Review: Siiri ja sotkuinen Kerttu

Siiri and the messy Kerttu

“There’s a dirty kid here!” Siiri screams when she bumps into cousin Kerttu at Little Otto’s birthday party. Kerttu is messy and likes to jump in mud puddles and throw food. Tidy Siiri thinks her behaviour is terribly childish.

It also makes me miserable when Little Otto seems to like Kerttu more than her. Siiri decides to get her friends back by becoming as messy as Gretel.

An important story of friendship

The children’s play, based on Tiina Nopola’s book of the same name, is cheerful and leaves out unnecessary fuss and screaming. The uncertainty of friendship is concretized in the songs, and the grief experienced by Siiri does not grow too great.

At first, I was surprised by the situation where dirtiness equals bad behavior, but Kerttu was just as annoying and badly behaved even in clean clothes! I was also delighted that the neat Siiri finally ventures into the muddy pond and enjoys it.

Suitable for kindergarten children

A half-hour play can be watched well by a three-year-old and the performance is best suited for children under school age. At the premiere, the audience laughed especially at the scene where Little Otto thinks Siiri is a ghost.

The play about friendships has a happy ending when Siiri and Kerttu’s budding friendship is crowned with a hairpin. The gesture is touchingly familiar to the mother of a five-year-old.

Siiri and a messy Kerttu in the foyer of the small stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

Cast: Sanna Majuri, Tiina Peltonen, Hannes Suominen

From kindergarten age upwards, 30 min, 8 e