Review: Priscilla, aavikon kuningatar

Expectations for Priscilla at the Helsinki City Theatre were already high, but the performance clearly exceeded them. There was the glitter of Broadway musicals, dazzling stage images, there was roughness that was difficult to define but all the more lifelike, there was a human warmth felt deep in the heart, there was color and light, glorious choreography, there was a huge string of great hits and ripples of the 90s, which turned into concert ecstasy on the auditorium side as well. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was a liberating experience for the viewer.

An ensemble has been created around director Samuel Harjanne, a centre of excellence that not only professionally translates and copies Broadway’s great hits, but also knows how to interpret them. The artistic victories of the ensemble led by Harjanne include Kinky Boots at the Helsinki City Theatre in 2018 and Billy Elliot at the Tampere Workers’ Theatre in the same year. I have also had the pleasure of seeing Harjanne’s directions The Little Mermaid and A Day as a Groundhog at the Helsinki City Theatre.

Priscilla is based on the 1994 film of the same name directed by Stephen Elliott in Australia. The musical, written by Elliott and Allan Scott, also strongly repeated the film’s central lesson: our prejudices against sexual and gender minorities are not innate, but these hostile attitudes are learned. The film’s second theme was also strong: just three artists form a community that is stronger in terms of expressiveness than any of its members alone. It’s theatre.

Perhaps that is why we can start by praising the translation work of Kari Arffman and Sanna Niemeläinen, who translated the musical into Finnish. Priscilla’s script warns against crude, vulgar language. However, there is a reason for the roughness. It is a question of the way in which members of sexual and sexual minorities try to deconstruct and unravel the connotations of language through exaggeration.

Physical violence faced by minorities is probably still very common, and there is a scene in Priscilla from this side of the reality they experience. Even more often, however, contempt and contempt are shown through the hidden meanings of language.

That is why minority communities rightly demand precision from us in the use of words and concepts. We have all already adopted the meaning structures of language in our mother tongue, which have been created in a culture that is hostile to minorities. That is why even those of us who consider ourselves open-minded and tolerant slip so easily and unacceptably often. We imagine that the hostile attitudes conveyed through the deep structures of language that support culture are somehow natural or nature itself.

In Priscilla, these hidden meanings of language were nailed to their place in the stunningly fine final scene, where the dancers were dressed to represent the fauna of Australia’s native fauna. There were emus, estuarine crocodiles, kangaroos, hedgehogs, collared lizards and whatnot. The symbolism of the scene was clear. Nature favours diversity. It is the force that sustains the biosphere and keeps us alive. Why, then, should a person be forced and crammed into one rigid mold?

The film’s strong, almost biblical symbolism was also repeated in the musical. Sexual and gender minorities have been allowed to wander through a vast wilderness full of dangers. The promised land of Tick in the play is his encounter with his son Benjamin.

In the real world, it is still not possible to talk about the promised land, despite the Pride parades. On a global scale, persecution continues and development has even taken backward steps.

Under the guidance of Harjanne, Priscilla advanced through Australia in wild laps. Of course, the serene passages necessary for the story, such as Bernadette Bassinger (Clarissa Jäärni) and mechanic Bob (Risto Kaskilahti) lounging in the wilderness, were in the right places, but apart from the intermission, the two-and-a-half-minute performance did not have a single dead end.

Choreographer Gunilla Olsson-Karlsson’s dances, Peter Ahlqvist’s set design, Tinja Salmi’s costumes, and William Iles‘ and Toni Haaranen’s lights and videos created stage images with a wild, imaginative aesthetic reminiscent of the boundary-breaking anarchy of the best animated films. At times, there were more sweets on offer than the mind can eat and the knees can handle, but the aesthetic, funny humor of the scenes made these treats wonderful.

What about the lifelike roughness that I talked about at the beginning. Perhaps it was born from the brilliant acting of Jäärni, Lauri Mikkola, who played the role of Mitzi “Tick” Mitosis, and Niki Rauté, who played the role of Felicia “Adam” Jollygoodfellow. The feeling of a very strong presence was almost palpable. I don’t really know how it was even possible in such a wild whirlwind of music, lights, colors and dances.

Drag is a performing art that plays with gender roles. As a means of effect, it uses wild exaggeration in costumes and make-up – an unfailing sense of style. The third effect is backing vocals, playbacks, in which the performer’s voice is changed to correspond to the assumed gender of the character he or she is playing.

Jäärni, Mikkola and Rautén interpreted most of the songs in the performance themselves. Perhaps it was Järn’s astonishingly fine baritone that was felt deep in my heart.

And the backing vocals didn’t come from the computer either, but they were sung by a choir formed by three divas, Johanna Först, Maria Lund and Jenni Storbacka. However, I’m not quite sure how one of the highlights of the film and also of the musical, the scene where Adam (Rautén) sings an opera aria on the roof of the Priscilla bus while the car is speeding through the wilderness, dressed in a glittering silver sequin dress, was made. Which of the aforementioned trio can sing so high and loud?

As a production, Priscilla has been a hugely laborious and expensive effort for the Helsinki City Theatre. There are performers alone, including musicians from almost 50 orchestras. At least the same number of people have been needed to design and implement the sets, costumes, videos and lights. The fact that each song performed in the performance has had to be asked for permission from the rights holders says something about the workload.

Among the creators, it is certainly worth remembering the name of the producer of the performance, Pia Karetie. Very careful planning is probably indicated by the fact that, according to the script, there is an almost comprehensive plan for the reserve staff. That is wisdom in such a sick time.

There is still room for one gem from the performance. Surely something stirred in the mind of even the most cynical viewer when Iivari Luomala, who played Tick’s son Benjamin, came on stage and began his own role. We will hear more about this boy if his enthusiasm for the theatre continues. Luomala received his very own wild applause when he was carried onto the stage in the final scene in the form of a estuary crocodile that had just hatched from an egg.

PS. The program is a real information package. It’s definitely worth buying.