Kristian Smeds’ Karpo on asiaa performance at the Helsinki City Theatre
Directed and dramatised by Kristian Smeds, KARPOLLA ON ASIAA – true stories from the land of coniferous forests, will visit the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila for two performances in February 2021. In the theatre performance, based on the human destinies presented in the legendary TV series, the actors of the future encounter the Finland of the past.
Directed by internationally award-winning theatre maker Kristian Smeds , the performance consists of solos and scenes prepared by master’s acting students at the Theatre Academy, in which they interpret stories and human destinies brought up by Finnish TV journalist Hannu Karpo .
The legendary current affairs programme Karpo on the Matter, which aired from 1983 to 2007, dealt with the pain points of Finnishness: loneliness, alcoholism and neighbourly disputes. It also brought to light people struggling with bureaucracy and a motley group of individualists living their own kind of lives.
In the co-production of the Kotka City Theatre and the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, the new generation of acting students grab these people and stories with uncompromising piety. They interpret the feelings of the generations born after the war with their own voices, bringing a colourful cavalcade of diverse Finns to the stage. They summarise what is timeless and permanent in a changing Finland.
“The actors themselves are not attached to the collective world from which the stories they present come, but they relate to it through their parents and grandparents. This is the mix that is interesting. It brings that freshness to the performance,” director Kristian Smeds comments on the performance.
The performance is the first artistic direction at the Theatre Academy by Smeds, who started as a professor of acting at the Theatre Academy in 2018. Smeds, one of the best-known directors of his generation, is remembered for his controversial production of The Unknown Soldier , which was performed at the Finnish National Theatre for two years to sold-out audiences.
KARPO ON ASIAA will premiere on 6 January at the Kotka City Theatre, and in January-February 2021, the performance will visit the Helsinki City Theatre, Rovaniemi Theatre, Oulu Theatre, Tampere Theatre and Jyväskylä City Theatre.
KARPO ON ASIAA is part of the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Stages Open! programme, in which students are brought together with a strong professional director who speaks their own language. Pallets open! opens the auditoriums of the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki around Finland. For theatre spectators, this is an opportunity to get to know future artists who are just about to graduate. Pallets open! productions have been directed by Roberto Zucco (dir. Mikko Roiha), The Flies and the Gentlemen (dir. Juhan Ulfsak), Baikal Brothers Ky (dir. Leea Klemola) and Oresteia (dir. Mikko Roiha).
Karpo has something to do performances 19.-20.2.2020 at the Helsinki City Theatre’s studio in Pasila (Ratamestarinkatu 5)
Tickets 30 €
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Further information, media ticket reservations:
Kaisa Pelkonen, Communications Manager, kaisa.pelkonen@hkt.fi, 040 552 3788
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