Review: Katto-Kassinen

Fast-paced stage adaptation
a children’s classic

Katto-Kassinen flies handsomely over the rooftops of Helsinki in a children’s play on the City Theatre’s main stage. The adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s novel is a cool comedy for children and parents. The very youngest ones are unlikely to be able to watch a full-length play, but from the five years recommended by the City Theatre upwards, “the atmosphere is great”.

It is very valuable that children’s theatre is made for the big stage. Katto-Kassinen is one of the cornerstones of children’s literature and deserves to be performed. Now, with good hopes, we can wait for the dramatizations of the next children’s novels with full resources.


Katto-Kassinen alternates between two crews. Sami Hokkanen , who played the title role at the premiere, is very Kassis-like, “suitably chubby” and fluffy. However, the Flying Man of the City Theatre is not quite genuine. Despite his remaining complacency, he has been scraped into a pleasant and friendly character. Lindgren’s Kassinen is actually quite vicious and reckless at times, and he has also been portrayed as such in Olle Hellbom’s classic film version. The adventures of Kassinen at the City Theatre are followed with fewer reservations than the novel, and it is probably the best solution for the play.

Antti Lang, who played the role of the little brother, was the most natural and least exaggerated character on stage – a successful solution that is also faithful to Lindgren’s novel. After all, the little brother is an extremely ordinary boy, whose windows of the ordinary world are opened by Kassinen’s unrestrainedness.

On the other hand, in the City Theatre’s play The Little Brother, however, the perspective remains thinner than in Lindgren’s book. The original Katto-Kassinen strongly deals with a child’s loneliness, insecurity and need for acceptance, as well as the importance of imagination – there are few books that so genuinely describe the world of a little boy. This dynamic is overshadowed by the brisk pace and stage acrobatics, and even though the live dogs on stage make any play better, the frame story of the puppy that the little brother desires doesn’t really take off.

For this reason, the beginning of the play seems to be waiting for its right direction, which then soon flies in through the window. Kassinen takes the attention and the story with her, and the small and large audience enjoys themselves. Of course, this is also the basic purpose of a children’s play on the big stage, and it succeeds fairly.

In the second half, the action picks up into fireworks of collisions, which lives up to the expectations set for a fun children’s theatre. Without reservation, it can be said that the long episode with the fart bag used by Kassinen and the nanny Pässi, caricatured in a wildly funny way by Risto Kaskilahti , is unbridled and brilliant comedy theatre. The basics make me laugh, that’s the truth.
The most important thing is that the target audience enjoys watching Katto-Kassinen . “Uh, either it’s over,” commented one little viewer on the premiere. “This was good. Will we come to the theatre again?”