25.8.2021 at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Arena stage (Hämeentie 2),
Tickets: Student ticket 23 € (Mon-Thu), Pensioner ticket 43 € (Mon-Thu), Basic ticket 46 €
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