Review: Tatu ja Patu Helsingissä

Helsinki City Theatre’s Tatu and Patu was a visual firework display – the stage images captured the humorous spirit of picture books – the story was brought to the stage with tremendous energy

Helsinki City Theatre knows how to make spectacular musical theatre. Tatu and Patu in Helsinki are of this kind. It has been made for the world’s most demanding audience, which is why on Tuesday the aim was to cover the best that can come out of the idea incubators and creativity mills of the Finnish champions of the genre.

As an adult viewer, I was fascinated by the magnificent presentation of the performance. The stage images were packed with a dizzying amount of details, from large to tiny. The abundance made the visual narrative of the play layered. The street views of the city of Helsinki that opened up on the stage were both familiar and wonderfully strange.

Viewers of different ages will find their own highlights in this abundance. Of course, it may be that the huge set elements hanging from the ceiling of the stage, often still lit in dark tones, may have seemed a little frightening to the youngest viewers. I laughed again and again at Nuutti Koskinen’s joking versions projected onto the sets, parodying street advertisements.

The scenography of set designer Markus Tsokkinen and co. captured the world on which the charm of Aino Havukainen’s and Sami Toivonen’s Tatu and Patu books is based. Of course, it is impossible to replicate the unique look of Havukainen’s and Toivonen’s drawings on stage, but the presentation of the play captured the visual humour that arises from familiarity and strangeness, which is cultivated in the picture books of these two graphic artists.

Tatu and Patu in Helsinki is based on the picture book of the same name by Havukainen and Toivanen. The seven-year-old who worked as my Tatu and Patu expert in the audience also immediately recognized the connection between the play and the book, even though the story of the book has been adapted for the theatre in an almost new way.

The arrangement is a collaboration between Havukainen, Toivonen and Sami Rannila. Dialogue spiced with school jokes has been added to the original story, not forgetting fart and poop humour. In-depth elements depicting the shadowy aspects of urban life have also been included.

Tatu and Patu, who have come to Helsinki from Outola, that is, from somewhere outside Ring Road 3, admire their cousin Jori who lives in Helsinki, a tram driver who is hypercyber traffic man who can fly and can lift a tram off the ground with just one hand. In the future, the side of Jori’s life is also revealed that he, like many other city dwellers, suffers from loneliness.

Otherwise, there were hardly any backwaters in Tatu and Patu. The events on the stage progressed with tremendous energy, so to speak, with the throttle down from start to finish. Rannila’s direction and Marjo Kuusela’s choreography created an ensemble with attraction to music composed by Kari Mäkiranta. The lyrics of the songs in the performance were funny and catchy.

The funny movement language of Kuusela’s choreography and Elina Kolehmainen’s imaginative costumes worked together. Images of the statue dance of Helsinki’s most famous sculptures still make me laugh.

It says something about the quality of the performance how, at least this time, the audience of several hundred children who filled the auditorium of the big stage was drawn into the performance. Not once were there any voices from the stands indicating restlessness or boredom. The emotional state that took over the auditorium is also well illustrated by the immediacy with which we all got involved in the tram dance led by Pattu (Paavo Kääriäinen).

Making musical theatre is probably the toughest challenge an ensemble can take on. This aspect is easily overlooked by the viewer, because a successful production draws the viewer in with its hairy days. You can throw yourself into the performance with just emotion, and that’s how it should be.

For an actor, theatre, where the character of a cartoon-like character must be created through physical representation alone, creating a role can and is a difficult task. There is a video from the Helsinki City Theatre on YouTube, in which Kääriäinen opens up his thoughts on the roles of Tatu and Patu. In the same video, Rannila, who has also gained fame as a director of children’s theatre, tells what the play is about from her point of view.

Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the premiere of Tatu and Patu was postponed and postponed. The production schedule has dragged on and banged, which has certainly not reduced the difficulty factor of production. In that sense, Tatu and Patu in Helsinki is also very much a masterpiece by producer Marinella Jaskari, head of the stage department Olli Koskelo and set manager Sampsa Laiho.

After the performance, my seven-year-old children’s theatre experience expert did not burst into quite the same kind of high-pitched song full of adjectives as I did. However, he was obviously satisfied with what he had seen and experienced. This is still being talked about at home.

The programme is a great job. It presents the key actors of the play in a nice way. The child viewers of the performance will enjoy the programme even after the performance. While browsing through it, it is nice to recall this theatrical experience.

On Tuesday evening, in addition to the children, there were a lot of us grey-headed or “front-haired” grandfathers and grandmothers in the auditorium. Tatu ja Patu is also a hit in terms of the Helsinki City Theatre’s repertoire profile in that it gathers both the theatre’s current major consumers and the future prospects who will hopefully grow into new theatre heavy users through their experiences.