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Note: No longer in repertoire!
Arrangement and direction: Peter Engkvist
Translated by Anneli Mäkelä
Set design and costumes: Katariina Kirjavainen
Music: Ulf Eriksson
Lighting: Juhani Leppänen
Actors: Reetta Honkakoski and Sami Uotila
The Boy and the Star Helsinki City Theatre has made a real children’s cultural act with its play The Boy and the Star. I’ve never seen such a wonderful ensemble! Director Peter Engkvist , who has gained fame in his home country and around the world, has written and directed Barbro Lindgren’s book with such intensity that you can almost watch the play with bated breath. Add to that Ulf Eriksson’s wonderful, brain-wrenching music and the skilful acting of Sami Uotila and Reetta Honkakoski , and you get a theatre experience like no other! The young actors’ empathy and adaptability to many different characters is incredible. In his direction, Engkvist emphasises the importance of emotions and elevated language. He is used to expressing everything bodily, they say. And that’s what Uotila and Honkakoski are doing. It has been said of Engkvist that his stories convey the most painful topics of human life, but he is able to tell his big stories in small and modest ways. Engkvist himself says that life is simple and fun. From these elements, the play The Boy and the Star is built into a great adventure into the world of imagination. It is a story of life and death, a story about the meaning of two stars, the power of friendship and the courage and resourcefulness of a little horse. “I like to think that this play gives viewers of all ages hope – hope for ourselves as we once were before everyday life began to oppress us with all its constraints,” says the director.
Read moreThere is no need to slap children The City Theatre’s new children’s play The Boy and the Star will be performed in the lobby of the small stage, and there will only be two actors. However, a good team can create an entire fairytale world from the ingredients. In a small space, the viewer can empathize closely with the fairy tale.The Star Horse is played by the City Theatre’s new actress, Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Drama Reetta Honkakoski, who specialises in physical theatre, children’s theatre, mimicry, mask theatre and clownery. The son is Sami Uotila, Master of Arts in Theatre and Drama, who has so far been seen in adult plays at the City Theatre.“I got excited about this play because of the director. I wanted to be part of a children’s performance that is made like for a best friend. There is no slacking off here,” Uotila said.“At first, I was afraid that the children would eat me alive. But soon I noticed that I could do it and it was very great to perform for children,” Uotila said.Although there are only two actors performing, there are many roles in the play. Sami Uotila, for example, also plays a circus director, a raven, a whale and a wolf. The play has a lot of movement, music, singing and dancing.– Pretty tough performance, sweat starts to flow quickly. But the story is captivating, so you don’t notice the harshness when performing,” Uotila said.The funny and exciting play tells a very traditional story of friendship with happy endings, but the execution is in this time. Sometimes, for example, the Boy throws himself into breaking.“When breakdance came to Helsinki in the mid-1980s, I danced it for a couple of years in soda discos, streets and parks. Then I went to Aira Samulin’s dance school and danced for 10 years in the Step Up Dancers group. I’ve never been a professional dancer, but from those times I had a sense of movement in my back pocket. The City Theatre’s versatile repertoire also gives me good opportunities to utilise my dancing skills,” Uotila said. The Boy and the Star is based on a storybook by Swedish children’s author Barbro Lindgren. The text has been edited and directed into a play by Swedish director, writer and theatre director Peter Engkvist. The music is composed by Ulf Eriksson from Sweden. The text has been translated into Finnish by Anneli Mäkelä, the City Theatre’s family theatre manager. The set and costumes are by Katariina Kirjavainen. The lighting is by Juhani Leppänen.According to director Peter Engkvist, a completely new version of The Boy and the Star will be seen in Helsinki. The Finnish language has a completely different melody than Swedish, so the language gave the performance a beautiful, poetic tone. New music has also been composed for the translation of the play.– I don’t know any Finnish. At first, a lot of energy was spent on the strange language. But sometimes the language barrier is useful for the director. When you don’t understand what is being said on stage, you can see the overall expression better,” Engkvist says.The play, which lasts about an hour, is suitable for children over 4 years of age. It is performed in the foyer of the small stage on Saturdays at 11 am and on weekday mornings at 10 am. Tickets 6 euros.
Read morePolyphonic circus tricks Can a horse talk? In the foyer of the City Theatre, it even performs circus tricks! The Boy and the Star is an innocent animal tale by Barbro Lindgren , in which a circus boy and a horse become friends because they were born on the same day. Their birth is also marked by the appearance of two guiding stars in the sky. Tähti (Reetta Honkakoski) is a lovely fairytale horse who can both talk and dance. It is fitting for a children’s story that only children can hear it speak. Sami Uotila is a circus-bred five-year-old boy who would not leave his friend at any price.BR>
Read moreA boy named Pepe lives in a nice circus, with nice circus performers. Unfortunately, the circus director is not nice. Fortunately, however, there is Star, a talking horse who is Pepe’s close friend.
Read moreCHILDREN’S THEATRE AT ITS MOST BEAUTIFUL At 10 a.m. on a weekday morning in the foyer of the theater, next to the coat racks. Come here A magical world should be born, inhabited by a little boy, a fool circus director and the talking horse, whale, raven and bunny? But that’s just the way it happens. Helsinki City Theatre’s small-scale but at its core, the great adventure The Boy and the Star brings the audience within reach Children’s theatre at its most beautiful. The work consists of encounters in which There is plenty of gentleness, just the right amount of absurdity and a bit of acrobatics.
Read moreFeel free to follow your starOnce upon a time, there was a starry night when two children were born to the circus: a boy and a female foal. There was friendship, cold hearts, the pain of separation, loyalty and the courage to return to a friend from across the great sea. There was hope, a little bit of fear, gleaming eyes in the dark, and a little more nice excitement and willingness to help. There was humor and a happy ending. And there was the writer, Barbro Lindgren, who wrote down the events, and the Swedish theatre director, director and writer Peter Engkvist, who directed the story to the stage. All these ingredients resulted in a charming play for children at the City Theatre: The Boy and the Star. Reetta Honkakoski and Sami Uotila transform into many different roles during the play: for example, a circus director, a raven, a baby hare, a whale, a wolf and a sword swallower. Role changes are quick and require a certain sense of abstraction from the child viewer: one can be in several roles and look the same on the outside. Only movements, sounds and facial expressions change. Honkakoski’s and Uotila’s storytelling is very corporeal, and rightly so. How else would you believe that a horse jumps on a boy’s back or that a baby rabbit over one and a half meters tall is completely helpless?The premiere audience commented briskly on the performance and giggled at the rituals of putting the baby rabbit that had lost its mother to sleep. I guess it hit close to my own experiences? Katariina Kirjavainen’s set design is simple: a beautiful starry sky, a miniature circus rising from inside the pose, and a number of objects needed for the narrative. There is a lot of room for imagination, as The Boy and the Star is first and foremost a fairy tale.The foyer of a small stage works well as a real theater, especially if the little spectators dare to sit alone in the front seat or on the mattresses in the front row. The performance for children over the age of four is immediate and very intimate in this space.The music of the play is Ulf Eriksson’s: beautiful and swinging.Marja KuparinenCaption:Sami Uotila is a whale spraying water, and he takes the horse Tähti (Reetta Honkakoski) across the sea in his mouth. Photo: Maisa Mäki
Read moreIMAGINATIVE FAIRY TALE PLAYIt is rare for the poor critic to wholeheartedly like a performance. The City Theatre’s new children’s play Poika ja tähti (The Boy and the Star) is such a rare event. Everything fits nicely: the script, the direction, the actors, the décor, the lights and, not least, the music.
Read moreHelsinki City Theatre’s The Boy and the Star is enchanting theatre for the whole family
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