Elli-velli Karamelli

In September I worked for a new project in Espoo, Finland.

I had been invited by the director Anne Rautiainen, to participate in the production of a puppet theater play in Nukketeatteri Hevosenkenkä. The play is called "Elli-velli Karamelli" and it's based on a story by Kaarina Helakisa, one of the most beloved Finnish childrenbook authors.

In the play we meet little girl called Elli whose best friend is her dog called Heppu. Elli and Heppu live in a big city and have their own special climbing-tree.




Everyday live gets disturbed when factory-owner Herra Hattu, "Mr. Hat", wants to enlarge his factory and therefore climbing-tree would need to be cut down.



But the resourceful little girl wont just take it, but they decide to protest Mr. Hat's undertakings. M'r Hat calls for the fight and engages his factories to produce so much stuff that the children woulnd't even remember trees anymore. But the factories go haywire and out of control and everything gets so polluted that even Mr' Hat don't want it anymore.



Elli and Heppu call out for help and eventually birds from the forest bring them flowers and seeds which help to clean out the city of all the Mr. Hat's pollution and technology. Defeated Mr. Hat flees to faraway lands forgetting to chop down the tree and the citizens of Elli's hometown promise to take better care of the city from now on.



This production was very nice to work with and I was also happy about the new people I got to know through it. The structures and surfaces of Sattva-Hanna Toiviainen's set-design were very organic and inspiring and the puppets by Laura Poranen so natural and expressionful that the whole story just came alive in front of one's very eyes. The actors also sort of blended together with their characters, so the end-product was quite entertaining to even the youngest of the audience, 3-year-olds.

I owe a huge thanks for collaboration also to the technical staff of Hevosenkenkä theater, Anna, Dan and Fanni, who are amazing personalities and resourceful beond your wildest dreams. i sincerely hope I get the chance to work with these guys again in the future!