Review: Katto-Kassinen

JOY AT THE BUMPS

Risto Kaskilahti steals the entire Katto-Kassinen as Miss Ram

At first, there will be almost endless bickering and arguing at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Katto-Kassinen . The family has about five different opinions on everything. I feel like home. Theatre should be different.
Then Katto-Kassinen himself flies through the window. The little brother gets a supporter for his thinking. In fact, Astrid Lindgren has written two Little Brothers in her Katto-Kassis , true and hopeful. Katto-Kassinen himself represents everything that Pikkuveli would like to be. What seven-year-old wouldn’t want to know how to fly?
At this point, the performance directed by Kurt Nuotio is refreshed, even though the flying itself is mainly about hanging from wires, despite the technical implementation that has taken a lot of effort.

But the performance itself still doesn’t really turn me on, despite its fast-paced music.
In the premiere cast, however, Sami Hokkanen as Kassinen and Antti Lang as Little Brother did a fresh and believable job, Lang as a little boy perhaps even more believable. Hokkanen Kassinen felt overexerted himself at times, perhaps out of sheer excitement.
The title role of The Spectacle is quite a gig for a young actor, if it is also for a more experienced actor. In the second cast, the role is played by Eppu Salminen and Antti Timonen is the other Little Brother.

In any case, we went to the premiere intermission with rather tentative ideas, but then things started to happen. After the intermission, the nanny of the story, the terrible Miss Pässi, stepped into the game. From then on, Katto-Kassinen on the big stage was nothing but a celebration.
Risto Kaskilahti is in a class of his own as Miss Pässi. The brilliant comedian immediately charmed his viewers of all ages.

Kurt and Eppu Nuotio’s inventive Finnish translation was mastered, as was the cornucopia of comedy expression down to the smallest and most precise detail.

Kaskilahti steals the whole show, but let him steal, including fart humour. The outbursts of joy caused by his endless banter and other actions are rarely heard in the theatre. You can look for a similar joint infatuation between the actor and his audience.

Katto-Kassinen does a decent job in other ways as well. Kurt Nuotio also directs children’s theatre with a good sense of style and appreciation for the best possible. Aino Seppo as a patient mother and Matti Rasila as a busy father represent the adult world in a descriptive way. Antti Timonen Poku as a brother and Tiina Peltonen as a big sister describe the children’s capricious relationships equally. Matti Laine was touching, not to say delicious, as the hugging boyfriend of the premiere, as was Sanna Saarijärvi as the friend of the Little Brother.
In her role as a dog, Shetland Sheepdog Milli was delightfully valuable, especially compared to humans.

Katariina Kirjavainen had staged Kassinen’s home as a madness of surprises. The costumes designed by Sari Salmela added a fireworks of colours to the slightly grey general view, which had little use for its Helsinki references, but set the viewer’s wits in motion.

Adults are like that and children are different.
The division into two kinds and thus different is not as strong in Astrid Lindgren’s books as it is when the theatre concretizes it. Fortunately, both children and adults find each other in the end, their shared Katto-Kassi.
Besides, if all the adults were as charmingly crazy as Miss Pässi aka Risto Kaskilahti at the City Theatre, there would be no complaints. Life was wild, and on Kaskilahti’s shoulders , the theatre itself was something completely different from everyday life ravaged by sleet.