Almost all a bit older
Finns remember the super famous TV-series “Stormskärs Maja” from the seventies,
which was based on Anni Blomqvist’s books. Helsinki City Theatre has now made a
musical based on those books. The musical has been shown to sold out audiences,
which mostly – at least on Saturday – unsurprisingly consist of slightly older
people. I hadn’t myself planned to go and see this musical, but I ended up getting
an extra ticket and I thought that it is nice to see this much talked about
act.
The story that
Blomqvist wrote is very strong and it follows Maja’s life in the Finnish archipelago
from a young girl to a wife, mother and widow. In this musical the Helsinki
City Theatre somehow manages to lose the strong story and the play becomes a
potpourri of fragmented scenes and weird dances (the choreography is, to tell
you the truth, rather terrible).
The set design and
costumes are rather nice, though when it comes to set design it did occur to me
occasionally that perhaps the meaning was more to show off the new technical
solutions of the just renovated theatre house than to create an interesting
set. And I never managed to figure out the meaning of the peculiar wigs of the
dancers.
From the point of view of the music the musical was
unfortunately rather bland. The theme song of the TV-series stood out, but the
rest was mostly forgettable. As such the attempt was ambitious which,
unfortunately again, caused problems for the singers. Most of them did not have
the adequate range required by the songs. The best moments of the whole musical
where the chorus parts. They had the catchiness and edge that the rest of the
musical lacked. I also liked the performance of Aaro Wichmann in the role of
Janne. His songs stayed safely within his range and they were quite enjoyable
to listen to. |
| Programme (Copyright Asta Karell Shutterstock, Helsinki City Theatre) |
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