Review: Oscar ja Mamma Roosa

About life and death through the eyes of a child with cancer

The child – a 10-year-old Oscar boy – also plays the lead role in a new play by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt , perhaps the most important dramatist in contemporary France (e.g. Enigmatic Variations and The Freethinker), which was made into both a novel and a play from the very beginning. Schmitt is now one of the most widely read French authors in the world, and his works have been translated into 25 languages.

Now that there is both a book – Oscar and Pink Mamma (in Finnish. Marja Haapio) – that the theatre performance Oscar and Mamma Roosa (translated by Reita Lounatvuori), the art consumer can freely choose between the two art forms. A comparison is also recommended, as both versions are full of stuff.

The theatre performance directed by Eija-Elina Bergholm features one narrator, Mamma Roosa, played by Kristiina Elstelä, an old woman who visits the hospital to delight children with her colourful stories. He tells us not only Oscar and his family, but also his own story.

Elstelä is a wonderful interpreter who manages to cut from one role to another at lightning speed and brings even small pieces of heartfelt humour to the deadly serious material.

Bergholm’s combination of realism and foreign elements works surprisingly well, thanks not only to the excellent Elstelä but also to dancer Jyrki Karttunen, who conjures up e.g. Oscar’s best friend, otherwise successful artistic work (set design and costumes by Sari Salmela, lighting and projections by Kimmo Karjunen, sounds by Harri Ahponen ) and fine touching music (e.g. Glass and Tchaikovsky).