Review: Stella goes Hollyböle
The actors of Stella Polaris survive without a script – The play is created by improvising from the audience’s ideas
Sex, a lightsaber and a horse’s head. From these elements suggested by the audience, the actors of Stella Polaris put together a two-hour play. It is a completely improvised performance, as a new performance is built every night.
Every performance of Stella Polaris is a premiere, and no two are the same. It is affected by the fact that the actors are not the same on stage night after night. The performing group consists of 19 actors, of which a cast of four or five actors will be seen on stage.
The acting group is based at the Cable Factory in Helsinki, but it will tour around the city in the autumn. This November, Stella Polaris can be seen at the Helsinki City Theatre’s studio in Pasila. The group is on the move with movie and night themes.
I saw a movie-themed Stella goes Hollyböle performance with actors Teijo Eloranta, Niina Sillanpää, Tiina Pirhonen and Jussi Vatanen. The entire quartet is known for their various roles in theaters, television series and films.
Musician Jouni Kannisto’s improvised music brings an exciting addition to the performance. The music and sound effects made with the mouth take the performance in exciting directions.
The best bits of your favorite movies
At the very beginning of the performance, the actors ask for elements for the play. The audience is free to throw ideas about their own favourite films. In other words, the actors do not perform a reproduction of an existing film, but combine the best elements from several different stories.
On stage, we will see the lightsaber of space films, gun rattling like in westerns, and relationship adventures familiar from drama films. The actors build their own end result from the elements.
The play is created scene by scene. Jussi Vatanen begins by telling how great it is to move to Los Angles, where acting roles await.
Teijo Eloranta and Niina Sillanpää, who play a Finnish couple, and Tiina Pirhonen, who plays their daughter, have moved to the same corners. The Dawn residential area is popular among Finns.
The plot builds quickly, as the real estate agent in the residential area turns out to be the master of the thief shop. Even the Finnish couple is not quite as honest as it seems on the surface. The man is a former banker who left Finland in a hurry to escape his past. The lady, on the other hand, earns income by selling herself.
The whole ensemble is crowned by Teijo Eloranta’s improvised, delicate ballad. In other words, the play really goes through the entire range of emotions.
Jumping on stage without dialogue
There are no costumes or props in an improvised play, because the play has not been prepared in advance. The viewer can imagine everything. Photo: Jussi Nahkuri, Helsinki City Theatre.
You can’t help but admire the actors of Stella Polaris, who are able to jump on stage very naturally without dialogue and a pre-planned plot. They only have the help of the elements provided by the audience and their own imagination.
Compared to that, the performance runs really well, and the actors don’t have to dwell on their words. However, they mess up the names they have come up with a bit. Dawn gives birth to Dawn, but that doesn’t bother the progress. Rather, it just makes the audience laugh.
Stella goes Hollyböle is an exciting combination of different drama genres. Above all, it’s a humour bomb, because it’s okay to laugh at the actors’ insights and blunders. On the other hand, improvised plays draw from popular culture and current themes in society.
For example, the child played by Tiina Pirhonen had gone to peek at sex videos on her mother’s smartphone. Pirhonen’s idea is born quickly, but it was not born in nothingness. At its best, a play can contain very precise observations about society.