Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People: Images and Observations (Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education)

Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People

Landscapes: The Arts, Aesthetics, and Education VOLUME 4

SERIES EDITOR Liora Bresler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.

EDITORIAL BOARD Magne Espeland, Stord University, Norway Eve Harwood, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A. Minette Mans, University of Namibia Bo Wah Leung , The Hong Kong Institute of Education Gary McPherson, University of New South Wales, Australia Christine Thompson, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A Francois Tochon, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A.

SCOPE This series aims to provide conceptual and empirical research in arts education, (including music, visual arts, drama, dance, media, and poetry), in a variety of areas related to the post-modern paradigm shift. The changing cultural, historical, and political contexts of arts education are recognized to be central to learning, experience, and knowledge. The books in this series present theories and methodological approaches used in arts education research as well as related disciplines - including philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology of arts education.

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People: Images and Observations by

Shifra Schonmann University of Haifa, Israel

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN-10 ISBN-13 ISBN-10 ISBN-13 ISBN-10 ISBN-13

1-4020-4439-9 (PB) 978-1-4020-4439-7 (PB) 1-4020-4438-0 (HB) 978-1-4020-4438-0 (HB) 1-4020-4440-2 (e-book) 978-1-4020-4440-3 (e-book)

Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com

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To my Menachem

Contents

About the Author

ix

Foreword by Maxine Greene

xi

Acknowledgments Introduction - A Synoptic View: Images and Arguments to Provoke the Imagination Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 -

xiii 1

Boundaries: Between Theatre for Young People and Adults’ Theatre

9

An Experience: A Unique Cultural and Artistic Phenomenon

29

The Audience: Levels of Communication with Children

51

Catharsis: The Nature of Private and Public Catharsis in Children’s Theatre

69

Conventions: Shedding Light on the Sign System used in Theatre for Young People

87

Criticism: Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical Performance

119

viii Chapter 7 -

Chapter 8 Chapter 9 -

Contents Theatre for Young People as a School Event: Advantages and Disadvantages of Children Attending a Play en masse

145

The Culture of Schools and the School Play: Social, Pedagogical and Artistic Dimensions

169

Politics and Aesthetics in Theatre for Young People in Israel: A Concise View

193

References

205

Subject Index

217

Name Index

221

About the Author

Dr. Shifra Schonmann is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Education University of Haifa, Head of the Laboratory for Research in Theatre/Drama Education and Head of the Arts Therapy-Bibliotherapy Department. Her research interests lie in the fields of Aesthetics Theatre and Education, a combination which provides insight into issues of Curriculum, Teacher Training, and Arts Education. Within these fields, she has conducted extensive research, developing a profound body of knowledge on Theatre Drama Education. She has published numerous articles on these issues, as well as books: Theatre of the Classroom (in Hebrew) and Behind Closed Doors: Teachers and the Role of the Teacher’s Lounge co-authored with Ben Peretz, published by SUNY Press. Over the past ten years, she has been developing research in the field of Children and Youth Theatre, highlighting its importance in the dual territory of educational and theatrical settings. Dr. Schonmann, an educator, scholar and theatre person is an invited speaker in international conferences and acts as member of the Editorial Board of several leading journals. Throughout her career, she has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Rochester, New York (1988/9), Department of Women’s Studies, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, School of Education (1996/7) and a visiting professor at New York Univeristy, School of Education (2001/2).

Foreword

This book opens doorways to new understandings, even as it poses a challenge to educators, theatre people, and others concerned about the lives of today’s children. At once it raises a wealth of questions regarding the meanings of theatre, the role of imagination, the difference (especially for children) between the fictional and the real. Indeed, one of the attractions of Dr. Schonmann’s book is her evident cherishing of open questions, many of which involve her readers in explorations of their own experiences and in a renewed wonder at what the arts can bring to human lives. Her focus is on children’s theatre as a unique art form with its own symbol system and its particular demands on audiences. Dealing as she does with images and enactments as well as with a range of theories, she makes readers aware of unexplored possibilities—pedagogical and aesthetic—for early childhood and elementary education. Her core argument is that children’s theatre is not a reduced version of adult theatre. Nor is it arbitrarily concocted in accord with adult notions of children as incomplete adults. It is well known that the idea of a child as a being in process of growing, of becoming, stems from the work of John Dewey and others at the turn of the last century. Dr. Schonmann’s conception of children’s theatre responds to such a view. Plays for children, whether in or out of school, whether performed by the young or by professionals, are not developed by formula. To see the alternatives, readers are enticed into the sphere of the artistic-aesthetic, the sphere in which the relations between creative artist and audience. It is a two-way relation, a transaction in part made possible by some acquaintance with conventions like aesthetic distance, by a capacity to enter into a created, alternative world, and (perhaps most of all) by a joining of emotion, sensation, and imagination. There are few occasions for this to occur outside the realm of the arts: and Dr. Schonmann—educator and scholar and theatre person—provides a rare and scintillating occasion for numbers of us to awake. Maxine Greene Teachers College Columbia University

Acknowledgments

My journey with Theatre as a Medium for children and Young People: Images and Observations came to its conclusion. For my readers however it is only the starting point. It is a great pleasure to open the book with heartfelt acknowledgments: To Nellie McCaslin, a mother of children’s theatre in the USA, a scholar and a friend, who passed away during the writing of the book. I owe her hours of great discussions on theatre for young people, I owe her a wonderful friendship. She read a few chapters in the making and encouraged me to move forward on this journey of awakening the field. I salute her. To Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene whose inspiration is the cornerstone of my thinking. Both are close friends, deeply cherished. Their innovative writings and active involvement in my scholarly path enabled me to understand and develop concepts about the nature of aesthetic education and the educational power of the arts. To Tony Jackson; Jonathan Levy; Judith Martin; Laurie Brooks; Jeanne Klein; Alistair Martin-Smith; Helen White; Edi Demas; Varda Knoll. I thank thank all for their perception and helpful conference discussions or interviews; conversations via email or face to face meetings. Each one made a unique contribution that enriched my work along the way. I thank them all for being friends and colleagues. To my students at the Laboratory for Research in Theatre Drama Education at the University of Haifa and to my students at the Educational Theatre Department at New York University I extend many thanks. Throughout the research I was assisted by them in fruitful seminar discussions. Special thanks go to my student Inbal Avivi. To Valery Levy, a dear friend and a perceptive editor, who helped me at the outset with her lucid and encouraging remarks. To Marion Lupo who

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Acknowledgments

read my drafts and edited them with care and constructive assistance. To Jolyn Blank who helped with the last version of this book. To Marion Wagenaar; Irene van den Reydt and Michel Lokhorst of Kluwer Academic Publishers for their support and patience. To Myriam Poort and Bernadette Deelen-Mans from Springer who brought this book to publication. My deepest appreciation goes to Liora Bresler, the series’ editor. Her wisdom and discerning professional judgment, insightful lead, true friendship and support helped make this book possible. To my husband Menachem I take delight in expressing my gratefulness. He was unfailingly helpful to me yet again.

Shifra Schonmann University of Haifa

INTRODUCTION A SYNOPTIC VIEW Images and Arguments to Provoke the Imagination

This is a book about theatre for young people. It is a journey into the dual territory of educational and theatrical settings that require in-depth study. While a general framework regarding the philosophy, methods, and theatrical concepts needs to be discussed, there are also some compelling questions that need to be answered: − Why is it that children’s theatre still has to struggle for its existence and fight for its proper place in our society? Why is it generally accepted that the potential of children’s theatre is enormous and yet, despite this acceptance, it has not gained the required prestige? − We understand that the actor needs to communicate with both the “outer” and the “inner” personality of the audience. How does this understanding differ when the spectator is a child? − What are the differences between an individual child as spectator in a children’s theatre and that of a group of children from a class sitting together in the audience? How do group dynamics affect their receptiveness to the action on stage? − What changes have taken place in the field from its beginning? From the staging of Peter Pan, The Blue Bird, Cinderella and other fairy tales at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the performances of Euripides’ “Medea” for children – on the stages of New York at the beginning of the twenty-first century? − Is children’s theatre obliged to issue statements such as “Not Only for Amusement”? These were the words inscribed over the entrance to the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. At present, we lack a thorough analysis of the role of the theatre in strengthening a child’s critical thinking, the child’s perceptions of good and evil, how the child makes sense of the world s/he lives in, and how the 1

2

Introduction

theatre helps in developing the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of their lives. We do not know enough about how theatre has an impact on the child. There has been almost no research or active theorizing on these topics. There are almost no surveys to prove that watching many performances, as a child, makes one love or enjoy the theatre when one becomes an adult. However, I believe there are other compelling reasons to encourage children to go to the theatre and to encourage their ability to enjoy this form of art. Images and arguments in theatre for young people will be presented through the evolving chapters of this book. The reader is invited to examine his/her own assumptions and take a stand either with or against mine. The book is an invitation to an open dialogue. Strange as it may sound, theatre for young people is almost an unexplored territory. Although the field of theatre for young people is broad and complex, little research has been done in this area and theoretical understanding is limited. Like the Sleeping Beauty of legend, the researchers in this field have fallen into a deep sleep. One might think that this fact speaks for itself, yet my belief is that this lack of attention speaks to the need for further exploration. Theatre has the capacity to transform reality, to create new worlds. It is a powerful artistic channel to elicit feelings of fear and pity, laughter, anger and happiness. It is, therefore, worth probing the inner structures of the mechanism that arouses these profound emotions and what can be properly devised in theatre for young people to help in its struggle for a rightful status in society and a rightful status in the inner hierarchy of the theatre world. Theatre for young people seemed to grow simultaneously in many countries in and around the middle of the twentieth century. We can now say that theatre for young people is a worldwide phenomenon. Yet, in spite of this growth, it has dubious prestige. An actor in children’s theatre is still considered to be at the lowest level of the profession in many countries. There is still a long way to go to overcome prejudices such as: “Well, what do you expect? It’s only children’s theatre”, and to abandon assumptions such as: “A play for children should not be an experimental one”. This book is neither a history of children’s theatre nor a handbook of “How To” recipes. The reader will not find instructions on how to build scenery, create props, or run rehearsals. Rather, it is an analysis of images and arguments in theatre for young people. It aims at triggering the reader’s interest in this subject as an artistic, educational and cultural phenomenon. I would like to advance our knowledge in this field by touching upon provocative questions and complex images and by leading a dispute over the limitations, the challenges and the new possibilities of theatre for young people. The goal is to have this book increase the understanding, the

A Synoptic View

3

enjoyment, and the appreciation of both those working in the field and the audience, the theatregoers. This book is intended for scholars, researchers, students, teachers, parents, directors, and community leaders who are seeking knowledge about the growing phenomenon of Theatre for Young People. It is for professionals as well as for others who would like to join in an exploration of its secrets. We are now celebrating over one hundred years of Theatre for Young People. The year 1903 is considered to be the “official” year from which we count its establishment: “The date that ascribed to the beginning of children’s theatre in the United States was the year 1903” (McCaslin, 1978, p. 2). Even though McCaslin referred to the U.S., many other sources mark the year 1903 as a landmark in the field. What achievements have we made? How can we sum up these hundred years? What are the horizons of the field? Although the book is not intended to answer these questions in a systematic way, arguments and images related to these issues will escort the reader throughout the pages. The method is to probe the issues under discussion with many questions. Some are rhetorical, some are intended to reveal the problems in the field, and some are issues I have been struggling to understand more fully either via research that I have conducted through the years or via profound thinking with my students and fellow-researchers in my laboratory for research in theatre and drama in education at the University of Haifa. Some of these ideas were discussed with my colleagues from all over the world while I worked overseas, attended professional conferences, and corresponded with them through writing. The widespread notion among the researchers in the field is that since the beginning of the twentieth century theatre for young audiences has undergone a transformation from a theatre “that was primarily a didactic theatre of integration propaganda to one that is becoming a dialectical theatre of ideas” (Lorenz, 2002, p. 96). Whereas this is an encouraging thought, one that I wish was true, I beg to differ. I assert that the basic discourse has not yet changed. One of my basic arguments would be that the didactic tendency remains and has prevented theatre for young people from flourishing as a performing art that could gain higher prestige throughout the years. Within the chapters of this book, the reader will find that the basic tendency to give predominance to the instrumental function of the theatre rather than to its artistic and aesthetic merits remains strong in contemporary theatre for young people. I will show how, from the early days of the twentieth century, the emphasis in the children’s theatre movement on pedagogical and didactic matters created an instrumental art that remains the major aim at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In a few places

4

Introduction

around the world, however, we can see some very interesting experiences of breaking through the wall of educational instrumentalism. The fact is that only in the last three decades of the twentieth century has Theatre for Young People begun to be recognized as a field in its own right, one that should be researched and studied at universities and one that should be part of local and international scholarly study at professional symposiums. The International Association of Theatres for Children and Young People, known as ASSITEJ, formed in 1964 and is regarded as the most important development in the twentieth century in terms of making theatre for young people a focus of international attention. ASSITEJ’s activities established the field on the international level and it is still the most important professional organization in the field. However, it has not yet succeeded in breaking the barrier of the universities and in establishing a place for the study of theatre for young people within the educational and the theatre departments that conduct research and construct knowledge. The fact is that there are only a few departments in the whole world that are developing this field for its own sake. There have been a few attempts to “renew” some books by publishing them in a new format; however, no basic content changes have been made. The small number of articles on theatre for young audiences published in professional journals (as compared to the vast number written on the theatre per se) exemplifies the need for extensive academic research. Known scholars that built the field (such as Ward, McCaslin, Way, Slade, Davis and Evans, Goldberg, Harris, Jennings, Kase-Polisini, Sikes, Corey, Swortzell, Wood, Booth, Courtney) have written books or chapters in the books of others on the phenomenon under discussion, but we have to admit that even if there were thirty or forty books on the subject it is only a drop in a sea when compared to the huge number of books written on theatre for adults or even those written on drama education. I have to point out that I am referring only to books written in the English language.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK This book is organized around nine chapters. Each chapter contains images and arguments developed around topics of importance that are under dispute. The last chapter is related to the theatre for young people in Israel, my home country, where I have developed my thinking and research over the years. Various modes of inquiry have been used. When I refer to an empirical study, I explain in detail how the data were generated. Underlying the images and arguments set forth in this book are interwoven threads of critical thinking, caring, and a great love of theatre for young people. Each

A Synoptic View

5

chapter contains sections entitled Prologue, Setting the Scene, Topics of Importance and an Epilogue. The ideas evolve as follows: Chapter 1 - Boundaries: Between Theatre for Young People and Adults’ Theatre I begin with a presentation of the basic understandings and misunderstandings that underlie the field in order to establish a common starting point for the arguments and images that will be developed throughout the book. This first chapter clarifies the concept of Theatre for Young People as it is distinguished from the concept of adult’s theatre. Theatre for Young People is used as an umbrella term for all sorts of theatre in which adults perform for children. Topics of importance: Theatre and theatrical experience through the eyes of experts (Boal and Grotowski); Through the eyes of theatre educators (Neelands and Fingerhut); Through the eyes of children’s theatre practitioners (Demmery and Lutley); Through the eyes of children’s theatre theorists (Goldberg and McCaslin); Differences between TYP and adult’s theatre related to modes of rhetoric of theatre as conveyors of meaning; Children’s fiction - the case of Peter Pan; The as if play and the age groups of the audience; and The idea of control in theatre for young people. Chapter 2 - An Experience: A Unique Cultural and Artistic Phenomenon This chapter focuses on childhood and the theatre as a cultural and artistic experience, striving to bring these entities together within an educational framework. The central idea is that there is a defined children’s culture and a whole industry to encourage it; yet, in a strange way children’s theatre is very tenuously connected to this unique cultural entity. Topics of importance: The origins of children’s theatre; Childhood as a new concept; Betwixt and between children’s literature and theatre for young audiences; A conceptual framework: the non-educational education of a theatrical experience; The disappearance of childhood; and, Children as consumers and their role in the economy. Chapter 3 - The Audience: Levels of Communication with Children In this third chapter, I deal with one of the most important issues: theatrical communication. This involves questions of perception and participation, aesthetic distance and the child as a captive audience. It is worth noting that the study of reception developed very late in the history of

6

Introduction

theatrical research; it is an essential concern to be discussed in the context of children and theatre. This chapter refers to the notion of the audience sharing in the responsibility of the failure or the success of the production. Topics of importance: Reception, perception and participation; Ecologies of performance - the applause; Children as a captive audience; Homogenous/heterogeneous audience; and the aesthetics of audience response. Chapter 4 - Catharsis: The Nature of Private and Public Catharsis in Children’s Theatre Here I explain the concept of catharsis and analyze its components. Catharsis is perceived as supporting one’s emotional life and as helping a person function better outside the theatre doors. This suggests that catharsis can be useful for understanding the structure of the private and the public behavior of children watching a play. It provides an opportunity to share feelings in a protected environment in an artistic event and among peers. My concern in this chapter is not to show whether responses are or are not spontaneous, but to show that feelings are inseparable from understanding and that there is a need to provide the child with positive models and a feeling of optimism. Topics of importance: The different meaning of catharsis; Children at risk on encountering theatre; Moff and Morris by J. Jacobson; Focused reactions and ways of participation; The importance of mediating; Crying and laughing - overt behaviors; and the need for positive models. Chapter 5 - Conventions: Shedding Light on the Sign System used in Theatre for Young People While catharsis is associated with moral values, conventions do not necessarily have value connotations. Conventions are based upon behaviors and manners dictated in advance that have been absorbed by the audience of a specific culture. In theatre, contrary to real life, one can break the rules of nature and turn them into conventions. However, it is impossible to break the rules that refer to the interaction codes of conduct among people. A crucial question is how to help the child distinguish reality from fiction. We consider that the critical ability to distinguish life from art probably begins for children at about the age of four or five but is not fully developed until the child is about seven or eight or, sometimes, later. Topics of importance: Basic theatrical conventions and the problems they raise for young people; Constraints imposed on theatrical communication; Constructing an image in our mind; The image of God on stage:

A Synoptic View

7

challenging the convention of the unknown; Obligation to the young audiences; The unique and the problematic connections between life and theatre; Fictional worlds and real worlds in early childhood; Parameters for aesthetic distance in early childhood. Chapter 6 - Criticism: Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical Performance The basic questions in this chapter are: What is the meaning of “high standards” in children’s theatre? Does this mean the same as “high standards” in theatre for adults? When, if ever, can we definitely state: “That’s not a play for children”? Are “good” and “poor” the right terms to use when dealing with children’s theatre? I argue here against the general understanding that there are limitations in the medium itself, in the art of children’s theatre, limitations of the use of language, the use of themes, the use of symbols and metaphors, and these limitations prevent dramatic achievements. My stand is that the only limitations referring to children’s theatre are those that exist in the mind of the creators. Topics of importance: Is it possible to establish criteria for critiquing an artistic performance?; The forgotten language; Expert versus novice judgments in theatre for young audience; What’s wrong with kitsch?; The enormous gap between the children and the adults’ judgments; Explaining the gap between children and adult judgments; Criteria for evaluating theatre for young people - a proposal; The communicative quality; An index for the evaluation of theatre performances. Chapter 7 - Theatre for Young People as a School Event: Advantages and Disadvantages of Children Attending a Play En Masse In this chapter I focus on describing and analyzing visits to the theatre during school hours. I argue that one should free the child from the tyranny of being herded into a structured excursion (with the class) to a theatre performance. Based on observations and interviews with children, I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of children going to a play en masse. Topics of importance: Observations collected during theatrical events; The case of Women of Wonder; The case of Tom’s Midnight Garden; The case of Peter and Wendy; The case of Knock, Knock, Knock, Anybody Home?; Children’s theatre and education: conflict or harmony?; Educational materials: teacher and student’s resource guide.

8

Introduction Chapter 8 - The Culture of Schools and the School Play: Social Pedagogical and Artistic Dimensions

This chapter diverges from the main idea of the book: Theatre for Young People (i.e., professional adult actors performing for young audiences). It deals with the cultural life of schools in order to explain the foundation on which the concept of the school play was developed. It focuses on performances of pupils guided by a team of teachers on various celebrations in schools. The link between this chapter and the rest of the book is in the principles that connect education and theatre. It deals with two main questions: Are school performances the way to achieve cultural identification or, conversely, cultural estrangement? And, in what way do school performances nurture the love of theatre? Topics of importance: Actual or fictional education; A metaphoric view; The question of the desired education; Standing tall: School performance and the question of its healing powers; The problematic status of school performances; The importance of personal experience; The joyfulness of the experience of a school play; A school play as a form of school art. Chapter 9 - Politics and Aesthetics in Theatre for Young People in Israel: A Concise View This last chapter aims to revisit the ideas that were developed in the various chapters of the book, this time via the eyes of the experience of theatre for young people (TYP) in Israel. It shall raise in the reader’s mind certain doubts and confirm certain truths that can serve as a good basis for an ongoing dialogue. Topics of importance: Ministry of Education’s politics; The question of building repertoire; Main genres in the Israeli theatre for young audiences; The role of parents in children’s theatre; Aesthetics and criticism; What should be valued in theatre for young people?

Chapter #1 BOUNDARIES Between Theatre for Young People and Adults’ Theatre

PROLOGUE When Stanislavsky was asked to make a distinction between theatre for adults and theatre for children, he replied that the only important difference is that, for children, theatre should be better (Quoted from the cover of McCaslin’s book, 1978). This first chapter will clarify the distinction between the two. The term theatre for young people carries a connotation that is quite different from that of adults’ theatre; it suggests a separation as well as distinctive qualities. This chapter raises some basic questions such as: Should we maintain these differences or should the regular theatre companies (i.e. those that produce plays for an adult audience) produce plays for children as well? If we accept Stanislavsky’s opinion that actually there is no difference, will children’s theatre become an integral part of the cultural and theatrical life of the theatre-going community? Over the years there have been direct and indirect attempts to define the boundaries between children’s and adults’ theatre (such as: Goldberg, 1974; Cory, 1974; McCaslin, 1978; Davis and Evans, 1987; Swortzell, 1990; Klein, 1995; Levy, 1998; Wood & Grant, 1999; Lorenz, 2002). If we accept that boundaries do exist, then the distinction must also relate to the age of the audience. From what age is a child considered able to enjoy a theatre performance? And until what age is he or she considered a child and not an adult? Can such boundaries help to advance our knowledge in the field? Are such boundaries necessary? Are they desirable? While maintaining a separation between “adult theatre” and “theatre for young people”, tentatively setting the age-limits as four and sixteen, it can be 9

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Chapter #1

claimed that though a separation is necessary and desirable, it does blur the boundaries between the ages. It is not a fixed differentiation. The mental age of a child does not always correspond with the biological age; therefore, we should be very cautious. Furthermore, one has to bear in mind that an audience of children (aged 4-10) is completely different from an audience of teenagers. The question of boundaries is thus expanded and will be discussed under various headings such as: Theatre for Young People, Theatre for Infants, Theatre for Children, Theatre for a Young Audience, and Theatre for the Family. This chapter will convey the idea that although children’s theatre does not have the ancient heritage adult theatre does, it has to stop struggling to define its legitimacy as an educational endeavor; it would do better to concentrate on its own artistic form and its own aesthetic merits. Children’s theatre should constantly create and elaborate new forms of art. This line of thought is central throughout this book. The common usage of the abovementioned terms, especially the most widespread term, “children’s theatre”, does not distinguish between children performing for other children and adults performing for children. In this book, I utilize the term to refer only to a formal artistic performing activity in which the actors are adults and professionals.

SETTING THE SCENE The differences that exist between theatre for adults and theatre for young people should not be summarized by Stanislavsky’s words, “It is necessary to act for children as well as for adults, only better” (Goldberg, 1974, p. 23). Should we accept the notion that children’s theatre is nothing but a child’s toy, which must somehow have a redeeming educational function? This is what Gronemeyer (1996) asks. Or is it “a school for seeing” as the children’s playwright Friedrich K. Waechter claims (ibid., p. 152)? Can we get rid of the tyranny of the didactic uses of children’s theatre and find new ways of thinking about this artistic and cultural phenomenon? Why not simply accept that whatever one says is theatre for a young audience is theatre for a young audience (TYA)? While exploring the heart of these questions, I do not wish to set any definition of my own but I would like to examine a few thoughts that could serve as a starting point into the search for theatre for young people (TYP), its characteristics, its secrets, and its importance as an artistic and cultural phenomenon. The first step would be to agree upon what we mean by theatre as an artistic and cultural phenomenon; we could then try to set the boundaries between theatre for adults and theatre for the young audience, or theatre for

#1. Boundaries

11

young people, as both terms appear interchangeably in the theatrical jargon. The line would be to justify the distinctions on the basis of cultural and psychological dimensions. The discussion about various concepts of adults’ theatre should help us to further understand the arguments and the images of TYP as they are developed in the book. However, I have no intention of approaching this prickly question, “What is theatre?” in any systematic way; rather, I will use selected terms and definitions that will clearly and briefly pave the way to clarifying the distinctions between theatre for adults and theatre for young people.

THEATRE AND THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE EYES OF EXPERTS: BOAL AND GROTOWSKI The dispute over the arts of the theatre takes us back to early times. In ancient Greece, more than 2,500 years ago, Aristotle wrote his “ Poetics.” This work is still considered to be the cornerstone of any theoretical or practical argument on theatre. Aristotle’s main concept of the theatre was mimesis; that is, on stage we imitate life. But what does it mean to imitate life on stage? For us, the word “imitate” means to make a more or less perfect copy of the original model but for Aristotle, as Boal explains, to imitate (mimesis) has nothing to do with copying an exterior model, rather it has to do with a “re-creation”. Thus when Aristotle says that art imitates nature, we have to understand that he actually means, “Art re-creates the creative principle of created things” (Boal, 1979/1995, p. 1). Therefore, Boal argues, “to imitate” has nothing to do with improvisation or “realism”. The concept of mimesis is very difficult to trace and many erroneous explanations have appeared over the centuries because of bad translations and because of the difficulties in delineating Aristotle’s philosophical thought. But it is clear from the outset that the problem of imitation is linked with that of representation. As Piaget (1962) argued, “the representation involves the image of an object, it can be seen to be a kind of interiorized imitation, and therefore a continuation of accommodation” (p. 5). However, the direction that Boal hinted at is most meaningful in today’s criticism of art, and mimesis is mostly understood as representing life on stage and not as pure copying or presenting life as closely as possible to the original source. I thought it would be a good idea to clarify this point right at the beginning since the first difficulty that we face in understanding children’s theatre touches upon the ways we understand the idea of mimesis and the kind of the theatrical experience we aim to achieve.

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The words “ theatre” and “ theatrical ” can be applied to a wide variety of performances. In this book, I refer to theatrical performances in which the act of performing a play is at the core of the event. I accept the viewpoint of those who claim that the theatrical experience consists of what the actors on stage and the audience in the hall have to “celebrate” together. Celebrating our deepest experiences must be extracted from real life situations; it is expected that a theatrical event will be able to raise its participants to new heights of human existence. A theatrical experience is not necessarily catharsis but it is connected to a very basic experience that springs from the ongoing dialogue between actors and their audiences, a kind of dialogue that goes back to ancient rituals. The essence of theatre is in the actor-audience encounter and the ways in which such an encounter can add meaning to life. Therefore, if we are trying to deal with the question of the differences that might be found between theatre for adults and theatre for young audiences, we should accept the view that because the audiences in theatre for young people are young people the encounter between the stage and the audience should consider different elements even though in principle we remain in the same sphere of theatrical performance. Despite the changes and adaptations theatre has undergone since the days of ancient Greece, over the course of hundreds of years it has over remained a special kind of spiritual and emotional experience that contains within it the element of pleasure. The only two ingredients necessary for theatre were and still are the actor and his/her audience. The clear understanding of these minimal essential ingredients for creating theatre was given a theoretical dimension and developed by Jerzy Grotowski, whose ideas about “poor” theatre influenced the greatest of the 20th century theatre creators such as Peter Brook and Jerome Robbins. “Poor” theatre is a concept in which the actor or the actress is at the center of the theatrical work. Instead of a wealthy theatre that goes to great lengths to rival movies and television, Grotowski wanted a “poor” theatre: one without props, costumes, decoration, or stage machinery (Gronemeyer, 1996, p. 166). Later in this book, in Chapter Six (Criticism: Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical Performance), I claim that on the one hand, children’s theatre has a strong inclination towards imitating movies and television and that this is one of the faults of TYA and, on the other hand, when TYA does operate as “poor” theatre it is because of a low budget and not because of a belief in any concept that goes with the “poor” theatre ideas. This, in fact, is an unfortunate situation for some of the children’s theatre companies that have found themselves poor in the conventional financial sense. And, all too often, the wretchedness resulting from this poverty is unavoidable. Speaking about theatrical experience, let us look again at Boal’s (1992) concept of the nature of that experience. Boal sees theatre as the capacity

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possessed by human beings to observe themselves in action. For him theatre is a form of knowledge; “ It should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it” (p. xxxi). He created a new form of “the theatre of the oppressed”. Boal believes that the theatre has the power to transform reality, to provoke deep thought about and challenge people to revolt against appalling conditions in life. The use of the term ‘theatre’ and the concept of a social and political mission are completely different from the conventional uses of the concept of theatre that bases its understanding on Aristotelian perceptions. Jackson (1995) argues that Boal’s rationale and methodology for Forum Theatre work well for TIE (Theatre in Education). However, there is no TYA that I know of that has adopted Boal’s ideas. Should we, as adults, encourage this school of thought to influence TYA? I doubt it. Philosophical ideas of the adults are not always suitable for young people because the young are in different stages of development; it might, however, be a good idea to borrow artistic and aesthetic forms of presentation from Boal in order to facilitate the access of the actors and the audience to new theatrical experiences. If we look into more radical concepts of theatre we may see other differences between theatre for adults and theatre for young people. One example is Eugenio Barba’s (1995) anthropological understanding of theatre. Barba claims that a theatre should be open to the “experiences of other theatres, not in order to mix different ways of making performances, but in order to find basic common principles and to transmit these principles through its own experiences” (p. 9). Opening to diversity does not necessarily mean falling into a confusion of styles but, as he sees it, it avoids the risk of sterile isolation on one hand and, on the other, “it avoids an opening-at-any-cost which disintegrates into promiscuity” (p. 9). Where does this understanding lead us when referring to theatre for young audiences? That the theatres resemble each other because of their principles, not because of their performances, is the essence in the theatre anthropology understanding as Barba sees it. This understanding is crucial for making sense of children’s theatre and opening a window for new ways of thinking about this art form for young audiences.

THEATRE AND THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE EYES OF THEATRE EDUCATORS: NEELANDS AND FINGERHUT Another look into the concept of theatre, from the perspective of a drama theatre educator, gives us a fresh point of view of what we should be aiming

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at in theatre for young audiences. Neelands (1991), a drama theatre educator, defines theatre for the purpose of structuring drama work for young people as: “The direct experience that is shared when people imagine and behave as if they were other than themselves in some other place at another time” (p. 4). This definition seeks to encompass all forms of creative imitative behavior from the spontaneous imaginative play of young children to the more formal experience of the play performed by actors for an audience. This definition assumes that “meanings in theatre are created for both spectator and participant through the actor’s fictional and symbolic uses of human presence in time and space” (p. 4). Neelands’ definition, in fact, calls into focus the “as if ” cognitive ability of the young spectator to be able to experience this transformation while watching a play. This ability is indeed the core of theatrical understanding, and the same idea will also have many forms in other viewpoints and definitions. Another look at the theatrical experience places the focus on the kind of the storytelling performed. The understanding here is that the importance lies in the unique way in which the story is presented. Since theatre exists only in performance, and there is no way to go back in time or place and view things twice, the very performance is the art. Here I can use Fingerhut’s (1995) definition of theatre. She assumes that: “Theatre is a form of expression that communicates meaning from person to person by means of unique images that exist for only a moment, never to be repeated in exactly the same way” (p. 3). If we accept this definition then we have to ask ourselves: From which age and how can the child perceive the magic of the theatre? The magic is partly created by illusions, by what we call ‘the willing suspension of disbelief ’ which goes back to our understanding of the “as if ” situation. The main question to ask is how we can be sure, or at least be convinced, that the theatrical choices made by the actors, the director, and the designers are able to communicate specific meanings to the audience. Of course the adults’ theatre must also have kinds of artistic communication, but for this form of theatre we do not have to take any responsibility. It is entirely in the sphere of the artists and the ways they can perform their art. In contrast, in theatre for young children we certainly have a responsibility in the sense of helping this art to develop since most of the artists in theatre (such as the actors, directors, designers, playwrights) are not educators or psychologists and they know almost nothing about young people’s needs.

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THEATRE FOR CHILDREN AND THE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE EYES OF CHILDREN’S THEATRE PRACTITIONERS: DEMMERY AND LUTLEY Like many practitioners in the field, Sylvia Demmery (1978) is an enthusiastic advocate of Theatre for Children who argues that it requires special qualities, training, and experience: “Let us share our talent to bring another dimension of artistry into the lives of children and young adults and never forget theatre for children should provide an emotional and aesthetic experience and, if it does not, it is not worth doing” (p. 21). Inspired by Peter Slade’s ideas about what qualities such theatre should have, she sees a good theatre company for children as a group of people who are sensitive and sympathetic to each other and to the needs of the child. The essence of this theatre should lie in improvisation. Demmery believes that improvisation should be at the core of every child’s theatre. Another practitioner who deeply cares for TYP is Lutley (1978), who argues with passion: “It is Theatre - not simplified Adult Theatre; children are not simplified adults - but Theatre of the kind which we have come to believe in is right for young children, based on their kind of drama - child drama. Our aim is, in Peter Slade’s words: to provide an emotional and aesthetic experience through the medium of speech, light, color, music, situation, silence, consideration for other people and - innocence” (p. 1). These two practitioners serve as examples of experts who work with children and with theatre for children; they express the hope of presenting a slightly more civilized form of mindful acting for children. Lutley and Demmery were both working with the “Children’s Theatre Players” from its beginnings in 1943. Lutley credits Peter Slade for all of her training, guidance, and whatever ability she has to work in children’s theatre. The crucial influence that Peter Slade had on very many in this field over decades is well known, yet one should point out that, at the same time, Slade’s naive way of perceiving conventional theatre and way of understanding how a child should be educated dominated the field and limited it for many years. The terms already mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: Theatre for Young People, Theatre for Infants, Theatre for Children, Theatre for a Young Audience, and Theatre for the Family suggest separation from the adults’ world. In the 1970s when these terms originated, almost no one questioned them or the separations implied by them. Should the regular theatrical companies for adults produce theatre for children as well and, if they did, would theatre for children become an integral part of the cultural theatrical life of the community? When one is dealing with a phenomenon that is at least one hundred years old and one is still searching for basic

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definitions, it indicates that something was wrong along the way as the phenomenon was constructed and developed over time. It is true to say that every theoretical definition has to be defined in each context anew, but theatre is not a theoretical entity (though it is based on theory and constantly constructs new theories). The need to define children’s theatre emerges from the fact that something is not clear there. On one hand, children’s theatre is “something” so simple that everyone thinks he can do it, understand it, and be involved in it, while on the other hand there is the claim that one must be a professional specializing in theatre and education to have a profound say in this complex phenomenon of modern civilization, that is to say, one that has been developed only in the last hundred years. In terms of the hundreds and hundreds of years in which theatre has been a significant part of culture of civilizations, theatre for young audiences is still very young.

THEATRE FOR CHILDREN AND THE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE EYES OF CHILDREN ’S THEATRE THEORISTS: GOLDBERG AND MCCASLIN In his influential book, Children’s Theatre - A Philosophy and a Method, Goldberg (1974) claimed that children’s theatre is a term that can be defined as a: “formal theatrical experience in which a play is presented for an audience of children. The goal of children’s theatre is to provide the best possible theatrical experience for the audience. To this end, children’s theatre employs all of the techniques and principles of the theatre... ‘Youth theatre’ is the equivalent term for children aged fourteen through eighteen” (p. 5). Goldberg claims that children’s theatre is basically the same as ‘adult theatre’. This view was typical of the main stream of thought in the 1970s. A quick look at some scholars and artists who were active at that time should depict this clearly. Pogonat (1978), for example, claimed that all separation between children’s theatre and adult’s theatre should be used only to differentiate between two kinds of audiences. He argued, “Theatre as an art is indivisible, and the dichotomy between theatre for children and theatre for adults is usually to the discredit of children’s theatre” (p. 37). Korogodsky (1978) argued, “The only factor that distinguishes youth theatre from the stage for grownups is the fact that the spectators are children.” (p. 13). The reader can look into the book that Nellie McCaslin edited in 1978 in which she gathered fourteen of the most influential people known to her, directors, producers and educators who were involved in children’s theatre and who represented the educational, the community and the commercial theatre in the United States, England, Canada, the USSR and Romania in the 1970s.

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None of the influential figures cited questioned Goldberg’s idea that children’s theatre is basically the same as ‘adult theatre’. I see this view as one of the most important causes that prevented the theatre for young audiences from developing its own theatrical genres; as a result it slipped into a state of stagnation for more than thirty years. This is a strong accusation and it goes out to all those who encourage this way of viewing youth theatre. The similarity between theatre for adults and Theatre for young people narcotized the imagination of actors and directors and their curiosity to search for new forms of artistic performance suitable for the youngest audiences. Goldberg defined children’s theatre as a “specific subgroup of theatre experience intended for children, particularly children aged five through fourteen years” (p. xi). He argued that: “in methodology, the “children’s theatre” is basically the same as the “adult theatre”. There is, however, a special set of historical traditions, goals, and technical emphases that constitute a sub-group of theatrical experiences intended for an audience of children. Beside the age group of its target audience, the significant difference between the children’s theatre and the traditional adult theatre is the strong philosophical ideal, which underlies it” (p. xii). There is frequent confusion about who the performers are in children’s theatre. The common use of the term “children’s theatre” does not distinguish between children performing for other children and adults performing for children. To avoid this confusion, Goldberg invokes a new term, “recreational drama”. He states: “Children’s theatre” then will nearly always be reserved for the performances in which adults act, although a child may be used in a child’s role” (p. 5). I see no real justification to add yet another term to the dozen that already exist in educational drama; we are confused enough already, especially when Goldberg gave a few known terms for the phenomenon in which children perform drama actively and when, as he put it, they “re-create the self ” (p. 5). However, I do acknowledge his claim that children’s theatre is a formal artistic performing activity in which adults act. I would add to this that the adult actors should be professionals. Nellie McCaslin has been one of the most prominent figures in the field of theatre for young people almost since its creation in the early years of the twentieth century. Her contribution to the field is enormous not only because of her important research on theatre for children in the United States - a history of the field, but also because of her teaching and other writings plays for children and juveniles, and activities such as being the president of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ). In her extensive work, she has increased parents and educators’ awareness of the need for exposure to living theatre as an essential part of children’s growth. In the 1970s she raised her voice in favor of seeing

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children’s theatre as an art form that would be technically as fine as that produced for adults. She advocates a theatre whose art form touches every level of human consciousness and that stretches the mind and stirs the emotions: “I want to see a theatre that invites identification with strong protagonists both male and female. One that stimulates the imagination as it opens new doors” (McCaslin, 1978, p. 8). In her writings McCaslin speaks about the contents and the themes, but very rarely elaborates on the forms that theatre for young people should take. She points to the need for more new plays based on contemporary themes. She is very much aware of the need to encourage playwrights to write for young audiences. She warns against the dangerous trend of the commercial producers to gear plays to a very young audience. She raises the need to cultivate the aesthetic and the intellectual needs of the young people. Her description of the status of theatre for children in the 1970s is sharp and clear: “Children’s theatre is still far from the dream that its founders had for it. On this one point we can get a consensus…Personally, I find some work that I think remarkably good, more that I consider mediocre, and much that is inadequate by any standard. In my reaction I am referring primarily to script and production” (McCaslin, 1978, p. 4). Even though almost thirty years have passed since she put her claims forward, I see the field today through almost the same eyes. That is to say that, in spite all the advances in the field which will be described in the chapters to come, the status of theatre for young people is unfortunately far behind the expectations. McCaslin raised an interesting observable fact: “From its beginning in the first decade of this century to the present day, children’s theatre has been beloved but not respected, praised but denied professional recognition, approved but not supported. It has been said that love is necessary to survival. If that is true, perhaps love has been the secret of its tenuous hold on life” (ibid., p. 1).

DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN TYA AND ADULTS’ THEATRE RELATED TO MODES OF RHETORIC OF THEATRE AS CONVEYORS OF MEANING Carol Lorenz (2002) makes an interesting differentiation between TYA and adults theatre. Referring to George Szanto’s (1978) identification of the three modes of the rhetoric of theatre as conveyors of meaning (Theatre of Integration Propaganda, Theatre of Agitation Propaganda, and Dialectical Theatre) she claims that: “Whereas adult theatre has always enjoyed all three forms of rhetorical discourse, TYA, with its controlled texts, structures, and aesthetics, has traditionally been a theatre of agreement, of integration

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propaganda” (p. 96). Her understanding is that theatre for the young has long been a tool of enculturation that has reflected the philosophy, ideas, and aesthetics of society’s dominant hegemonic institutions. She blames the TYA for being a tool “to produce future generations of like-minded citizens whose ideas and values will reflect what the current generation values most” (p. 96). However, according to Lorenz, in the last decade or so, this basic trend has changed; her claim is that the rhetoric of today’s theatre for the young more closely parallels the rhetoric of adult theatre. The understanding now, as she sees it, is that the artists create from their own experiences, following their own hearts rather than working according to any dicta of a didactical educational approach. As I see it, although it is a desirable stand to take, I think that TYA has still not reached that place. The power of the didactic approach in TYA is still unshaken, although we can find the rhetoric of adult theatre being used in some TYA companies. In those cases where we see some cracks appearing in a frozen situation, we can wonder if while on the path to freeing the theatre for young people from the didactic approach, children’s theatre should adapt the rhetoric of the adults to convey meaning, or should it develop rhetoric of its own? In an intriguing article, “Theatre for Children in an Age of Film”, Jonathan Levy (1998), struggles with the notion that children in the theatre are a captive audience. “They do not choose to come”, he says, therefore we should ask ourselves, “What can live theatre offer, and in particular what can theatre offer children of the film generation that film in all its variations cannot?” (ibid., p. 11). His answer: “Film can, perhaps, stand for dreams and thoughts in some ways no other art can. But theatre - the only art whose precondition is that human beings confront one another - can uniquely stand for life and thus is inexhaustible” (ibid., p. 16). Levy’s question will echo throughout the chapters of this book: What can theatre offer to children that no other art can offer? There is no doubt that the expanding power of the mass media has put pressure on the traditional theatre to find new ways of artistic expression in both theory and practice. In a renewal that focused on a return to the origins of theatre the “independent theatre” of the 1960s experimented with its adult audience, exchanging roles with the audience and trying to remove the barriers between theatre and life. Could this direction also be acceptable for children’s theatre? Should the theory of Antonin Artaud and his notions of a theatre of cruelty, for example, in the 1960s be allowed to take hold in the children’s theatre? Or that of Jerzy Grotowski, in the 1980s, mentioned earlier, who was convinced that everything that one might portray on the stage could be said with the language of the human body? I think not. These theatrical attempts to convey meaning stemmed from the adults’ worlds of knowing, struggling and wrestling with life. The new

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forms of children’s theatre should grow from the young people’s concerns; their own ways of seeing and knowing the world. The big problem is that in TYA the adults are those who write the plays, who act and direct the performances, and who choose the plays to be watched by the young audiences. So here we face a complicated situation in which the world of the young will always be constructed through the eyes of adults and their perceptions. Is there a way to change this complicated situation? Is there a way to solve the contradiction that is built into the rationale of TYA? Maybe the solution could be found in looking at children’s literature. It faces the same problem, although one must admit that there are fewer layers of complexity since the written text, in literature, is a different medium through which the imagination has a greater freedom to evolve. The art of theatre contextualizes every thought, and transforms the abstract into an actual embodiment on stage.

CHILDREN ’S FICTION - THE CASE OF PETER PAN In her intriguing chapter The Case of Peter Pan –The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction (Jenkins (Ed.), 1998) The Children’s Culture Reader), Jacqueline Rose (1998) claims that: “Children’s fiction rests on the idea that there is a child who is simply there to be addressed and that speaking to it might be simple. It is an idea whose innocent generality covers up a multitude of sins” (p. 58). I am tempted to paraphrase Rose’s claim and borrow it for children’s theatre. Children’s fiction sets up a world in which the adult comes first (author, maker, giver) and the child comes after (reader, product, recipient), but where neither of them enters the space in between (p. 58). Rose’s basic claim is that “children’s fiction sets up the child as an outsider to its own process, and then aims unashamedly, to take the child in” (p. 59). What she said that attracted my attention is this: that the children’s fiction is not an issue of what the child wants, but of what the adult desires. This understanding is very clear in the case of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, whose underworld journey was long ago traced to its author’s fantasies, the seduction of a little girl, Rose claims. Alice has always been considered a classic for children. In the case of Peter Pan, Rose argues that the problem is even more delicate: “Behind Peter Pan, lies the desire of a man for a little boy (or boys), a fantasy or drama which has only recently caught the public eye” (p. 59). Rose tells us that Peter Pan was not originally intended for children. It first appeared inside a novel for adults, J.M. Barrie’s The Little White Bird (Barrie, 1902), where it was a story told by the narrator to a little boy whom the narrator was trying to kidnap. To become a work for children, the story was extracted from the novel, transformed into a play, and sent out

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on its own. Rose stresses that the publication had nothing to do with children, since it was the only children’s text in a volume of collected plays. It was released into the fine art collector’s market at a time when a whole new field for children’s books was developing, a market that, according to Rose, was completely by-passed and to which it never belonged (p. 62). “The sexual disavowal is therefore a political disavowal of the material differences which are concealed behind the category of all children to which Peter Pan is meant to make its appeal” (p. 62). The question is not just why we are speaking to the child, and what is our investment in that process, but to which child are we speaking? For, claims Rose, as Peter Pan, very clearly demonstrates, if we are talking to one group of children then the chances are that we will not be speaking to another. I mention Rose’s viewpoint on Peter Pan at length because of her original and striking analyses of the most successful play of more than a century. Peter Pan opened in London on December 27, 1904 and has been performed ever since. It is not only that Peter Pan has remained one of today’s most popular and successful plays, but it also has established “an institution” in Levy’s words (Levy, 1998, p. 36). Levy makes an argument that contrasts with Rose’s research: “The most striking thing about Peter Pan is that, unlike every other children’s classic in English, it was written originally as a play, not a book. That means that Barrie imagined and shaped the material directly for the stage. Peter Pan books came later - Barrie’s own Peter and Wendy in 1911 - but the books are adaptations of the play rather than the other way around” (ibid., p. 38). Without going into the dispute about the original form of the play and exploring its fascinating unaccountable success, we need to acknowledge that works such as Peter Pan are still the “bread and butter” of children’s theatre as Gronemeyer (1996, p. 151) has claimed. Since the concept of childhood is very much a social invention (Calvert, 1998), it is only appropriate to ask how society sees the art of theatre in relation to young people. Recent studies of childhood have generated a complex picture of the power relations between children and adults. Jenkins, who edited the comprehensive and helpful The Children’s Culture Reader (1998), claims that the dominant concept of childhood innocence presumes that children exist in a space above and beyond, outside the political sphere: “We imagine them to be non combatants whom we protect from the harsh realities of the adult word” (p. 2). Yet, in reality, Jenkins argued that almost every major political battle of the twentieth century has been fought on the backs of children: from the economic reforms, through the social readjustments of civil rights up to today’s anxieties about the digital revolution. His understanding is that children are those who “have suffered the material consequences of our decisions; children are the ones on the front lines of school integration, the ones who pay the price of welfare reform”

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(p. 2). This claim sheds light, in my opinion, on the way that we, as adults, want to protect our children and yet we use them as “human shields”, in Jenkins’ words, against criticism. TYA studies have said little about the power relations between children, young people and adults. We understand now that adult culture is different in many ways from youth culture, and youth culture is different from children’s culture. The main issues to be explored in this context might be: What do the figures of the child and the young person mean to adults, and how does this understanding affect the children’s and the young people’s own cultural lives? This is a cultural discussion that is, for the most part, beyond the scope of this book; however, relevant parts of it will be discussed in the second chapter. Given the wealth of material about young people in anthropology, sociology, psychology and pedagogical theory, it is important to use the definitions already found in the various fields of knowledge and to harness them to the field of TYA.

THE AS IF PLAY AND THE AGE GROUPS OF THE AUDIENCE It is assumed that the experience of theatre is distinguished from real life experience. The big question is therefore from what age is the child able to make this conscious differentiation? Furthermore, from what age is the child able to relate forms to meaning? Understanding theatre and enjoying theatre are active processes that go through a profound development of the abilities to grasp questions of application, generalization and symbolism. The various activities of children in the kindergarten in the physical, social, creative and intellectual realms involve growing maturity in the child’s ability to listen and to concentrate. Between the ages of four and six, for example, concentration is short and the child is very easily distracted, therefore it is only reasonable and important that, in theatrical events for young children, the activities on stage will help the children to maintain their concentration. Often the vehicles to attract the attention of very young children are those activities that use entertaining games to enhance their listening and their cognitive abilities. We usually assume that games, when repeated, can transfer the ability of the child from one area of learning to another. The basic situation in children’s theatre is that the child does not need to speak but only to listen and to concentrate. On the one hand, this is easier than the need to listen and to speak as is required in a real life situation. But on the other hand, the child wants to be involved and to speak as if it were a real life situation; thus, in a way, the demands made on him are higher. The child has to understand the “rules of the game” which, in the

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case of theatrical performance cannot be the same paradigm of games that he usually plays in his social activities. From research as well as from our own observations we know that when children between the ages of three and seven gather together and are given the chance, they begin to play “as if ” games in which they always take roles and play as if they were somebody or something else. They frequently use the words: “Let’s say that…” and they pretend as if they were a dog or a cat or a lion or a mother. At this stage of their development, they enjoy playing roles from their family life: father, mother and baby. They like to be involved in preparing dinner, to talk on the phone and to do other things that families do. They also like to take the role of creatures from stories or from their own imagination, such as monsters and strange animals. The kinds of games that children play provide a basis for much research on this phenomenon in Western and Eastern cultures (Peller, 1971; Winnicott, 1971; Corsaro, 1990). We know that such “performances” are full of imagination. As Johann Huizinga argued in his famous and fascinating account of ‘man the player’ Homo Ludens (1938/1955), “the child is making an image of something different, something more beautiful, or more sublime, or more dangerous than what he usually is. One is a Prince, or one is Daddy or a wicked witch or a tiger. The child is quite literally “ beside himself ” with delight, transported beyond himself to such an extent that he almost believes he actually is such and such a thing, without, however, wholly losing consciousness of “ordinary reality”. His representation is not so much a sham-reality as a realization in appearance: “imagination” in the original sense of the word” (Huizinga, 1955, p. 14). Play, observes Huizinga, is one of the main bases of civilization, law and order, commerce, craft, art, poetry, wisdom and science, “all are rooted in the primeval soil of play” (ibid.). Moving now from children playing games to the theatrical performance, there is almost no comparable research on the child as an observer of “As If ” situations presented to him on stage. In the absence of some profound research on this issue, it would be reasonable to make an analogy and to assume that, if at the age of three a child can actively play the sort of “as if ” games, he certainly can observe these “as if ” situations on stage and understand and enjoy the theatrical situations as both situations contain very similar features. So we can assume that the earliest age children are able to enjoy theatre would be three years old. All over the world it is accepted that there are special terms for Theatre for Young People and they correspond with age of the audience. Three-five years would be Theatre for Infants; six-twelve Children’s Theatre, and twelve-sixteen Theatre for a Young Audience, or Adolescents’ Theatre. As sixteen is usually considered the upper age limit for this type of theatre, it is excluded from the main definition of Theatre for Adults. There is, however,

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Theatre for the Family that addresses all ages. There are countries in which the highest age and the lowest age are determined according to the educational system in which the child is educated. There are educational systems in which the age–range is from five to sixteen. If school starts at four years old with the kindergarten and ends at eighteen with the final exams, then Theatre for Young People will encompass this wide range of ages. The underlying idea is that the young people are still “in the hands” of the adults and they are different from the rest of the society in this respect. However, Theatre for Young People is used in this book whenever I speak of the phenomenon as a whole; whenever I would like to focus on a specific age group I will use the term suggested above according to the ages under discussion and not according to the scholastic age. The justification for relying on the child’s age is made based upon Jean Piaget’s (1951/1962) theory of psychological development. I am very much aware of the claim that the idea of childhood based on the theories of developmental psychologists “who believe that knowledge is acquired sequentially and that information and experiences given the young should, therefore, be ageappropriate” (Lorenz, 2002, p. 107) is considered, by some, to be an old idea about childhood development, whereas “the newer discourse emphasizes the child’s experiences that promote understanding and self-actualization” (ibid.). Developmental theories discourse is built on the assumption that there is a universal norm. Walsh blames the scholarly environment for paying lip service by saying that “particular social [and cultural] and historical conditions” are taken into consideration when dealing with the development of a child. He calls upon us to abandon the developmentalist’s traditional way of approaching a child: “I emphasize that as we think of artistic development, we are not looking within the child but at the world into which the child is growing. Selves are formed not within but between, in interactions, in the system” (Walsh, 2002, pp. 102-103). Although I acknowledge Walsh understands of childhood as historical and contextual rather than as universal, I have yet to find a way to translate this understanding into practical terms for TYP. For the purpose of dealing with boundaries between theatre for young people and theatre for adults Piaget’s studies can still serve as a good point of reference. In contrast to the view that children are ‘miniature’ adults, Piaget has shown that the children’s world is different from that of the adults; furthermore he came to the conclusion that a child must be at least twelve until he can develop the kind of thinking that gives him the keys to the adult’s world. Only after twelve years can a child enter the fourth stage of his cognitive development, i.e. the stage of formal operations. From this age, the adolescent, like as the child, should be able to activate the idea of living “here and now”. He can understand the concept of “being in the present” but,

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unlike a younger child, the adolescent can activate his thoughts and live not only in the present but also in his imagination, in the future; and this future orientation gives him the ability to cope with hypothetical situations that are physically far from him. The earlier stage, concrete operations, begins at age six or seven and lasts until about twelve years of age. At this stage, Piaget argued, children live entirely in the present and they can relate only to the concrete problems that they are facing. The knowledge that they have gained from real life experiences does not undergo the process of abstraction and the child cannot disconnect himself from the immediate problems that he faces. This difference in the ways that children think at different ages is the key to the differentiation between theatre for infants, for children and for adolescents. The very fact that only at the ages of six or seven can a cognitive revolution take place in human psychological development helps us to choose the content and the forms that the child can cope with. The concepts that Piaget taught us could help in determining what is suitable for a specific age-group. If we understand for example, that the stage of preoperational thinking lasts from eighteen months until six or seven years, then we would not impose on the child ideas or forms that he is unable to grasp. If a child of three is inclined to think in a binary way, that is to say that if he watches a play he can respond by Either/Or reactions, he will be able to see the bad character and the good character but not the various nuances existing between these two poles. If, because of his egocentric thinking, the child of five cannot judge occurrences from the outside world but as if they were inner occurrences, then the adults who create theatre for infants must take this way of thinking into their artistic and aesthetic considerations. It is interesting to remember in this context that the philosophical tradition articulated by Plato and Aristotle and carried over into the Roman world described the growth and the development of children in a very similar way. In her research on Children in Antiquity, Valerie French (1991) found evidence of adults’ knowledge about the young that comes from Plato and Aristotle who had already described five stages of childhood in which psychological development encompasses both emotional and cognitive maturation. “Babyhood lasts from birth to about two years of age, when the child is weaned and can talk…the next stage might be called an early preschool period; children from about two to three or even five years’ age are described as beginning to separate themselves from their mothers or nurses and become more physically active. They are easily frightened and highly impressionable… Real preschoolers, children three to six or seven, are portrayed as very active and forming their own social networks with friends and games… At the age of six or seven children begin school and enter a stage that lasts until puberty… The final stage of development is

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adolescence, until the child reaches the late teens or early twenties” (French, 1991, p. 17). This striking resemblance between the ancient tradition and the modern perception of child rearing is logical when one understands that the argument underlying the ancient societies’ emphasis on education “was not for the sake of the child, but for the perpetuation of the state and community” (ibid., p. 22). Even if we know very little of the attitudes toward children in antiquity, we must agree that there are references in the Greek literature to what we would call children. Neil Postman (1982/1994) asserts that the Greeks’ view of a child’s life was drastically different from our own. However two things are clear: they cared for education and they invented the idea of school (Postman, 1982/1994, p. 7). My point is that young people bring to the theatrical performance very specific qualities as spectators; therefore the theory and the practice of the performances for young people should be carefully attuned to this understanding. Either we accept the developmental psychology stage theory or we agree with Goldberg’s (1974) suggestion that “the term developmental theatre is in some ways equivalent to children’s theatre except that it does not define the age group of its audience. Development in the individual begins with his first need and lasts until full aesthetic maturity - at which time there may be a change or lessening of the theatre’s significance in his life” (ibid., p. 101). In any case theatre for young people should be attuned, planned and created for its unique audience.

THE IDEA OF CONTROL IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE My understanding of Theatre for Young People is that it is a professional theatre produced and performed by adults for young people. It is often viewed as a pedagogical tool for educating good citizens and helping to foster children’s self-esteem and problem – solving abilities. This stand is dangerous. There are plays that are so didactic that they lose their artistic and aesthetic appeal. In on-going attempts to define TYP, we must avoid didactic elements. This does not mean that the play will be valueless or that serious attention to pedagogical aims should not be given, but it does mean that didactics should be avoided at all age-levels. Types of historical plays and biographical plays can create powerful psychological events in which the child learns. The predominance of the artistic and the aesthetic merits should be the essence of any theatrical experience. Thus I come to the idea of control. Control is one of the important elements that make the difference between youth theatre and adult theatre. Since the young spectator has little experience of life, it is necessary to give him solutions to the problems on

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stage or an option of how to go about a problem presented in the play. This element of control is not considered an issue in the adult theatre but it is a significant point to consider in TYP. Take, for example, an orphan child as a spectator. We must give him a smile, an optimistic view on life. If the text deals with this problem, we cannot leave him in the dark. We do not have to give him miraculous solutions but we are obliged to give him a spark of optimism. Basically my point is that since it is a play for youngsters, there must be some control over the materials used for the production because children, especially the youngest, have not yet experienced life. On the other hand, we must remember to respect the child’s imagination, his/her viewpoint on the world they live in and on themselves, and give them our attention. The production must be artistically shaped at its best and presented with honesty, with respect and with hope. These are the most important elements to consider. I have not yet said anything about the theatrical qualities of a play. I will do so in Chapter Five, where I elaborate on the idea of conventions and shed light on the sign system used in children’s theatre, and in chapter Six where I discuss the ways to evaluate a theatrical performance.

EPILOGUE For the purposes of this book, the following position is taken: Differences exist between theatre for young people and theatre for adults. The special interaction between the actors on stage and the young people in the audience made the difference. An audience composed of young people has special qualities that shape the conventional concepts about the art of theatre. Therefore it is not only a matter of adaptation to the art of the theatre for adults, and it is not a matter of “being better” than adult’s theatre, rather it is a form of art for its own sake. It should develop its own poetic, aesthetic and artistic forms. This is the basic viewpoint that stands at the core of my understanding and it will be developed throughout the book. I realize that, at this moment, this is a desirable state of the art but not always the reality in the field. My understanding is that in order to be meaningful, TYP should be exclusive from other forms of adult’s theatre yet, at the same time, TYP should be inclusive of other forms of theatre. Out of this dialectical existence of the exclusive-inclusive ways of constructing meaning, Theatre for Young People should be able to grow and define its own nature of excitement to illuminate the theatrical event.

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Chapter #2 AN EXPERIENCE A Unique Cultural and Artistic Phenomenon

PROLOGUE This chapter focuses on concepts of childhood and the theatre as a cultural and artistic experience and attempts to bring these entities together within an educational framework. Education’s passion for intellectualism and relative disinterest in the arts has been a consistent theme in the literature, predominant from the 1970s until today. Although most of us realize that intellect, as an independent entity, is without much value, not enough is done to fight this tendency toward “mere intellectualism”. I shall try to approach this state of permanent stagnation and show how, with the help of theatre, we can at least make an attempt to confront this distorted view. There exists a fundamental agreement and a basic understanding that theatre is an artistic social institution with a responsibility for all that occurs within its scope. The central notion in this chapter is that there is a defined children’s culture and a massive commercial effort that supports this; yet, in a strange way, children’s theatre is only tenuously connected to this unique cultural entity.

SETTING THE SCENE In his book “Politeia”, Plato argued that artists had no place in the ideal state because they were capable of harming people with their “lies”. Though Plato suggested exiling artists, he made exceptions. Select artists would be permitted in the ideal state in order to develop an educational program for 29

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the second-class children who would be the “guardians;” i.e., those who would protect the country from enemies within and without. Plato believed these guardians should begin study at a very early age in order to prepare to serve their country. Although one might think that the philosophers would do the educational work in the ideal Platonic state, one would be surprised to learn that Plato placed this responsibility on artists (not philosophers) because the arts have hidden messages, delivered not only in cognitive ways but also via emotional channels. From the way in which art influences and fascinates the soul, the youngest should be able to accept some ideas on the basis of positive feelings and reject some other ideas on the basis of negative feelings. Lorand (1991) claims that from Plato’s perspective hidden messages are more powerful than direct and explicit ones. Lorand explains Plato’s thinking: When it concerns the soul, the artist, rather than the philosopher, can have a greater influence in conveying the ideas of the ideal state. Plato upheld the exile for the greatest of artists, such as Homer and for those whose sanity he questioned; but he admitted that he needed the help of the less prestigious artists. My point is that there has long been an understanding that the nature of art includes both cognitive and emotive powers that can strongly influence the soul directly and indirectly, and yet there is no theory that explains how these powers operate. Aristotle, contrary to Plato, appreciated the positive power of the arts and wrote about it in his most powerful book, Poetics. Still, a detailed and widely accepted theory of how art actually works on the soul and the mind does not exist. With these points in mind, I jump ahead several centuries and turn to Dewey’s notions of experience and the arts. Late in his writings, when he was seventy-five, Dewey turned to a systematic consideration of the arts. In his book, Art as Experience (1934), Dewey invited us to think of experience not as an essentially psychological concept, or as something that happens exclusively within us, but as a transaction (Jackson, 1998). “The objects and events are as much a part of experience as we are ourselves. When we are fully immersed in experience, its components so interpenetrate one another that we lose all sense of separation between self, object, and event” (Jackson 1998, p. 3). It is mostly when a situation becomes problematic or interesting enough to study that we pause to reflect upon it. Dewey differentiates between experience and an experience. While experience occurs continuously, an experience runs its course to fulfillment. “A piece of work is finished in a way that is satisfactory; a problem receives its solution; a game is played through; a situation, whether that of eating a meal, playing a game of chess, carrying on a conversation, writing a book, or taking part in a political campaign, is so rounded out that its close is a consummation and

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not cessation. Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience” (Dewey, 1934/1980, p. 35). It is in this vital sense that I suggest examining Theatre for Young People as an experience. Looking into the details of an experience means to bring into sharp focus the quality of experience that creates its unity, it is to construct a sense of meaning for ourselves as our understanding grows from general experiences to an experience. If we agree that the art of theatre is the most direct artistic form of human expression and most akin to life, that theatre is the most human and social of all the arts, then we can continue to wonder: how can the theatre influence children more directly and effectively than it can the adults? What might be the hidden powers acting on the child? What are the most desirable ways of communication with children in a theatrical event? How can it be a powerful force in education? These questions will be discussed in the following chapters. In this chapter I will address a question that underlies all of those listed above: Where does children’s theatre come from? This discussion serves as a platform for the conceptual framework presented later under the title: The Non-Educational Education of a Theatrical Experience.

THE ORIGINS OF CHILDREN ’S THEATRE The idea of a theatre for children in the sense of performances directed toward a young audience is a fairly new phenomenon (Ward, 1950; McCaslin, 1971 and 1978; Cory, 1974; Goldberg, 1974; Davis and Evans, 1987; England, 1990; Swortzell, 1990; Gronemeyer, 1996). Until the nineteenth century, children participated in the theatre life of adults, both as players and as audience. The middle of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of Christmas performances, comprised of fairy tales enacted particularly for an audience of children. These performances were frequently the highlight of the season and became an instrument for boosting ticket sales. According to Goldberg (1974), if the Christmas pantomime is included in the category of children’s theatre, then the tradition of performances for young audiences in England dates as far back as the early eighteenth century (p. 59). Gronemeyer (1996) claims that the newly-reformed educational policies in place at the turn of the century insisted that children be kept away from the evils of reality and entertained with fantasy adventures played out in a romanticized child-world. Madame Stephanie de Genlis, a writer and producer influenced by the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published her moralistic plays in 1779 France; this is the earliest known volume of plays for children. Winifred Ward, described respectfully by Davis and Evans (1987) as “the chief mentor of the field for much of its history”, wrote the

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first book on Theatre for Children in 1939. She vividly described how it all began in the year 1784: “…the place, a handsome country estate near Paris, belonging to the Duke of Chartres. The occasion, a play presented by children in a beautiful theatre set in the midst of a garden. It is a performance in the first known theatre for children… More adults there are in the audience than children, yet unlike all theatres which have gone before, this is unquestionably a theatre for children” (Ward, 1950, p. 1). Madame de Genlis produced this performance. We should be aware that, on that occasion, children were those who played for adults and for other children. Winifred Ward uses the term “theatre for children” without any clarification and this confusion between theatre by children and theatre by adults for children has lasted until today. The term “children’s theatre” encompassed various types of activity including children acting for children, adults acting for children, and adults conducting drama lessons in classes. As explained in Chapter One, the use of the term children’s theatre in this book refers only to a theatre for children where performances by professional adults are directed toward a child audience. The seasonal performances were very popular in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The Christmas performances traditionally were and still are aimed at family audiences; in this sense, they could be considered as children’s theatre but we have to note that they are not primarily in the category of theatre for young audiences because they were meant to attract the adult’s attention, the children were only an excuse. The history of theatre for young people is still waiting to be thoroughly researched and presented. Most writers who trace the origin of children’s theatre in the U.S. cite Nellie McCaslin’s (1971) Theatre for Children in the United States: A History, a well-researched and comprehensive book. Unfortunately McCaslin’s work has not been continued and there is no other research in the English language that I know of that traces the history of children’s theatre in countries other than in the United States. Winifred Ward’s “Theatre for Children” (1939) was, in fact, the first English text that explored the origins of children’s theatre. Moses Goldberg (1974) gave a glimpse of the European scene (in Chapter Three of his book) and Lowell Swortzell (1990) gave an international view in his edited book, but these are brief reports that do not provide a systematic account. Resources that shed light on the origin of theatre for young audiences are limited. The works I have encountered on this subject are in agreement; I present their conclusions below. The American children’s theatre was originally an educational and social enterprise rather than a theatrical establishment. Children’s theatre in America “was not an accidental happening”, as McCaslin argued, “nor has it ever been a microcosm of the adult theatre, designed and planned to indoctrinate young audiences in an ancient art form. It has remained, in general, outside and independent of the adult professional

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theatre” (McCaslin, 1971, p. 5). She found that the earliest evidence of children’s theatre was in the social and educational centers of large cities rather than on the professional stage. (p. 6). According to the accounts that McCaslin relied upon, “children’s theatre in the United States is of very recent origin; the first to recognize the need for it were the social settlements in the late nineteenth century, but the first significant children’s theatre was not founded in this country until 1903” (p. 11). Alice Minnie Herts, a social worker with a background in theatre, established the first children’s theatre in New York in 1903. According to Goldberg (1974), her work was conceived as a recreational project for the entire neighborhood; the residents and the participants were mostly Russian Jewish immigrants. The theatre helped them to integrate into the new community through participation in a neighborhood project. Learning that the origin of children’s theatre in the U.S.A stemmed from a strong belief in its educational and socializing powers, we can understand why children’s theatre remains an educational enterprise. The balance between the artistic and the didactic, however, has still not been achieved. In Russia, children’s theatre is also a tradition that goes back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Natalia Saz is the most famous name connected with the foundation of children’s theatre in Russia. In 1918 Moscow, Saz founded the first children’s theatre with its own playhouse. There she developed the educational goals of the theatre, experimenting with plays that, according to the doctrine of socialist realism, would explain the world to young people and would help them to change the world (Gronemeyer, 1996, p. 151). Saz’s work became a model for children’s theatre throughout the Socialist world. It is important to point out that whereas in the United States the origins of children’s theatre sprang from the social and educational needs of communities of immigrants, in Russia the Soviet government acknowledged the power of the theatre to educate and directly supported children’s theatre as an educational enterprise. The government placed a great deal of emphasis on how to develop a quality of education that would best serve the regime. In all of the Socialist countries children’s theatre was considered an important and effective tool for education and the Soviet government supported them all. Origins of children’s theatre in other countries in Europe are included in Goldberg’s account (1974, pp. 54-78) and in Lowell Swortzell’s edited book (1990). Based on these reports, I would like to point out the following key points: In England there was little done for the youngsters until the First World War. “The real beginning of drama aimed specifically at children came around 1914 when Jean Sterling Mackinlay tried a season of children’s plays as a substitute for the pantomime in the Christmas season” (Goldberg, 1974, p. 60). Four years later, in 1918, Ben Greet’s company performed

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Shakespeare for schools in London. There were other attempts as well, but the idea of theatre for children did not spread until the Second World War when the real growth of children’s theatre in England began (ibid., p. 60). Alan England (1990), in his book Theatre for the Young, devotes a chapter to the history of children’s theatre in England and Scotland, noting that the first professional companies performed mainly in schools around the 1920s. In France, children’s theatre showed no significant activity until the late 1920s (Goldberg, 1974, p. 62). In Italy, the few theatres that did exist were subject to “the whim of local educators or good will of some private sponsor” (ibid., p. 63). It was later, in 1953, that the Teatro per Ragazzi in Milan succeeded in obtaining good conditions in which to run children’s theatre. In West Germany, Das Theater der Jugend in Munich was founded in 1953 and in Scandinavia there have been active children’s theatre organizations since 1931. In Austria a theatre for children was founded by the city of Vienna in 1932 (ibid., p. 65). In Bulgaria, early in 1944, a National Youth Theatre was established. In East Germany, in 1946, the occupying Soviet army ordered the East German government to establish children’s theatre (ibid., p. 74). In Czechoslovakia, the Jiriho Wolkra Theatre was founded in Prague in 1935 by Mila Mellanova (ibid., p. 75). The largest children’s theatre in Romania, the Jon Creanga, dates only from 1964, although before that date there had been many small organizations receiving government support. In Poland, Holland, and a few other countries we can trace the origins of theatre for children from 1945 and on, after World War II. There were also children’s theatres in other countries around the world; for example, Children’s Theatre in the People’s Republic of China began significant work after World War II. I have mentioned this long list of names, dates and places, based largely on Goldberg’s report, in order to point out a remarkable fact that struck me while studying the histories: there is a clearly discernable children’s theatre movement around the world. The phenomenon of theatre for young people occurred almost simultaneously worldwide despite regional differences in philosophy, social and political circumstances, resources, backgrounds, and motivations for establishing a children’s theatre. As Goldberg noted: “There was little communication about this movement between the nations until the middle of the twentieth century, and yet children’s theatre seems to have gotten started simultaneously in most areas of the world” (ibid., p. 54). The first wave started around the beginning of the twentieth century and continued until the 1930s; and the second wave came after the Second World War. It would be interesting to conduct extensive research on this phenomenon and discover the origins of children’s theatre as a recognizable international movement as well as its rise and fall in waves through the century. At this stage I can only point out these fascinating facts and call this

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movement the Twentieth Century Theatre for Young People (TCTYP). Since the twentieth century has already been called the century of the child it is only reasonable to give the movement of the children’s theatre a similar name. Yet the fact that there are similarities and features in common does not prevent these institutions all over the world from being very different from each other. The most acceptable explanation for the birth of theatre for children more than a hundred years ago can be found in Andrea’s Gronemeyer (1996) book. This is an illustrated historical overview of the theatre, one of the very few that consider young people’s theatre as a topic worth relating. Most historical overviews of theatre do not even mention it. Children’s playwrights and children’s plays rarely appear as items in encyclopedias. The significant rise of the middle class, Gronemeyer claimed: “brought with it an interest in instructive children’s theatre. Childhood - the invention of an enfranchised middle class that declared the vulnerability, and hence the need for protection, of the formative years - demanded a culture for children that would be consistent with current concepts of child rearing. The first didactic plays for children meant to teach such virtues as diligence, humility, propriety, politeness, and obedience, appeared in the age of the “theatre as moral institution” in eighteenth century Europe” (p. 150). An important lesson we can learn from history is that, from the very beginning, the theatre for young people was invoked in an effort to educate children, sometimes even with no artistic pretensions at all. The changing concepts of childhood as seen by society are responsible for the development of theatre for children and will be examined next.

CHILDHOOD AS A NEW CONCEPT Childhood is a relatively modern idea. Before the seventeenth century a child was regarded as a small and inadequate adult. Philippe Aries (1960/1973) in his now classic book, Centuries of Childhood, points out that the concept of ‘the childish’ as something distinct from adulthood is a creation of the modern world. “Nowadays our society depends, and knows that it depends, on the success of its educational system” (p. 395). This significant interest in education had a great effect on every aspect that separates children from adults. “This new concern about education,” writes Aries, “would gradually install itself in the heart of society and transform it from top to bottom” (p. 396). The awareness of the importance of education places the concept of arts for children, especially literature and theatre, as having an immense role in education. The focus on children and their

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education inspired a new attitude that resulted in new literature being written and new theatre produced specifically for children. The concept of childhood and theatre for children are indeed relatively new entities; our perception of childhood today is far removed from the perception of childhood in the eighteenth or the nineteenth centuries. Zohar Shavit’s (1986) comprehensive research found that this new way of viewing childhood, along with the birth of children’s literature, began to develop only after adult’s literature had become a well-established institution. Books written especially for children rarely appeared until the eighteenth century; and the whole industry of children’s literature began to flourish only in the second half of the nineteenth century. The connection between the new notion of childhood and the development of literature and theatre for children is significant. The attitude toward the culture of the child is a key factor for understanding why it is that only in the last hundred years has the idea of a theatre for children begun to develop, especially when set against the history of the theatre as a whole. It is a development that implies that children are excluded from the cultural life of adults. Since the eighteenth century, children’s literature has been strongly linked to the educational establishment and has based its legitimacy on it. As Shavit (1986) argued, “This linkage has served as a source for constraints imposed upon children’s literature in at least two areas: the way in which children are presented, characterized, and judged by the texts and the way in which the child is assumed to be the implied reader of the text” (pp. 30-31). This clarification sheds light on children’s theatre in the sense that, until some thirty years ago, most of the plays were based on books or oral stories adapted for the theatre. However, the historical development of childhood, and the constraints of the educational context in which it was developed cannot provide a good explanation as to why it is that the children’s literature has flourished, certainly in an economic sense, while children’s theatre lagged far behind. In order to try and understand the differences between the accomplishments of children’s literature and the slower and the less successful growth of theatre for young people in the last hundred years, we need to look at the differences between the two media.

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: CHILDREN ’S LITERATURE AND THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES The image of Tom Sawyer, the lively character created by Mark Twain in 1876, will serve as an example for a key point I will make about the differences between children’s theatre and literature for children as media.

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Let us bring to mind the scene of him painting the fence. It was on a Sunday morning. As punishment doled by his Aunt Polly, Tom had to paint the picket fence instead of going swimming in the river with his friends. Tom was forced to work and, to make matters even worse, to fend off his friends’ mockery. First, Ben came over and began to tease him. Tom pretended that he was not the least bit interested in Ben’s suggestion to go swimming. Mark Twain wrote: The brush continued to move. “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it {said Tom}. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth - stepped back to note the effect added a touch here and there - criticized the effect again - Ben watching every move, and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.” The story is well known. Ben gave Tom his apple and only then did Tom consent to let Ben paint the fence. And then his other friends came over. They experienced a similar encounter with Tom and, like Ben, they soon requested: “Tom, let me whitewash a little”. Tom continued to benefit. He got a kite in good repair, a dead rat and a string to swing it with, twelve marbles, part of a jew’s harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a kitten with only one eye, a dog-collar - but no dog... and other delights. If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. After a few hours the fence was beautifully painted. Aunt Polly was happy since the fence was clean and very white. But what was of no less importance is that Ben and the other boys were happy, because they had chosen to do the whitewashing. Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch (1980) refer to this scene as the art of reinterpretation. Tom Sawyer gave an alternative interpretation to the hard work that he had to do, although the conditions themselves had not changed. His friends accepted his terms as a game they wanted to play. They even paid for it. His friends bought into his interpretation. The fact that they did not know the original version of the situation did not spoil their pleasure. The idea of changing one’s conceptual and emotional viewpoints without actually changing the facts is one of the insights that I have carried with me since I understood the deeper meaning in that episode. And with the help of Goodman’s (1978) ways of world making, I could understand how to extract “fact from fiction” (ibid., p. 102). “Tom Sawyer” taken literally applies to no one but, taken figuratively, applies to many. I call this scene “Tom Sawyer’s turning point”. It is based on a convincing dramatic dialogue and the context is so well depicted that the reader can “see” in his imagination how Tom and

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his friends could actually be on stage, or how they would act in reality. But here, we arrive at the main difference between the children’s literature and theatre for young audiences. They are two quite different media. Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer has become a masterpiece, a classic image. Each of us, as readers, creates his/her Tom Sawyer in the imagination. We all read the same text; we all construct a mental image of Tom, the lively boy who rebels against conventions, enjoys playing pranks and almost always gets what he wants. Each one of us has his/her own personal image of Tom: how he looks, how his voice sounds, how he acts. Our own personal image of Tom is a fiction constructed out of a personal interpretation of the text. For example, I imagined Tom as a red-headed lad, slim, short, and very quick and with a nice voice. When I saw Tom portrayed on stage for the first time in my life, in the 1960s, I was disappointed by the tall, heavy Tom who spoke loudly and slowly. That was not my Tom. The gaps between the Tom that Mark Twain created, the Tom of my mind, and the Tom on the stage were enormous. Tom, as a figure created by the playwright, the director, the makeup artist, the costume designer, the actor himself, was a source of a deep disappointment that I could not take and, after a while, I left the theatre. My point is to focus on the understanding that in children’s theatre the interpretation of the script takes on greater importance than in theatre for adults. This is crucial because most of the plays for children are based on children’s literature and not on scripts that were originally written for the stage. On the long journey from page to stage there are different stages of interpretation. First the playwright converts a book into a script. This is now a text in which the omniscient author no longer exists and his descriptions have vanished. Instead we find a dialogue together with stage instructions. Then, the script undergoes various interpretations by the director, the actors, and all the other mediators. This is now a source for a new interpretation for the audience in the theatre. This chain of transformation in interpretation is a process that characterizes most of the children’s theatrical texts. That is to say, that since the process of translating a story into a play is most prevalent in theatre for young people; we need to be aware of the gaps between Children’s Literature and Theatre for Young Audiences. This awareness is critical for the development of TYP. Tom Sawyer and his inseparable partner, Huckleberry Finn, were initially depicted as characters in a series of books that dealt with childhood but were not intended only for children. In the preface to the first edition Mark Twain wrote: “Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try pleasantly to remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.” It is interesting to note that

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only when the story of Tom Sawyer had begun to undergo the chain process mentioned above was it intentionally directed toward children and meant to be a TYP production. 1978 was the International Year of the Child. I was a student then, studying children’s literature. Those of us interested in studying children’s literature at that time felt that we were students in a pioneering field; research on children’s literature was taking its first steps. More than twentyfive years have now passed and the research has significantly advanced and the writing and publishing of children’s books is flourishing. Furthermore, illustrations for children’s books has become more and more dominant in the field and we can now find books in which the written text plays second fiddle to the illustrations. We can even find children’s books with no words at all. Literature for children has made impressive progress. On the other hand, the writing for theatre for young people lags far, far behind and the research is only now taking its first steps. More than half of the theatrical scripts for children’s plays in Israel, for example, are derived from stories; another large percentage is written on the basis of oral or written fairytales, and another portion is written on the basis of popular songs for children. Less than twenty percent of the material is written specifically for TYP. Why is this so important? Why we should be compelled to attend to this? The answer lies in the understanding that theatre is an art form with its own language. If we want to develop its potential, theatre must be based on original writings that know its language and thus can elevate the standards and the search for new forms in the theatre for young people. Theatre is an art form that exists only in the dimension of time. It is fleeting; it disappears the moment the curtain drops. Its life begins with the darkening of the hall and it dies away when the lights are turned on. Thus, one can preserve the theatrical experience only through reminiscences of the event. Literature, as opposed to the temporal dimension of the theatre, has permanent proof of its existence; it is composed of written books that can be revisited time and time again, after a day or two or even years. In literature, the artifact of the art stays with the reader. One does not have to involve one’s power of memory in order to undergo the same experience again and again. One can control the situation of reading a piece of literature. When we speak of theatre in the context of children, these elements of control as well as the temporary versus the permanent become more crucial since the inaccessibility of the theatre makes the child completely dependent on the adult. This fact weakens the ability of the theatre to reach a large number of children easily, whereas literature is more easily accessible for most of them. Another important point is that the children’s playwright, just like a writer of stories for children, is asked both to address the child and to appeal to the adult. The playwright and the writer for children must be appreciated

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both by adults and children. Yet, as I have mentioned, the book as a commodity is more easily accessible to the child than is the theatrical performance. This unique situation in which the writer writes to one kind of reader but must also appeal to another becomes very critical in the theatre. In addition to this dual form of appeal, the success of the theatrical performance also requires an adult escort to accompany the child, sit with him/her during the performance, and to be fully attentive and sympathetic in attitude. Looking at the differences between the child as a potential reader and as a potential spectator entails looking at differences between two sign systems in two entirely different semiotic languages. Children’s theatre should be regarded as a unique semiotic art phenomenon, which in many senses is similar to that of children’s literature. Yet it is also different in the sense that it is a part of the theatrical system and a part of the educational system and it has to maintain a very delicate balance between them; it must consider artistic and aesthetic qualities, as well as pedagogic understanding. In literature, the written text is intended for the individual to read in private; only for the very little ones does a parent read to the child. The theatre, on the other hand, is a social event in which the child is a member of a large audience. The public versus private situation echoes a completely different attitude toward the theatre in which the child needs a multifaceted social and psychological adaptation. In the public situation there are many social elements that the child needs to develop in addition to the ability to enjoy the artistic presentation, a form of art with which he is not familiar. In a way, theatre is also literature but it involves more than words. Theatre is not only words on a stage. Theatre is a combination of hearing, seeing and moving; it is performance that entails a complex relationship among different elements such as words, space, time, props, actors, lights, and sounds. Images are presented in a complex symbolic language that the child has to be able to decipher; the written book does not have this complexity. While the dialogues in written literature are abstract, there is concretization of the dialogue on stage. In the theatre, the imaginary world becomes concrete. As I explained in the case of Tom Sawyer, in the theatre the thought is present; the imagination is fixed by the concrete characters. In this sense, in the process of watching a play, the child is not creating an imaginary world that takes the place of the real world, but is witnessing a reality that is created in front of his eyes, in the here and now on the stage. The child as a spectator needs to be mature enough to understand the as if situation as a part of the theatrical language. In reading, there is only the reader who interprets the text; there are no other mediators (except, as mentioned, for the very young child who needs the adult as mediator). In the theatre, however, there are several mediators (such as the

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actor, the director, the various designers) who simultaneously contribute to the many concrete images on the stage, and the child has to relate them to each other in order to accord meaning to the scene. The child enjoys the words he can hear. Most often, the language experience is prior to content understanding because of the rhythmical aspects of the verse and because of plays on words. Literature uses words as the major source of raw material. In theatre, words are only one element among many others. That brings us back to the importance of writing, especially in theatre for children, original materials created specifically for the theatre, completely independent from a known story which blocks the autonomy of the creation. While children’s literature is well-established and many of the best books are free of a didactic tone, the writing for theatre for young audience lies far behind. Not only is there less original material created for theatre for young audiences, of that which is available there is a tendency toward the didactic. Despite this lack of original material, theatre performances for young people are flourishing. Childhood, children’s literature and theatre for young people are phenomena of the twentieth century, a century that was declared to be the Century of the Child. There is an economic dimension that contributes to the analysis of children’s literature and theatre for young people. Consider the huge expenses and resources involved in staging a play; there are so many people concerned in a production as opposed to those concerned in a publication of a book. This issue will be developed later in this chapter when touching upon the issue of children as consumers as well as their role in the economy.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: THE NONEDUCATIONAL EDUCATION OF A THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE In the previous chapter I argued that theatre for young people is a unique art form rather than merely a diluted form of theatre for adults, or as some might say, “a half portion for a child” on a restaurant menu. In this chapter I explore the idea of theatre for young people as a special art form, for its own sake, based on our understanding of childhood as a relatively new cultural social concept that made possible the rise of theatre and of literature for young people in the twentieth century. It has become almost cliché to say that the challenge of children’s theatre is to produce shows that are both educational and engaging and considered good theatre. The general understanding is that good theatre for children is extracted from what we consider to be good theatre for adults. I argue that

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this is precisely the attitude that has inhibited the growth and the creative development of TYP from being independent, vivid and colorful. Literature for children, for example, has developed over the years free from the constraints of adult models of literature. I argue that theatre for young people, like illustrations in children’s books, is an art form that should develop its own characteristics, aesthetic language, and invent its own artistic forms to create meaning and excitement. What is considered good for adults might be unsuitable for a child. Society’s changing concepts of childhood is responsible for the growth or the inhibition of theatre for children. In 1987, the producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, Joseph Papp, initiated a full-scale program of Shakespeare plays to be presented at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. This series was free to New York City public high school students. Estelle Parsons, the project’s director said: “We didn’t want this scaled down - we wanted it on Broadway. We want to bring these kids to where they’ll expect the best theatre - and get it.” Parsons describes the Belasco project as “non-educational education” (The Futurist, 1987, unknown writer). I like this expression and use it for the conceptual framework that I am suggesting here. The non-educational education of the theatrical experience of Theatre for Young People should include: − The need to consider theatrical elements, the artistic and the aesthetic − The need to relate to cultural aspects − The need to understand psychological aspects − The need to understand educational aspects The merging of all these elements should create a unique art form. Once we recognize that theatre for young people is neither scaled-down adult’s theatre nor an educational tool for teaching and learning, we would be able to continue developing the conceptual framework. We should be able to recognize that theatre is a kind of literature in the mode of action in which all the above aspects relate to each other and are based on the dialectical tension between: Educational - Non Educational Experience; Process versus Product Orientation; Form and Content; Multi levels of Communication; and The Double Circles of Audiences. Educational - Non educational Experience The essence of the theatrical experience for young people is rooted in the magic of the as if transformation. It is an existential experience that enables openness and growth only if it is not intentionally designed to contain learning aims. As the saying goes, children like to learn but they do not like to be taught. The theatre should not be an instrument for teaching or learning

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purposes. The non-intentional educational experience will result in education at its best. Process versus Product Orientation Theatre for young people is product-oriented. It does not deal with the process that the child should undergo. Nevertheless, the child undergoes a kind of experience-processing while watching a performance. If, in creative drama, children are involved as active players, then in TYP they are active observers and should undergo emotional and cognitive processes while watching the play as a comprehensive artifact. The understanding is that children interpret the world differently from adults because they see it on their own terms (Waksler, 1986). They interpret the theatrical performance according to their individual and cultural sensibilities. Interpretation of the performance while watching is an act of processing knowledge at its highest level. Form and Content Roland Barthes (1957) in his influential book, Mythologies, claimed that style is a technique to escape from encountering controversial issues. He accused the bourgeois theatre of enslaving form for the sake of “style” and, in so doing, the directors and the actors do not fulfill their duty as those who should create art. In children’s theatre, I claim, the opposite is true. Directors and actors enslave the style for the sake of the content. They put almost no emphasis on the creation of new forms or new genres but stress the traditional didactical content that they believe the educational system wants children to absorb. Thus, in the tension between form and content, the content usually wins. This equilibrium must be changed and the tension between form and content should be nurtured in a quest for artistic and aesthetic qualities. Styan (1975, p. 5) stressed the idea that form will alter patterns of perception; the effect of the form does not necessarily relate to its content, nor does the effect occur at the level of ‘opinion’. Multi Levels of Communication Every form of art should contain the essential element of communication. The artist wants to convey meaning that s/he sees important. Art is a way to communicate with others via symbols, images and by creating an aesthetic order in our feelings and thoughts. Theatre for young people must suit the child’s perceptions: his verbal skills, his mental powers as well as his sensory and intellectual abilities. We know from the vast literature that a child

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perceives the world via his senses from a very early age and that the aesthetic experience is fundamental in his development. The combination of words, visual images and movements simultaneously creates a complicated inner grammar in which each component depends on another and should be programmed to be perceived by the child who is watching the show. The verbal and the non-verbal forms of communication are interwoven and introduce a wide spectrum of ideas and images planned to entertain the spectator. We do not properly know the mechanism of how a play is really communicated but, from the audience’s reactions, especially if they are young, we can easily judge the results. The Double Circles of Audiences Since its inception, theatre for young people has been a reflection of adult conceptions of childhood and education. Theatre for young people addresses two different audiences, children and adults, at the same time. This can be described as a double circle of audiences; two groups who share some points in common but also have conflicting interests. While the adults are the decision-makers, the target audience consists of children. We have to ask ourselves how anyone of 30 or 40 or 50 can enjoy a play that a nine-year old is enjoying. Is it a reasonable expectation? The differences between the child and the adult as spectators who have different desires, different needs, and different views constitute a dialectical system. Unless we see it as a special kind of art for its own sake and begin to identify its sign system, we will not be able to free the children’s theatre from the tyranny of the didactic phase, set by the adults, that has inhibited its growth over the hundred last years.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHILDHOOD It seems that we have just started to notice the new phenomenon of childhood, analyze its nature and its implications, and already there are voices predicting its end. The most dominant of these is that of Neil Postman. In his book The Disappearance of Childhood (1982/1994) he argues that childhood is disappearing and provides a theory as to why this is happening. He analyzes how the charm, innocence, and curiosity of children are degraded and then transmogrified into a pseudo-adulthood (p. xiii). It is painful and sad. Worst of all, it cannot be prevented. Thus, in the absence of any productive way to prevent this process Postman proposes to try, at least, to find out why it is happening. His view that childhood is going to disappear under the barrage of television is indeed alarming, yet more than twenty years after the publication of his book we can predict that at least a

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few things are not likely to happen. For example, although Postman did not say this directly, the disappearance of books for children could be a notable result, but it is not a likely one. The growing interest in creating a specialbut - separate culture for children is at its peak now. In addition to Postman, there are others who try to explain the loss of innocence from the landscape of children’s lives. After World War II Americans, and then the rest of the Western world, began to realize that childhood was becoming a phase of life distinctly separate from adulthood. This distinction, explains Kincheloe (1998), was most evident in the youth culture beginning to take shape in the 1950s: “It was this youth culture that convinced parents that they were losing the ability to shape the culture in which their children lived. As a result, they were losing control of their sons and daughters. This fear has informed the academic study of youth in the second half of the twentieth century, often focusing attention on children as “the problem” ”(p. 162). As adults in the 1950s and early 1960s began to understand the power of children’s culture and the separation between childhood and adulthood, adults feared that their children would be beyond their control. Postmodern childhood cannot escape “the influence of the postmodern condition with its electronic media saturation” (ibid., p. 170). Boundaries between childhood and adulthood fade as children and adults together face the same media and struggle with the same problems of finding a meaning to their lives. Children, as Kincheloe argues, become “adultified” and adults become “childified” (ibid., p. 170), thus the “traditional” innocent childhood becomes an object of nostalgia. Postman (in a lecture he gave to new students who came to study at NYU, on October 9, 2001) claimed that we are all biologically programmed how to speak but not how to read. The point that he wanted to make is that in order to be an adult one has to know how to read; therefore, societies established schools and those who could not read could not be considered adults. His argument is that the new media will eventually destroy the idea of childhood because one does not have to know how to read in order to get information from the television. When the child knows almost everything that the adult knows and one is not able to keep secrets from the young then we might witness the disappearance of childhood. In his lecture, Postman predicted that childhood will be impossible and that we are going to return to the Middle Ages in which there were only two ages: infancy and adulthood. He suggested that people who are aware of this process should protect their children from the TV by talking with them about the programs they see and by allocating more time to spend with them. However, he realized that his suggestions might not be realistic since one cannot go against one’s own culture.

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If we take Postman’s thesis seriously, we are lead to ask ourselves: What kind of theatre for young people should our society have in an age that is experiencing the disappearance of childhood? Socrates was against writing; he was afraid that if people learned to write they would no longer need to remember; furthermore, the concept of privacy would be destroyed since one would never be able to know who would pry into his writings. He was afraid that the concept of education would change because people would no longer need to participate in dialogues if they could write. Contrary to Socrates, Plato thought that even it were true that writing released culture from the burden of memorizing, it would open new opportunities that no one could foresee. We can adopt Plato’s stand and say that since we have no idea what the future will be in terms of educational and cultural developments, we need to concentrate on the present and try to create a kind of theatre for young people that will be supported and not rejected by today’s society.

CHILDREN AS CONSUMERS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE ECONOMY Our beliefs about childhood have some impact on our treatment of children. Jenkins (1998) argued that historical traces of individual childrearing practices are difficult to locate prior to the twentieth century. If we accept his claim that children’s culture is shaped at the global level through powerful institutions, then I would like to contend that one of these institutions could be the theatre, but so far it has missed its opportunity. If we accept his claim that children’s culture is shaped at the local level through individual families, then I would like to make clear that it is no wonder that the culture of children’s theatre remains a culture for the upper classes. Only they could afford theatre tickets and attend to their children’s needs beyond daily problems of survival. This brings to light the importance of an intersection between educational institutions on the global level and the local level of theatre education. The ‘value’ of childhood became clearer to those who established the social order in the twentieth century. With the improvements in children’s physical well-being, when the death of children was no longer taken for granted, and as the focus of child-rearing shifted toward concerns with psychological development, the new psychological and sociological concept of the child was frequently discussed in magazines and was reflected in the media–inspired reform campaigns that began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jenkins clarified the increasingly central role of children as consumers and their role in the economy. Equally important is the understanding that, in the twentieth century, the marketing of consumer goods was coupled with parents’ concerns for

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their children’s well-being. And as Jenkins asserted, “the child became a central salesperson for mass-marketed goods, with marketing researchers exploiting each new break-through in child psychology to reach this lucrative market more effectively” (Jenkins, 1998, p. 20). Children and their parents became a target for money-makers of all kinds including those involved in culture, theatre and education. My point is that theatre for children was affected by these developments, but not as much as one might suspect. The impact was greater in other media, such as literature for children and television drama for youth and children. To what extent are children involved in creating their own culture? Jenkins claims the answer to this question is almost exclusively focused “on the exercise of adult authority over children, leaving little space for thinking about children’s own desires, fantasies, and agendas” (ibid., 1998, p. 24). If we accept that children’s culture is within the formulation of “the means by which societies preserve and strengthen their positions in the world” (Kline, 1993, p. 44), we accept that it is “a matter of culture produced for and urged upon children… Childhood is a condition defined by powerlessness and dependence upon the adult community’s directives and guidance” (Kline, 1993, p. 44). Although there are others, such as Walkerdine (1997), who reject Kline’s inclination to maintain the myth of the innocent and victimized child whom we must protect, it can still be argued that children’s culture is shaped basically by adults’ expectations. There is, however, greater attention being given to children’s resistance to adult authority and to the ways they want to participate in the production of their own culture. There are more and more television programs which encourage children’s awareness of real-world problems and enable children to find their own critical voice to speak back against the adult world. Theatre for children is still governed by the familiar myth of the innocent child being controlled by adults. Among the most neglected subjects in the TYP, until recently, were those that dealt with sexuality, abuse, illness and death. Too many plays still stress the didactic aspect of the issue they present, the reason for a character doing one act or another, as if the young people’s minds should be left undisturbed until they are developed enough to face the complexity of real life situations. In a way, I would like to claim that the spirit of Rousseau’s Emile, the desire to protect children’s minds from bad influences, still controls TYP. In light of the changes that societies undergo this often seems no less than pathetic. How we can fight this tendency? How we can liberate TYP from the domination of the adults and open the theatre for young audiences to issues that are in their own interest? How we can release their imagination through theatre? Are there any theatre productions that offer us models of a children’s culture that is progressive

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both in its form and its content? Is there a theatre that moves beyond mythical innocence and goes toward recognition of children’s desires? The concept of childhood has changed dramatically over time, with changes in the social structure, cultural assumptions and technological innovations. The course of change was not necessarily from “bad” to “good”, as Calvert (1998) claims; it was not from traditional to modern but “each succeeding stage in the history of childhood has had both positive and negative features” (ibid., p. 74). As childhood became more a period of essential preparation for life and less one of vulnerability, “parents took greater delight in their children’s childishness. Gradually, the duration of childhood increased. Instead of wishing their children through it, parents wanted their youngsters to get as much as possible out of their childhood years that they might be fully prepared for their roles as future citizens of the new county. Childhood had become a valued part of human development” (p. 78). The increasing awareness of the marketability of childhood is clear. Consider children’s departments in large stores, those areas designated for the sale of products specially made for children. The educational interest in child development and welfare encourages manufacturers to consider a distinctive array of goods for children. Kline (1998) analyzed this phenomenon and acknowledged that there was no doubt in his mind that the parent was supposed to buy the product for the child. TYP entered very easily into that commercial culture, with holiday performances and musicals, but it did not impressively affect the market for high-level theatre performances. It is amazing to see that childhood is increasingly a period for consuming all kinds of goods and yet theatre is reserved only for a very small percentage of the child population.

EPILOGUE The questions that should interest us in the context of TCTYP movement are: What is the concept of childhood and youth now, at beginning of the twenty-first century? What is the nature of its advantages and disadvantages? Why theatre? Postmodern theory sees theatre as a marginalized activity in a multi-faceted world and there are questions as to whether live-theatre as an art form will continue to exist in this world. I am looking for the unexpected and see in the live-theatre a great opportunity to cultivate the human mind and spirit. We should continue questioning the connection between society’s changing perceptions and the growth of TCTYP. We should be on our guard. Theatre for young people is not often regarded as a subject of study at universities. Only in the last decades have there been a few theatre or

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educational departments that have opened their doors to the study of this subject, demonstrating that it is considered an important element in culture. Even so, Theatre for Young People as a cultural entity is still considered as part of the educational “kit”, as a tool for educational growth and not as an autonomous form of art that has to be nurtured for the sake of its cultural and artistic merits. Since the global cultural demands are rapidly changing, since children have lost their innocence and their naiveté, it is time to see that the theatre for young people will be able to meet the changes, break taboos, open itself up to a new search for theatrical styles and forms, and construct its own language. Childhood, as I experienced it, is a time for expectations, dreams and hopes. Theatre for young people should always carry an element of hope for society’s well-being; this is why it is so important to encourage it and to ensure its development.

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Chapter #3 THE AUDIENCE Levels of Communication with Children

PROLOGUE One of the most problematic issues in the field of theatrical communication is actor-spectator interaction. In this chapter, I will address both the physical and verbal interaction between actor and spectator. This involves questions of perception and participation, aesthetic distance, and the children as a captive audience. It is worth noting that the study of audience reception developed very late in theatrical research, and it became an essential concern to those interested in deciphering the complexity of theatrical communication with children. This chapter also refers to the the notion of the audience sharing in the responsibility of the success or failure of the production. The receptiveness, the ability to respond to the images produced on the stage, will be explained as a direct result of how much the child knows about the fascinating world of make-believe and the manner in which it functions. We can observe how differently each individual responds to a theatrical performance. Various connections develop between the stage and each member of the audience. Yet there are times when almost all the spectators react alike. Children’s involvement, their reaction to a play, is an ongoing form of communication from the beginning of the performance to the end. Sometimes children are encouraged to participate in the theatrical event and to express aloud their ideas or feelings. But most of the time they are asked to sit quietly and watch. Yet even without speaking the child sends messages to the stage. He or she cries, laughs, or applauds, and in turn, gets feedback 51

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from the actors who are aware of every sign. In an earlier pilot project with my students we discovered that young audiences, as they sit waiting for the play to begin, are ready to respond actively to what will be presented. As an observer, the child may understand the action from the theatrical images on the stage and/or from the plot and may participate physically and verbally in the action. It is within the context of how children react to the theatrical encounter that I shall examine the question of whether reception and participation are two separate entities or whether they should be considered two elements on the same scale of the reaction process.

SETTING THE SCENE It is self-evident that a live theatre must communicate and that the real power of a play is found when it is tested upon an audience. The stageaudience encounter in a live performance is still an enigma. What is it about the event that creates magic moments and generates a kind of pleasure that no other art can provide? From Aristotle to Brecht, and including Brook, Grotowski, and Schechener, no one has suggested a reasonable explanation for the pleasure we derive from a theatrical performance. There is a kind of magic pleasure, for both the spectators and the performers, in theatrical communication. The most desirable satisfaction for any performer comes from a heart-felt response from the audience. And the most desirable satisfaction for any spectator comes from a convincing performance that the actor gives. We may say that the essence of theatre lies in the pleasure that performers can give their audiences and the pleasure that the audiences can give the actors. It is not only the pleasure of recognition but it is a delight which stems from an emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic experience. There have been many attempts to define theatre, to analyze acting, and to examine reception and perception, just as there have been many attempts to develop ideas dealing with theoretical aspects of theatrical communication. “Can the theatre exist without an audience? At least one spectator is needed to make it a performance” (Grotowski, 1968, p. 32). These are Grotowski’s words to Eugenio Barba who interviewed him in 1964. These words illuminate the power of the relationship between audience and actor, in fact defining theatre as: “what takes place between spectator and actor” (p. 32). Accepting this idea means reducing the importance of other components of the theatre. All the other aspects, including costumes, lighting effects and the plot, are as Grotowski claimed, supplementary - perhaps necessary, but nevertheless supplementary. In the context of theatre for young people Grotowski’s claim can provide a new insight into the conventional modes of reception, perception and

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participation. It places the interaction between the actors and the children, as spectators, at the center of the event and gives predominance to special considerations on both sides. The actors must be attuned to a child’s reception while the child as spectator is considered as one who has, in Grotowski’s words, “genuine spiritual needs” (ibid., p. 40). Many youth theatres are conscious of this actor-spectator axis and its problems, but they frequently hit upon wrong methods when they try to imitate Broadway’s spectacular style of performance that they assume will be appealing to the children. They do not appreciate that TYP is the best ground in which seeds of opportunity can be planted in order to enrich the young people’s minds, to open them to diverse and profound ways of enjoying performances, and to help them enjoy life. And if they do understand this, they care less about it than about the event’s potential financial profit. This is a strong criticism of those commercial theatre companies and producers who see young people as captive audiences and are most concerned with their role as consumers.

RECEPTION, PERCEPTION AND PARTICIPATION The choice between the terms reception and perception is not necessarily a choice between two completely different entities, but is rather a choice between two different traditions. Perception, as we learn from the comprehensive study by Willmar Sauter (2000), carries a connotation that ties it to phenomenology. The term’s basis can be found in Gadamer’s thinking and the phenomenological tradition. Reception refers “to cultural studies and the analysis of social values and mental worlds” (Sauter, 2000, p. 5). The phenomenology tendency and the social tendency suggest we look at different things while examine an audience’s reaction to the stage performance, and the ways the interaction on the actor-spectator axis takes place. Sauter suggests connecting perception with the immediate communicative aspect of the presentation; in this way it is an integral part of the theatrical event. Reception should be employed to describe the process taking place after a performance; that is to say, reception describes the consequence, the result of the perception, the communication that took place earlier. Both terms help us to develop the understanding underlying the assumption of participation in theatre for young people. The differences between perception and reception have helped me to construct a range of interactions in the TYP event: Presentation – Perception – Participation – Reaction – Reception. The elements are presented here in a linear order so as to identify the continuum underlying the interaction with the audience. Each of these elements determines the ways we can construct our idea about the qualities of TYP. The action (actor) reaction (spectator) chain is one way

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to describe theatre as communicative interaction. Employing the phenolmenological approach mentioned earlier opens up our examination to other various modes of participating in the event; one can have different approaches that do not necessarily maintain clear borders between actor and spectator, but sometimes blur the edges and offer different modes of communication between them. I am interested in understanding various modes of participation because they add another theoretical layer that may enhance the possibilities of communication in theatre for young people. For example, Boal uses the term ‘Spect-actor’ to describe a person from the audience who chooses to intervene in the action and to be an active spectator at a certain moment of the play. I found it intriguing to try to find ways to use the intuitive reaction of a child and his passion to go on stage and intervene in the action with the legitimacy conferred by ‘Spect-actor’. I would like to see development in planning performances for young people in which the child can be Spect-actor without concern that s/he has lost the aesthetic distance and hence is not able to enjoy the performance as an art form. This builds upon what I said in Chapter Two and strengthens my assertion that we have to find forms that spring from the children’s ways of thinking and acting and merge them with known forms of theatre in order to construct new forms of art suitable to delight young people. Brecht tried to shake the conventional relationship between stage and audience. Brecht’s epic theatre looked to the political influence of the theatre and the political commitment of an audience. I mention Brecht in this context only to note that the audience for the epic theatre was of intrinsic concern. Likewise, the audience for the young people’s theatre of today is of critical concern, albeit in a very different way. As Bennett has asserted, “Brecht’s work sets up a number of starting points for the study of audiences in theatres. It consolidated a developing theatre practice self-consciously concerned with production and reception. Performance, hitherto almost hermetically sealed, demanding of the audience only the role of receiver, became essentially a co-operative venture” (Bennett, 1990. p. 31). My aim here is to draw the reader’s attention to the idea that theatre in which the audience has an active role, ‘a co-operative venture’, is already an “old” and accepted idea in children’s theatre. Although not accepted for all of the same reasons, children’s theatre had embraced the principle of an active relationship between the stage and the young audience. One might say that the viewer, the receiver, or the spectator of any message is never passive because of the need to produce a reaction out of the communication. This is true but only to the extent to which one assumes that there is no clearly defined perceptive process. The direct outcome of a spectator’s perception is a richer experience.

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As young audiences (children from three to twelve) sit waiting for the show to start they are ready to respond actively. A child as an observer perceives the action on stage and reacts openly or covertly depending on his/her own personality and his/her stage of development and experience in watching theatre. The way a child perceives the action on stage is demonstrated in his/her patterns of participation. Anticipation, moments of deep silence, hissing, shouting, running or accepting an actor’s call to stage: each of these reactions, or a combination of some of them, indicates the way the young people perceive the presentation and react to it. Understanding children’s reactions and their need for physical communication is an integral part of understanding the nature of the theatrical experience. In this sense, children watch a play differently from adults. They need to participate in a dynamic perceptive process that is not bound to specific aesthetic codes or specific thematic issues. Young people want to take part in the dialogue unfolding on the stage. That is why they participate in the event actively even if the actors do not address them directly. This active participation is found basically in theatre for infants and theatre for children; very little of that remains in theatre for young audiences when they become teenagers. There are many forms of participation. It is quite common for younger children (nine and younger) to be called at some point to actively participate in the story. There are performances in which the children can respond from their seats, those that elicit the children’s loud responses while still in their chairs, and there are more open forms of participation in which the actors can divide the audience into groups and ask the children to look for an actor who is hiding, or to help another to build something, or any other form of physical participation as long as the child is actively involved in the fiction. Using the actor-spectator modes of improvisation, the play develops the flavor of creative or improvisational drama. As mentioned, when children grow up and become mature, they usually do not actively participate, and the performance returns to the conventional “fourth wall” experience of a play. In the 1970s Peter Slade guided The Children’s Theatre Players, an English children’s theater established in 1943, placing emphasis on improvisation rather than on written scripts. This provided excellent opportunities for younger children to show their perception by actively reacting to a play. Lutley (1978), who played in that theatre group, mentioned that it gave the children “the opportunity where appropriate to become involved in the playing - nonsentimental audience participation. Preparing for this also comes into rehearsals, we practice with imaginary children, sometimes with other players standing in - sincerely doing the childlike thing. A player will go to one or two children, offering each a hand and saying, “Please come and help me to…” if a child seems unwilling, understand and just go to someone else. A vague look in the direction of

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some children and “I need some help, would you like to come and help me please?” may bring no help at all, or a whole crowd of children, who can easily become a little over-eager and difficult to handle happily, thus spoiling what should be a particularly sensitive bit of playing. When the task is accomplished, the helpers are thanked and usually escorted a few steps in the direction of their seats - and we all get on with the next thing” (pp. 5-6). In the last fifty years, non-traditional adults’ theatres have expected their audiences to play an active, creative role in the performance. Bennett (1990) claimed, “In the explosion of new venues, companies, and performance methods, there is a non-traditional theatre which has recreated a flexible actor-audience relationship and a participatory spectator/actor” (p. 20). How amazing it is to realize that this modern phenomenon in the adult’s theatre, that has been recognized only in the last decades, is at the mainstream of the thinking of those who were involved in operating and designing theatre for young people almost from its inception (Ward, 1939/1950; McCaslin, 1971 and 1978; Davis and Evans, 1987; Goldberg, 1974; Corey, 1974). When children’s theatre started and developed in the first half of the twentieth century, it created its own criteria and ideology. In contrast, what strikes me most when watching theatrical performances for young people these days is the mixture of known theatrical methods being used and the attempts to imitate adults’ theatre, especially the attempts to imitate what is happening on Broadway and the television drama.

ECOLOGIES OF PERFORMANCE – THE APPLAUSE Kershaw, in his scholarly paper entitled Oh for Unruly Audiences! Or, Patterns of Participation in Twentieth-Century Theatre, asked: “In what ways can theatre, and particularly its politics, be better understood than through thinking of its applause?” (Kershaw, 2001, p. 134). Kershaw’s question is very important especially when it comes to TYP, because when young people applaud they do it almost instinctively. They clap their hands before they have processed the experience. The children’s applause is a genuine and natural response, a manner of participation, showing their reactions toward the actors not only at the end of a performance but also during the performance. When the witch or the villain is caught, or when a prince finds the princess, or when the hero appears on stage, the child shows her/his perception of the interaction on stage by clapping hands; the clapping is usually accompanied by encouraging shouts as his/her emotions are released. The adult, on the other hand, is more knowledgeable, knows how the system works and his applause is more like a kind of “thank you” to the actor.

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We have to ask ourselves how we interpret applause. Is it the theatrical equivalent of litmus paper, a reliable indicator of “the cultural toxicity of the event in its whole environment?” as Kershaw asks provocatively, or are the audience’s reactions so “fickle and fleeting that generally they are best ignored by theatre scholars, or at least relegated to the odd footnote in histories of the art?” (Kershaw, 2001, p. 133). In the context of this discussion, it is interesting to note that the verb “applaud” entered the English language late in 1536 (ibid., p. 134). Kershaw was amazed when he discovered that the indexes of recent studies of theatre audiences do not include the topic of applause. He did not understand such a lack of interest in a crucially defining feature of the Western Theatre. Applause, I may add, has even greater importance in children’s theatre where one can see quite clearly that the children frequently clap their hands with enthusiasm while their parents or their teachers do not, either because they do not appreciate what they are watching or because they have different reasons for applauding. There are gaps between young people and adults in terms of explicit forms of reception. These gaps help to explain how children and adults can have quite different overt reactions as they watch and enjoy the same performance. It seems to me that more than any other physical response the applause is an indication of an explicit expression directed to the performers. For the adults it is an external conventional and controlled signal sent to the stage; for children, especially for the youngest, it is an internal and intuitive expression. That observation could explain why young children usually do not applaud at the end of the show (unless they are so instructed by the adult who escorts them), but they do clap their hands during the show. Kershaw tries to give an explanation for the lack of scholarly interest in the question of applause. He said ironically: “Perhaps theatre analysts do not want to acknowledge applause in the context of serious scholarship because it is perceived to be incidental to performance. Or perhaps applause - like sexual congress and laughter - is in itself a thoughtless act, maybe a response arising from a basic impulse or reflex action, over which, in the end, we have no control. Hence applause fits us out for hegemonic submission” (ibid., p. 134). Kershaw also offers another explanation. He suggests a sociological interpretation instead of a physiological or psychoanalytic one. “Applause is the moment in which the collective aims to assert itself over the individual, in which an imagined community is forged. So the pitch of applause - whether it is a standing ovation or a desultory clap - indicates different types of consensual abandon, a giving up of individual judgment: we lose something of ourselves in putting our hands together with others in public. This notion of applause as a conservative force, in turn, raises the interesting issue of how audiences learn to applaud” (ibid., p. 135).

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The French playwright, Bernard Tristan, said: “In the theatre the audience want to be surprised - but by things that they expect” (ibid., p. 135). Maybe Tristan’s words confirm a paradox of applause. On one hand, it is a very overt essential phenomenon in the theatre of the 20th century. On the other hand, we know nothing of the way we acquired that habit nor do we mention it in scholarly writings. Applause became more important to Western theatres in the second half of the twentieth century as other forms of audience engagement were reduced (ibid., p. 135). Kershaw traces the history of applause and positions it against the background of what he calls the shift in most Western theatres from the audience as patron, to client, to customer (ibid., p. 135). He argues that this historical shift indicates a growing acquiescence in audiences, a relinquishing of cultural power. We should acknowledge that applause is almost the only overt conventional form of audience participation in the theatre. There are some who think that raising applause to a degree of active participation in the play is a tool for silencing the voices of other forms of participation that might develop, such as in Boal’s theatre or Eugenio Barba’s theatre. It is in this context that Kershaw coined a term “ecologies of performance”. By this, he means the complicated and unavoidable interdependencies between every element of a performance and its environment. These interdependencies “ensure that the smallest change of one element in some way, however minutely, effects change in all the rest. Different types of performance possess different ecologies in ways that make it difficult to say, in general, that one factor is more important than another for the sustainability and survival of any particular genre or form” (ibid., p. 136). Basically we can say that he borrows his ideas from the fields of biology and ecology and rests his case on the grounds of what he understands as “edge-phenomena” which are places such as riverbanks and the seashore. He suggests looking at applause as an edge-phenomenon in the theatre, and thus we might notice things that we do not see when we stick to the notion that, in performance study, it is simply given that actor-audience interaction is a major (one might even say that it is the major element in the theatre): “Thinking of actor-audience interaction as an edge-phenomenon may enable us to see better how the changing disciplines of audience membership, including those of applause, are an index of the general health of the theatre as a social and political process” (ibid., p. 137). In the People’s Republic of China actors and audience applaud each other a sign of appreciation (Homan, 1989, p. ii). We tend to accept the concept of appreciation and agree that the louder and the longer the applause, the more the audience participates in the making of a specific work of art a masterwork. When young people express their participation via applause, their understanding of what applause means may be completely different

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from the adult’s understanding. When adults applaud, the hall is filled with the homogeneity of the rhythm of the clapping; it spreads all over the house simultaneously. In children’s theatre one may hear sporadic applause or there may be specific places in the house from where it comes. The ways young people clap could be considered as another sign of the authentic perception - reception chain of the child’s response. Young children do not feel the need to be like the person sitting next to them and they do not need to imitate his/her reactions. They participate naturally, according to their own feelings, as the play progresses. The villain of the piece who confronts the young people and threatens them usually works in the front of the stage (the proscenium), out of the frame, until he receives the mighty hiss of condemnation he wants. This is a difference between adults’ reactions to a play as opposed to those of the young people. The adults may whisper or hiss and then will applaud; they do not see the hissing and the applause as opposites. They may hiss, as in the Victorian theatre, but afterwards they will clap to show appreciation of the actors’ artistry. In children’s theatre when there is hissing there is usually no applause. Kershaw relates a few anecdotes about applause in adult’s theatre and tries to convince us that it is an act of oppression because it closes the mind to other forms of interaction during the play. A particularly compelling story used to illustrate his argument about applause as tyranny follows: “On 21 April 1894, the curtain came down on the opening night of Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man and the audience broke into tumultuous applause, with one notable exception. ‘Rubbish’, shouted a lone man at the top of his voice. ‘I quite agree with you, my friend,’ Shaw called back from the stage, ‘but who are we two against the hundreds here that think otherwise?’” (ibid., p. 140). Kershaw’s claim that applause suppresses differences is extreme; applause, like laughter, is the unthinking component of a system that creates oppressive or competing communities. He called this ‘the taming of the audience’. And his claim is that applauding indicates Western theatre’s increasing capitulation to near-fascistic forces in its sociopolitical environment. “As theatre audiences were transformed from patrons to clients between the 1950s, and the 1970s, they succumbed, probably unwittingly, to the dubious power of the professional; and as they were further transmuted from clients to customers in the past twenty years or so they submitted, maybe even happily, to the dehumanizing dominance of the market” (ibid., p. 141). A similar but less radical position was taken by J. L. Styan in the 1970s. He argued that hissing and applause were a kind of poor participation that served the Victorian audience as a substitute for the shared experience of a dramatic ritual. Victorian audiences were an “untrustworthy mixture of

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moral indignation and vicarious pleasure. It loved its villains with a hate which, in its intensity, belongs to a childhood world” (Styan, 1975, p. 132). A storm of applause is heard more in adults’ theatre whereas its parallel, a hurricane of hissing and shouting, is heard more at a performance for young people; both reactions are a way to participate in the play. The audience, adults or youngsters, needs to let off steam before they can go on watching the actors perform. It is most important to understand that applause is not merely a colorful frill beside the very many components already present in the performance; it is a mode of participation that carries social and psychological theatrical understanding. Kershaw’s analysis did not include examination of applause in theatre for young people, yet his analysis served me as an opening to one of the most exciting occurrences in the theatrical event and gave me the opportunity to consider it as an important element when studying modes of participation and levels of communication with the audience in children’s theatre.

CHILDREN AS A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE What does the audience want in theatre? This is the main question that has occupied researchers over the years. The question becomes more demanding when it comes to children’s theatre because, in a way, the children are a captive audience. It is interesting to mention here again that the study of reception developed so late in the history of theatre research. As far as I know there is no research or audience survey that has succeeded in showing that a child as a theatre-goer becomes an adult theatre-goer. There is no evidence to prove that watching many performances when you are a child makes you love theatre as an adult. Orlin Corey (1972) reported on a study by New York University of 1,255 children in New York City schools who were exposed to the performing arts enrichment program at the Lincoln Center. The children attended between five and twenty-six performances of what were considered to be the best plays. The study found that when the program ended the children neither hated nor loved the arts. They were “universally neutral” (Corey, 1972, p. 63). Results such as these introduce the question of appropriate educational programs and their benefit, an issue that will be discussed in Chapter Seven. However, in this discussion it would be only reasonable to try to connect Corey’s data to the fact that the children had attended these performances as a captive audience, a fact that might influence the ways in which they could enjoy and appreciate the arts. In his article, Theatre for Children in an Age of Film, Jonathan Levy (1990) argues, “Children in the theatre are a captive audience. They do not

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choose to come. They are brought. And when they are there, we hold their imaginations in trust” (pp. 10-11). If this is the situation and we do hold their imagination in trust, our obligation to them is more demanding and we should ask ourselves what qualities theatre could offer them that no other art can. From its inception, caring for good quality was the biggest concern of the founders of Theatre for Young People. In Winifred Ward’s (1939/1950) book, we find a call for actors to give their best. She warned that actors who thumb their noses at their audiences by resorting to slapstick have no place in a children’s theatre. She made it very clear: “Let them keep to the adult stage where the audience is past saving. We want players in our theatres for young people who are genuine, who have respect for children. When they are funny, let them be sincerely funny. When they play parts which are eccentric or evil, let them build real characters, not absurdities” (Ward, 1939/1950, p. 174). From the beginning of the history of theatre for young people, the understanding has been there: children are a captive audience not only in that they need an adult to escort to the performance, but also they are in the actor’s hands. The best scenario would include actors who treat children with respect and who understand that part of their responsibility as professional actors is to help the child appreciate artistic and aesthetic standards. Actors should have the responsibility to develop the taste of the young audience. Ward put it beautifully when she said, “Artistic standards are in the making in child audiences. Whether the actor realizes it or not, he is helping to set those standards. If he insults children’s intelligence, he leads them to think that this is what one may expect from the stage. If he believes that only the finest acting is good enough for a child audience, and that he has a responsibility in the development of taste, he will never be guilty of ridiculing a character that he plays, nor of feeling superior to an audience of young people” (Ward, 1939/1950, p.174). Most of the time children react without any learned social inhibitions that prevent self-expression. The satisfaction of the actor grows when he or she receives a genuine response; this may ensure the quality of the show. Yet there is a danger that the actor will be tempted to make more of the kinds of gestures that catch the attention of the child, especially in a comedy, in order to squeeze more laughs out of the performance; this is not necessarily good for the entire show. The actor-spectator relationship involves the question of the degree to which the spectator is free to interpret the theatrical text. When the actor tries to help the children to understand the text not via their ability to decipher the theatrical codes but as though they cannot understand, then all the balance in the theatrical communication is distorted and the child as a captive spectator might develop poor taste regarding theatrical productions.

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HOMOGENEOUS/HETEROGENEOUS AUDIENCE There are many interesting questions concerning reception, perception and participation but one point that particularly fascinates me is the spectator as an individual versus the spectator as a member of a group, an audience. Samuel Selden (1941/1967) looked at the spectator as an individual and noted the division between the outer and the inner man. He wrote: “Let’s look at the spectator as an individual. Practically speaking, he is made up of two parts: an outer man, an inner man. The outer man comprises all those features that are visually and aurally manifest to other people: surface appearance, outward action, voice sounds. We say of someone that he is five feet, eight inches tall, that he is thin, sandy-haired, light-complexioned that his movements are quick and nervous and that he has a baritone voice. That is the outward man. The inner man, a much more complex being, can be roughly subdivided into two other parts: 1. The “mind” 2. All those other inward activities connected with biological wellbeing… The scent of flowers, the taste of food, the touch of a hand, all these make an impression on the mind and all stir the automatic system into a response involving at least a minimum of emotion. Acting of the outer body – walking, jumping, bending, reaching – also affects the behavior of the organs and glands and so in turn the thoughts and the emotions… the outward acting is often checked. The man is “holding himself in”. Many people hold themselves thus so constantly that their behavior becomes habitual” (pp. 282-283). In the theatre the actor needs to communicate with both the outer and the inner aspects of the audience. The division of inner and outer also exists within the actor, and Selden argued that “the inner man cannot touch another inner man except through the medium of the outer” (ibid., p. 284). This understanding of the inner-outer concept becomes more complicated when one examines the double cycles of an audience watching performances for young people: the child as a person versus the child as a part of a crowd; and the adult as a person and the adult as a part of a crowd. The inner reaction of a child and the inner reaction of an adult and the afore-mentioned difference in their outer reactions (for example in the ways they applaud) creates a complex stratum in which the more homogeneous the audience is, the more similar the outer reaction is expected to be. At the same time, there is nothing to indicate how inner perception is processed. The relationship between these components has yet to be studied. My intention here is to point them out in order to show the importance of continuing research in this direction since it is a fundamental element of the whole chain of TYP Presentation – Perception – Participation – Reaction – Reception.

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“Children are the most genuine audience in the world” declared Winifred Ward (1950, p. 258). She elaborated, “They may laugh at a well-played romantic scene; and they may begin to put on their coats five minutes before the play is over. But these are proofs of their genuineness… Children make no pretense of being interested if they do not care for the play… Because reaction is so natural, the playwright and the director can learn much by sitting in a child audience” (Ward, 1939/1950, p. 259). If we want to learn what appeals to children as well as to youth and what leaves them “cold” we need to sit with them during live performances. Conclusions resulting from observing audiences comprised of same-age children could be very helpful in learning more about what it is suitable for this or that age group. But here lies a serious problem. We know of many cases in which the young audience enjoys the play very much – but for the wrong reasons. Ward mentioned some of these reasons above; for example, actors who thumb their noses at their audience, so to speak, by resorting to slapstick. Furthermore, when we speak of theatre for infants or theatre for children, adults always accompany the young people. As a result, the audience is no longer homogeneous but heterogeneous and not only heterogeneous but extremely polarized. The adult, in contrast to the child, has more experience. The fact alone that s/he is sitting there means that s/he is distorting the authentic ways in which the child will react to the performance. The double circles of different sorts of audiences is one of the biggest problems in theatre for young people. Corey (1972) expressed it succinctly: “I know that children often see things that aren’t there. But I would remind you that adults often fail to see what is there” (p. 67). Thus, when the playwright or the director plans the audience’s reaction it is important for him to know these factors according to which he may direct his work. When an actor asks the theatre manager “How is the house tonight?” he is referring not only to the number of people in the theatre that evening but also to the quality of the audience; i.e., is it homogeneous? Is it heterogeneous? Active? Energetic? Hostile? Receptive? Elderly people? Young people? To these questions and similar ones, the answer would help the actor to learn more about the notion of the spectators at a specific event. For example, playing in a matinee and in a late evening performance are completely different experiences, due basically to the different audiences who come to watch the play. In matinee performances, the spectators are usually elderly people and the way they react to a play is different from the more heterogeneous evening audiences. They laugh in different places they react slowly they sometimes even don’t react at all because they don’t hear well or they did not immediately get the point. That echoes the idea of ecologies of performance discussed above. The way the play is designed takes into account ways to manipulate the audience’s response or, to put it less bluntly, how to program the audience’s

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reception. The presence of homogeneous/heterogeneous audience is always a factor in managing the performance. In theatre for young people the problem of a homogeneous audience is very clearly seen when there is a school performance. If, for example, audience members are all in the same age group, then this may be reason to change elements in the play. On the other hand, heterogeneity can give rise to other challenges. In theatre for infants, when the house is full of very young children coming to the theatre escorted by an adult, the performance is programmed differently. In fact, this often causes that particular performance of the play to fail. For some people, theatrical communication succeeds mostly because of the integration of the many components in the play. When it fails it is usually perceived as a failure on the part of the playwright, the actors, the director or the designers - they all have their share of responsibility for the failure but rarely is there any mention about the share of the audience in the failure of the production. I first considered this idea when I came across Yurka’s (1959) book describing theatre for adults and families. She wrote about her experience: “You, the audience, have a share in the responsibility. Your receptiveness, your ability to respond to the images set before you, will be in direct proportion to how much you know of this fascinating world of make-believe and the manner in which it functions” (p. 3). Reading her words brought to mind Beckett’s 1953 play entitled Waiting for Godot. The initial failure of the play, the hostile reaction it aroused, lay in the failure of the audience: they were not ready to appreciate what they saw on the stage. In her book, Yurka gives the overwhelming reaction to The Diary of Anne Frank as an example. She claimed that audiences in Germany took it to heart and cries of “Guilty, Guilty” were heard from countless throats. This story of young Anne moved the entire civilized world to pity. I note an irony of history; nowadays, sixty years after the Holocaust, The Diary of Anne Frank is a reading requirement in all North Korea schools. The message the government intended it to send to the children was that they should not hide from the country’s enemies, as did Anne Frank, but they should fight for their country. I wonder if they will achieve their aim. I think the power of that text is beyond any dogmatic fascist ability to distort its meaning; even the best demagogic teachers would not be able to alter the meaning while presenting it in class. However, only time can tell what will come out of it. The important thing in this context is to understand that if we are aware of the fantasy, then we can go deeper into more profound levels of our mind. As Norman Holland (1968) explained, we consciously know we need only fantasy in response and thus we can go under the surface to deeper levels of our mind.

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THE AESTHETICS OF AUDIENCE RESPONSE The concept of aesthetic response is connected with the concept of distance. While theorists in all art forms have applied these ideas, they became quite central to both theatre practice and dramatic theory in the twentieth century. Aesthetic response relates to the spectator’s perception of the theatrical event and to the special involvement between audience and stage. As adults, we may cry when we see an emotional scene, especially when it touches our own personal lives, but we know that we are emotionally involved in a theatrical experience and not in a real life situation. An adult spectator will not run toward the stage to stop an act of murder, but a child might. A child may run onstage yelling to warn a rabbit about a threatening tiger or fox. They may run onstage to wake up the sleeping beauty or to help Cinderella wash the floor. Their involvement during the performance is intense and sometimes they lose themselves in the fiction; this means that they do not maintain the distance between a real life situation and a theatrical situation. The aesthetic stance inhibits our motor activity and helps to process our feelings (Holland, 1968), therefore when the child loses aesthetic distance he sinks into the as if situation as though it were a real life situation. The engagement that occurs in the theatre should be different than life experience. The difference is a function of distance. It is concerned with the spectator’s mode of perception. There have been very few attempts to analyze this crucial dimension of theatrical art (such as: Styan, 1975; Beckerman, 1970; Bentley, 1964; Ben-Chaim, 1984) and even fewer attempts to develop an understanding of what it means in terms of theatre for young people (Schonmann, 2002; Klein, 1995; Saldana, 1996). In her analytical book, Distance in the Theatre - The Aesthetic of Audience Response, Daphna Ben-Chaim (1984) tries to systematically analyze the concept of distance in the theatre. Her work could serve as a cornerstone on this subject, although like many other good studies on theatre there is no reference to theatre for young people. However, now we know enough to conclude, “The spectator’s awareness that the theatrical event is a fiction fundamentally determines the viewer’s experience” (Ben-Chaim, 1984, p. 73). Since its first appearance theatre has been accepted as a therapeutic agent. The close relationship between theatre and therapy is further corroborated with the development of distance theory (Furman, 1988). There are at least two forms of distancing, physical and emotional, and they usually follow separate theoretical paths. The seeds of distance theory can be found in Plato’s argument that “art had no place in his Republic because it was too distanced from truth; it was an imitation of an imitation and thus twice

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removed from the ideal” (ibid., p. 245). Aristotle, as opposed to his teacher, argued that theatre has a de facto therapeutic impact on audience members. “However”, states Furman, “it was not until this century that distancing theory evolved in a form that would provide for structured investigation of theatrical and therapeutic application” (ibid., p. 245). Edward Bullough (1912) was the first to define distancing as the lie between our own self and its affections (p. 89); that is, our perceptual, emotional state. As an example, he used the analogy of people in a fog at sea; the fog is terrifying, and at the same time, a source of enjoyment to the passengers. They sense the fear but also abstract the experience. They distance it, and so view it from something other than their usual outlook. Bullough found distancing to be a variable affected by the object being viewed and the manner in which it is realized by the subject, that aesthetic distancing can be lost to “under-distance” or to “over-distance”. The subject, for example, can decrease distance to the point where he or she loses appreciation for the object. Aesthetic distance is a balance: “all art requires a distance-limit beyond which, and a distance-limit within which only aesthetic appreciation becomes possible” (Bullough, 1912, p. 89). For Bullough, the ideal degree of distance, which forms the basis of his general aesthetic principle, is the “least amount of distance without its disappearance” (Ben-Chaim, 1984, p. 49). Bullough’s concept has become a point of departure for art theorists of this century. Since his influential article appeared, his concept has been at the core of almost every discourse on reception - perception and participation in the theatrical event. One argument is that aesthetic distance merely gives a new name to an old phenomenon, that of “attention” (Dickie, 1971). Distance, according to this reasoning, is only the focus of attention on some characteristics of an object, say fog at sea, at the expense of others. However, distance clearly takes on a dual meaning in the context of aesthetic appreciation (Casebier, 1971). One type of distance is attentional distance the degree to which the observer attends or focuses on an object. The other form of distance is emotional distance - the level of response that an observer maintains toward an object. “It is the emotional distance that is the primary concern of therapists” (Furman, 1988, p. 245). During a play the children’s aesthetic enjoyment lies in the hands of the actors’ ability to communicate with the child and with the fiction. Cultivation of young people’s ability to operate aesthetic distance will enable them to participate in the theatrical event with emotion, without losing themselves in the fiction. What are the conditions that make the aesthetic distance possible? What are the subtle parameters of the interaction between the child as spectator and the actors on stage? First it is necessary to be sure that the child is able to understand the as if convention. It is also desirable for the

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child to have the appropriate capacity to respond to the actors on stage. Aesthetic distance is a psychological entity and it contains a general aesthetic principle that, for Bullough, is intrinsic to all art forms (BenChaim, 1984, p. 70). In Chapter Five, I will return to this essential subject and share with the reader some research that I have conducted in theatre for young people on this matter.

EPILOGUE In this chapter I looked into a few ideas that might be helpful in paving the way to understand the theatrical event as composed of Presentation – Perception – Participation – Reaction – Reception. Though not necessarily in this order this continuum constructs the idea of how to make sense of the ways through which the spectator participates in the play. The richness of the theatrical text and the endless possibilities of connecting elements together make it very difficult to decipher the actor–spectator relationships. When it comes to the young people as audience, it is even more difficult to think about a concept of audience since we must take into our already multifaceted considerations the authentic intuitive ways of perceptionreception by the young people. The child’s awareness that the play is a fiction must be ensured. The aesthetic response rests on the imaginative involvement of the child. According to Eisner (2002), the conscious realization that form can express feeling comes late in childhood. Thus we have to be aware of the development of the child’s imagination, sensibilities, and emotions needed to create aesthetic understanding; without them there will be no significant progress in understanding the chain of Reception, Perception and Participation in theatre for young people.

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Chapter #4 CATHARSIS The Nature of Private and Public Catharsis in Children’s Theatre

PROLOGUE The discussion in this chapter deals with a psychological and a literary aspect of theatre for young people. It raises questions such as: How much sophistication do we need in order to establish a good plot, to create character, and to bring about catharsis? Is it easier to achieve catharsis with children and young audiences than it is with adults? What is the process by which a child internalizes a theatrical experience? Is it realistic to expect that a theatrical experience will change a child? In this chapter, I shall explain the concept of catharsis by placing it at the center of the audience’s experience as an emotional and cognitive phenomenon. Using the concept of catharsis is to suggest that it can be useful to understand the structure of the private and public behavior of children watching a play: it provides an opportunity to share one’s feelings within a protected environment at an artistic event and among peers. Experiencing a collective catharsis enables all those present to share special moments of pleasure. Yet problems might arise when private catharsis does not resonate with the collective catharsis and the child goes through a process of “clarification” that sets him apart from the group. A child can express his feelings in “outer-overt” ways, such as laughing or shouting like the other children in the hall, and yet the “inner-covert” personality of the child does not resonate with these appearances. In such cases, we can say that the actor communicates spontaneously with the “outer” personality of the child but not with his “inner” personality. My concern is not with 69

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whether the child’s responses are or are not spontaneous, a theme that has occupied a few researchers in the field, but with the ways in which we can perceive that feelings are inseparable from understanding (Nussbaum, 1986; Kris, 1952; Abdulla, 1985; Scheff, 1979; Belfiore, 1992). It is often thought that a child has the naive potential to experience true catharsis in the theatre and that children are ready to respond fully, without reservation. I shall discuss these issues by focusing on the child’s need for positive models and a feeling of optimism.

SETTING THE SCENE The term catharsis originally appears in Chapter Six of Aristotle’s Poetics, where it is associated with pity and fear and is clearly related to the effect or end purpose of the tragedy’s affective power. Aristotle’s statement on the nature and function of catharsis is the most controversial sentence (Lain-Entralgo, 1970, pp. 183-239; Scheff, 1979, pp. 20-21; Abdulla, 1985, pp. 117-119). It is used in many different fields of knowledge and it encounters serious difficulties in each field according to the basic interpretation of the key passage. Vaughn (1978) claims that the difficulty in interpreting the term is due in part to the problem of translation; each of the many theories of catharsis is based upon a particular translation of the key passage of ten Greek words in the original and the different emphases on specific components in it. (pp. 26-27). For example, in anthropology one can find the claim that catharsis plays an important role as a scapegoat in helping spectators rid themselves of psychic tensions or fears; in behavioral psychology, catharsis is seen as an agent helping to overcome maladjustment; for the Prague structuralists, catharsis helps to move one to a free and creative state (Abdulla, 1985, p. 129). Thus we see that the debate over catharsis has continued to the present day in several different contexts. As Scheff sees it the problem in understanding this term is the lack of a conceptual definition of what constitutes catharsis. Aristotle’s doctrine did not define it in terms of behavior. But it involves the re-experiencing of past emotional crises in a context of complete security such as the safety of the theatre or the therapist’s office (Scheff, 1979, p. 23). Catharsis has been at the center of theoretical and practical discourse for hundreds of years and it still needs clarifications and adaptations and is still frequently found to be a most helpful concept in the ongoing theatrical discourse, especially in the debate on the theory of production and reception.

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THE DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF CATHARSIS The most common way of explaining the term is based on the ‘purgation’ theory. In this way, catharsis is seen as an emotional purification process that results in a feeling of relief. From this perspective, the idea of catharsis is taken as an analogy between the physiological system and the emotional system. In the same way as some people believe that the body can be purified from toxic elements by using medicine which consists of the elements that resemble them, on the grounds that “like cures like”, tragic events on stage purify the soul from “toxic” elements by using elements similar to those in our lives. This theory claims that tragedy arouses emotions of pity and fear in the spectators, then purges or eliminates these emotions. Although Aristotle mentioned that catharsis was the purging of only two specific emotions, pity and fear, it is now believed that catharsis can encompass many more distressing emotions such as shame, embarrassment, anger and grief. Excitement is stirred up within the spectators leading to the release of a number of emotions. This venting of one’s feelings is not harmful to the spectators; on the contrary, it serves their emotional balance to control their behavior. It helps to maintain the equilibrium of mind, and to overcome fear. Catharsis in this sense is perceived as supporting one’s emotional life, and helping a person to function better outside the walls of the theatre. Scheff (1979) points out that emotions play very little part in most theories of social behavior: “They are either omitted entirely or, at best, treated as an undifferentiated residue… Most sociological theories include emotions as a component, but only as a residual category” (ibid., p. 3). According to Scheff, students of collective behavior, beginning with Durkheim, Trade, and LeBon, were quite concerned about the emotions of crowds, “but they made no attempt to describe differences in the emotional responses of crowds, or the effects of these differences. These theorists tended to see emotions as antisocial and irrational” (ibid., p. 3). We still hear these voices among the sociological theorists today, but most of them now include the emotional component and thus give further support to the psychological explanations for catharsis. Scheff views catharsis as “thrill-seeking” behavior. People seek that thrill of excitement originating from fear. This theory explains why just as adults enjoy horror movies, children love roller-blading and young people read thrillers. Emotional pain is often perceived as desirable. Scheff argues that people who seek fear or grief provoking stimuli seem to be contradicting the commonsense principle that avoiding pain is a primary motive in human behavior. The theory that he describes seeks to explain this seemingly

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paradoxical behavior: “The theory of catharsis argues that thrill-seeking is an attempt to relive, and therefore resolve, earlier painful experiences which were unfinished. When we cry over the fate of Romeo and Juliet, we are reliving our own personal experiences of overwhelming loss, but under new and less severe conditions” (ibid., p. 13). Scheff refers to the balance between distress and security as distancing, and argues that cathartic crying, laughing, and other emotional processes occur when an unresolved emotional distress is reawakened in a properly distanced context. Another interpretation of catharsis is ‘clarification’: a concept that does not deny the emotional power of tragedy but sees this power in the incidents of the plot itself. In other words, through the selecting and ordering processes of art, the incidents of the play are made clear in terms of ‘probability’ and ‘necessity’ and this clarity of action is the source of tragic pleasure (Vaughn, 1978, p. 27). Analyzing the linguistic roots of the word catharsis led the philosopher Martha Nussbaum to define catharsis as ‘clearing up’ or ‘clarification’ (Nussbaum, 1986, p. 389). She argues that emotions can sometimes mislead and distort judgment but they can also give access to a truer and deeper level of knowing ourselves. Learning through emotions about our values and our commitments is a kind of clarification and that is the aim of catharsis (ibid., p. 390). In the context of these two main interpretations of catharsis, i.e. the purgation idea and that of clarification, it is essential to mention Moreno’s (1971) idea of catharsis relating to a psycho-dramatic work. He described six different categories of this phenomenon: 1. Somatic catharsis, which relates to a physical action such as crying, laughing, or any other physical collapse. 2. Mental catharsis that, according to Freud, included the remembering of events from the past. 3. Primary catharsis that occurs to the actor/actress on stage 4. Secondary catharsis that occurs to the spectator 5. Individual catharsis 6. Catharsis in a group Although they were devised for the purpose of therapeutic processes, these categories are good for differentiating between individual and collective experiences in watching theatre, and between looking at what happens on to the actors on stage as opposed to what happens to the spectator. Judging from the flood of commentaries on catharsis we can recognize its importance. It is only reasonable to take for granted the necessity to extend the discussions to the world of theatre for young people, a world that involves art and education. Understanding the controversial concept of catharsis in the context of theatre for young people means, in fact,

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understanding some aspects of the human condition which could result in practical implications; enhancing the children’s attention to themselves, to the environment and to the society they live in. One of the major lessons from looking at the arts, as we have learnt from Elliot Eisner (2002) is: “how to secure the feelingful experience that slowed perception makes possible; the arts help students learn how to savor qualities by taking the time to really look so that they can see” (p. 24). My point is to clarify the idea of cathartic power as power to evoke a feelingful experience. Based on a research project done with my students; Children at Risk on Encountering Theatre, we will be able to trace the idea of catharsis from a different viewpoint that has not been widely discussed; i.e., children at risk when encountering theatre for the first time.

CHILDREN AT RISK ON ENCOUNTERING THEATRE Based on research that argues that there is a therapeutic and educational benefit to catharsis (Scheff, 1979; Goldberg, 1974; Winston, 1998; Nussbaum, 1986; Abdulla, 1985; Boyce, 1987) we assumed that if catharsis is to be therapeutic and educational it must be an experience that is genuinely felt as well as intellectually understood. The purpose of the project was to enrich the lives of children at risk by providing them the experience of watching a play. We knew that it was the first time in their lives that they were exposed to such an experience. We wanted them to enjoy it, to have a great time, and we wanted to learn their ways of reception and the place that catharsis was playing in their perception of the play. A research group was asked to describe, to examine and to analyze the children’s experiences at the theatre. The chosen children, aged six to eight, were staying in a boarding school. They were escorted by adults who were able to supply a safety net for the children’s emotional reactions if necessary, or just to be there to explain things that the children might not understand. The assumption was that children at risk suffer from emotional disturbances resulting from such problems as poor self-image, low socio-economic background and identity problems - elements that inhibit their ability to develop as “normal” young people. The research question was: What was the most significant experience for the children in the theatre? The project was designed in three stages: The first was to examine the ideas that the children had about theatre. Each of them was asked if s/he had ever been in a theatre before? With whom did they go? What did the word theatre mean to him/her? Then they were asked if s/he wanted to go to watch a play?

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The second stage was to take the children who chose to participate to go watch a play and to sit near them during the performance, observe their reactions and mediate between them and the stage when or if necessary. The third stage was to talk to the children (in an open “interview” style) during the play if the child showed any spontaneous inclination to talk; again immediately after the play was over and then again a few days after the performance.

MOFF AND MORRIS BY J. JACOBSON The chosen play was Moff and Morris, which received first prize for the best play in the Haifa International Festival for children’s theatre in 2004. An original Israeli play written and directed by J. Jacobson, it is designed for two actors. Each of them plays several roles, and the play lasts approximately one hour. The play is about a child psychologist named Morris and his dog named Moff who set out together on an adventure-filled journey to find Moff ’s four siblings. They find that one of Moff ’s brothers is a guard dog, who is on duty in an army camp; the second is a dog who helped a blind person when they met in a park; the third is Moff ’s sister whom they find strolling along the catwalk in a fashion competition for dogs, and the fourth is his homeless brother, a dog on the streets. This is a play about searching for one’s origins. During their adventures together Moff and Morris meet many vivid characters and undergo many moments of happiness, but they also experience moments of sadness and deep sorrow. Morris tells Moff how they first met, how he had chosen him to come and live with him and how his mother had died. The audiences witness the complex relationship between them; how they become angry with each other and how they finally reconcile, how they laugh out of joy, and how they genuinely care for each other in moments of anxiety. It is a play about a real-life situation of a broken family’s encounter with poverty, illness and pain, but it also contains loving moments and the image of the secure, loving home Morris gives to Moff. It is sad and happy, yet basically it is an optimistic play and has a happy end. Inbal, one of my graduate students, was in charge of the research project and worked with the children in that boarding school for the whole year. She commented, “There were moments when it seemed to me that the playwright, director and the actors were thinking of “my” children when they created that play. They gave us all a loving warm hug”. The play was chosen for the project because of its theatrical qualities: the attractive components of the story, its complexity as well as its simplicity and its optimistic ending.

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Six children were taken to watch the play, and five adults working in the school escorted them. The children were all from broken homes, some had brothers or sisters from unknown fathers, some had been abused, for some their father or mother was still in prison, and each of the children had undergone some form of a mental and/or physical rejection. We knew we were taking a risk of a tough emotional experience, yet we thought it would be a chance for them to have a profound and insightful experience that might help them to see the world in a different way from that already known to them.

FOCUSED REACTIONS AND WAYS OF PERCEPTION The children did not know the meaning of the word theatre. Nellie, after some encouragement, made the connection between the word theatre and a puppet theatre: “those who have strings”. Laurie said that she had seen on television “a big hall with chairs where they were playing the life game”. It is interesting to note that even though they could not deal with the term theatre they all said that they could remember, albeit vaguely, seeing a play when they were in kindergarten. They even exaggerated their memory and claimed: “I went plenty of times when Susie (the kindergarten teacher) took us, many times, many, many times” or: “I went only with the school, I never went with my Mom; she always had a pain in her stomach. No, no, actually she broke her leg, she had an accident.” Probably the children wanted to draw Inbal’s attention and wanted her very much to take them to: “a real play in a real theatre”. It was very clear that they had never had a real encounter with theatre, despite their attempts to “remember” and to say that they had been. And even if they had, the context would have been completely different; then, they had no caring adults to escort them. Six children went to see Moff and Morris one afternoon in February. It was at the Center for Performing Arts in a small village not far from Tel Aviv. When they came to the theatre, Nellie asked about the woman sitting in the booking office. Was she the manager? At the entrance the children saw two ushers standing at the door, and asked who they were. They had many questions about almost everything they saw or heard. It was obvious that this was their first time at a real theatrical event. “Look! Look!” said Tom “I am flying, I am flying”. He was sitting on the folding chair and was playing with it. He expressed his joy by comparing the “rocking” chair in the theatre to the feeling that one can have on a swing. Nellie and Daniel began to show signs of impatience; they wanted the play to begin. David looked with great curiosity around him, under the chair, over to another row of seats, and crawled on the floor to check the carpet. When the bell was heard

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for the start of the play, Daniel asked what it was, and Nellie asked if they were going to watch a puppet show. When the hall was darkened they mumbled: “Wow, I can’t see anything” and “How can he see?” And when the hall became dark again, at the end of the performance, Tom asked: “Is there another show now?” “Yes! Yaa! There is another one!” When the actors returned to the front of the stage to bow to the audiences, Sara shouted happily: “You see, you see, I told you it is not over yet”. It is interesting to note that none of the six children applauded. This supports the discussion about applause in the previous chapter on the ecology of performance and the applause as the theatrical equivalent of “litmus paper”, a reliable indicator of “the cultural toxicity of the event”. This description underlines the fact that it was indeed a first experience for these children. The emotional reaction during the performance was most noticeable. It appeared in different forms. On one hand, they asked questions that showed they were sometimes able to maintain a reasonable aesthetic distance; on the other, they were sometimes immersed in the fiction and lost themselves in the story. When the first scene started with some loud music, Morris was sitting in the center of the stage and acted as if he were playing a musical instrument. Nellie asked rapidly: “What is he doing?” Daniel’s reaction was: “It is not a nice play if there are only sounds. What is he doing anyway?” David was interested in knowing how we could hear the music if Morris had no instrument in his hands. When Moff and Morris went to the army camp to meet Moff ’s brother, (the dog trained for guard duty), one heard the sounds of a military march and the children asked: “Where is the noise is coming from?” In the scene where the female dog, Moff ’s sister, was walking along the catwalk for the fashion competition, there were cameras clicking in the background. It was amazing to watch Nellie who was moving in her chair restlessly and looking around to find the cameras: “Where are the photographers? Who is taking the pictures? Where are they?” She wanted to see the people behind the sounds and became very disturbed at not finding them. At moments in the play when the music was slowing down, they whispered to each other: “Do you think the play is over?” Or: “Wow! It is beautiful, how do they do it?” They were very interested in the scenery, in the props, in almost everything. When Morris was talking on the phone (to an unseen friend, Tom asked: “Is he really talking with him? Is he really?” And repeated his question many times until the adults sitting beside him said: “It is only as if he is really using the phone”. Nellie asked more than sixty questions during the play, each carefully recorded by the research students. It indicated her high level of curiosity, her way of seeking clarification, which can be considered to be her way to achieve catharsis. It is the opposite of apathy, or boredom. Her intense questioning demonstrated her cognitive and emotional involvement in the play.

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There is the sheer pleasure that an audience derives from watching a lifelike presentation on stage. But there is another pleasure that the spectator enjoys from an action when it shifts from a realistic action to a symbolic one. This is a move towards the abstract, but the children in the project had not yet achieved this stage. They lost the aesthetic distance many times and therefore for most of the performance they were subject to the pleasure or the pain deriving from the analogy they could make to their own lives. Sara’s experience provides the best example of a child losing the aesthetic distance. At a certain moment Sara decided that one of the characters on stage was lying. She could not restrain herself and told Annette, one of the adults sitting beside her, that she was going to tell the other actor that he was a liar. Annette prevented her from running onto the stage and thus awakened her from the illusion. After the play was finished the children were allowed to go on stage to see the “dogs”, and to look into the big blue moon and to see what was inside. They touched almost everything they could until one of the managers told them to leave; they did so reluctantly. But this description is only an introduction to the immense emotional reaction that they showed. Three of the children were sitting on the edge of their seats, using only half of the chair and craning their bodies forward. Sara said to Inbal that she was frightened and she moved toward Inbal, closer and closer, almost sitting on her knees. Laurie frequently touched the adults that were sitting on both her sides as if she were making sure that they were really there. She wanted to be sure that they were there with her. Only Tom said from time to time that he wanted to eat, that he was so hungry, and that he wanted to eat “now”. The adults interpreted his calls as a sign of fear and excitement and not as a sign of hunger or losing interest (which proved correct later on) and they tried to calm him down. After the play was over, the children were asked what was so special about Moff. Their answers included: “He was a dog that could speak” and “He had gloves” and “He had a head like a real person”. Yet the most fascinating response came from Laurie, who answered by “turning herself ” into Moff and playing as if she were Moff. In her reaction, she showed deep emotional identification, not during the play, but afterwards which shows how seriously she was involved in the fiction. The children reported that they enjoyed the play very much, asked to be taken again, and many times repeated: “It was fun.” Yet when they were asked what they loved most they began to show confusion. Daniel said: “I loved… I loved…” and repeatedly said this a few more times until he was able to speak fluently and loudly about seven different things in a very excited way with his hands indicting a few of his thoughts. They mentioned many times: “Wow, the dog was so funny”, “You remember… how it was funny” or “It was so frightening”; “I was so afraid that he would not find his way back... I was afraid of the fox”.

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Tom articulated his fears and pleasure quite distinctly: “I really had fun, but I was also so hungry and so thirsty and it was so annoying”. Most of the children identified with the different dogs and their characters. Inbal reported that when trying to count the dogs, she was most surprised to find Sara telling a story about herself and her father: “We went to a place with many cages and we took three baby dogs and we showed them to my father, but he did not agree to take the baby dogs. One of the baby dogs died, and the other two… My aunt took them. One grew up very quickly and soon ran away and we were left with only one dog. His name is Arthur”. When she finished that story, she immediately began another: “And once I was going with my father to eat somewhere and we found three baby cats and my father took them to our car…” She was telling a story with many similarities to the play they had just seen. It was very clear that their catharsis was the most profound experience they had undergone. It was not only the feeling of fear and pleasure; it was not only the clarification of some issues or the search for excitement, but also the needs that they expressed and the defense mechanisms that they had to operate. Three of the children constantly mentioned in different ways the visual images of how Morris hugged Moff and how he stroked his ears. David even said in that context: “I think that Morris’ role was to be Moff ’s father”. And Tom: “I loved how he kept patting him” and he showed how Morris patted Moff and he said: “Now he will have to keep him and keep on patting him”. As well as explicitly expressing their need for love and affection, the children also operated defense mechanisms such as denial. As an example we can use Nellie’s reaction when she was asked if she had ever met a child psychologist before. Her answer was: “Once I went with my mother - but it was not for me, it was for her.” The truth is that Nellie has been visiting the psychologist of the boarding school once a week for two years, but she feels threatened when asked about it. The adults working in that boarding school witnessed this denial; they should have realized that such a problem existed they were not aware of it. Laurie, who has four brothers in different foster families and different institutions and only one brother left at home, said: “Brothers never get lost. If you have brothers, they must stick together”. Again, this is a kind of denial of her own situation. She truly wished to create a completely different reality for herself. The catharsis she underwent gave her the chance to speak her mind, to tell everybody what was right and what was wrong. The play evoked a deep response in which she felt the need to express her opinion of right and wrong; something she had never done before, something she probably would never be able to do unless she underwent a process of purification. Her imagination dissolved within her moral response and with her feelings and with her wishful thinking and thus

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opened up what had been blocked for a few years. This could happen, I believe, because she experienced catharsis, even if it was only for a few moments. It is believed that the child has the naive potential to experience a true catharsis in the theatre. S/he is capable of a total response. When, even for a few brief moments catharsis results from the artistic experience, we can say that this event was an aesthetic event; it contains aesthetic value.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIATING At first glance one might wonder why it was necessary to have five adults escorting six children to the theatre. Wasn’t that too many? Isn’t this over-doing it when paying attention to the children in this project? Inbal, reporting on the case, thought the opposite to be true: “I see in the close mediating of the adult - before, during and after the play - the essence that enabled the experiencing of quality time with the children in the theatrical experience.” We have learned from Reuven Feuerstein (1998) that the embodiment of the potential of a good child’s development is in the interaction between the young child and the adult who communicates with him. Mediated Learning occurs when a committed adult (a mediator) places himself or herself between the child and the surrounding world, and guides the child’s thought processes. Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) is based on the work of the Israeli psychologist, Reuven Feuerstein, who developed his theory in the late 1940s through his work with children who were orphaned or separated from their parents as a result of the Holocaust. It is the quality of the interaction between the mediator and the child that establishes building blocks for thinking and encourages his or her holistic development. The adult as a mediator helps the child to benefit from the learning opportunities offered at school and in daily life. As a result, the young learners become active, effective and independent. The theory is based on the belief that intelligence is modifiable; and the teaching is designed to enhance the cognitive skills necessary for independent thinking. Feuerstein’s work, originating with Holocaust survivors and immigrant children, became accepted internationally and he saw his ideas as applicable for disadvantaged people and children at risk. Even though Feuerstein later developed innovative methods of testing cognitive functioning, we can use his concept of MLE and apply it to our cause in order to demonstrate that intelligence is not fixed, and that cognitive and emotional functioning can be enhanced (Kozulin and Rand, 2000).

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CRYING AND LAUGHING – OVERT BEHAVIORS Tomkins (1963) was most concerned with integrating psychodynamic theory with learning. He started his analysis of anguish by asking a simple question: “Why do we seldom see an adult cry?” Tomkins claimed that suffering is all around us and that crying is the principal expression of suffering, yet most adults rarely cry. Tomkins suggested that adults rarely cry because they learn substitutes for crying - whole repertories of actions, which may serve as equivalents to crying. For example: “The adult who sits in the dentist’s chair and attempts not to cry out in pain commonly braces himself against this innate affective display by a substitute cry which is emitted in advance of the pain. He may tightly squeeze the sides of the dental chair with both hands” (Tomkins, 1963, p. 59). What is not clear, Scheff argued, is whether such substitutions have long or short-term effects. Scheff based his own understanding of crying on an alternative premise i.e. that emotional expressions such as crying are biological necessities. Crying itself is instinctual. The baby comes out of the womb with the ability to cry. This ability to cry is not learned. What is learned is the ability to suppress crying. He argued that the suppression of crying and other cathartic processes, which are learned, have supremely important consequences, both for persons and societies (Scheff, 1979, pp. 11-12). Children, especially boys, are not encouraged and in some societies are not allowed to cry. Children learn to avoid expressing emotional distress. Sometimes we can witness children withholding their fears while playing in the playground; and they will cry only when they are safe at home, in their room. Crying can sometimes be a sign of happiness or another feeling of positive excitement; in such cases, it replaces a laugh. To make people laugh intentionally is not an easy matter. Usually we consider laughter as an indication of having a good time. However, tension or embarrassment may be resolved through involuntary laughter; that is to say that laughter can be a spontaneous sign of relief from stress. There are many kinds of laughter. One can laugh at someone’s funny legs, one can laugh at a clown’s funny clothes, or one laughs spontaneously when somebody slips on a banana peel. We laugh at complications that arise from contrasts; there is laughter when the wrong word is uttered in an inappropriate situation; and mistaken identity is a subject for much laughter. Shakespeare’s plays are good examples of that. “A Comedy of Errors” portrays two sets of twins and many instances of mistaken identity. “Twelfth Night” and “Much Ado About Nothing” are only two more of many such examples. There is a kind of laughter based on hysteria; for example, one might laugh nervously when an actor making a tragic exit stumbles on the

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stairway. There is also laughter based on cruelty. In children’s theatre there are moments that the hysterical laugh is infectious and one cannot stop the laughter. In the late 1930s Winifred Ward made an interesting distinction. She pointed out that in children’s theatre “the big laughs are always caused by what the characters do, not by what they say. The washing of the dwarfs’ faces by Quee, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is much funnier to children than the very amusing lines in which the dwarfs solemnly rebuke Quee for stealing, and in the next breath give directions about what he is to steal the next night” (Ward, 1939/1950, pp. 149-150). The above paragraph should indicate the many kinds of crying and laughing as overt behaviors signaling that a process of catharsis might occur. In theatre, we can identify a type of collective catharsis: “Collective discharge in a social setting, such as theatre or ritual, has powerful social as well psychological effects. The feeling of relief from tension, increased clarity of thought and perception, and heightened fellow-feeling which follow collective catharsis give rise to extremely powerful forces of cohesion and group solidarity” (Scheff, 1979, p. 53). Children are eager to experience magic moments. While sitting in the theatre they can be “lifted out of reality and drawn close together in a bond of expectancy, laughter, or sympathy… For children live in what is happening on the stage; they suffer and rejoice with the people of the story; and in the hush of suspense and the burst of spontaneous laughter, the spark ignites, and those grown-ups who have made the theatre possible feel a rich reward for all the trouble it has cost” (Ward, 1939/1950, p. 258). How much sophistication do we need in order to establish a good plot, to create character, and to bring about catharsis in children’s theatre? Much of the laughter that occurs among children watching violence in cartoons and comedies is, as Scheff argues, a signal that repressed anger is being released (Scheff, 1979, p. 57). As I have already discussed elsewhere (Ben-Peretz and Schonmann, 2000), by definition drama is a series of unexpected and surprising events occurring in social situations in which people experience some confrontation or struggle. In fact, drama is present wherever people live. It is customary to use the term “drama” in phrases such as “drama in the family” or “drama in the life of a country”. Drama in the context of real-life situations refers to those events that are parallel to forms of drama in theatre in that they involve the participants in highly charged situations. Intuitively we understand the meaning of “a tragedy in the family” or the opposite “this is a comedy”. These two kinds of drama, tragedy and comedy, are in fact the genres that define drama as a series of events according to a certain order, including components such as emotional tension, excitement and unexpected shifts. Northrop Frye (1957/1990, p. 282) has shown that the division of dramas into tragedies and comedies is a concept based entirely on verbal

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drama, and does not include genres such as the opera or masque, in which, he argued, music and scenery have a more organic role. In theatre for young people the verbal drama, whether tragic or comic, has developed more than the other types of drama. Assuming that theatre and drama evolved from life itself, I argue here along with many theoreticians and empirical researchers in the fields of psychology and sociology who have already paved the way (among the most prominent are Freud, Mead, Goffman, Harre, Lyman, and Scott) that examining the self and society from a theatrical perspective provides theoreticians with a framework to gain an understanding of people and their world. Thus observing children at risk, for example, who are in a constant and intensive situation of experiencing dramatic life, at a theatrical event gave us an extreme opportunity to think about the problems that could arise when the dramatic tension of the group does not match the dramatic tension that the individual had experienced. In this context dramatic tension could be understood according to O’Toole’s (1992, p. 27) definition, as a set of emotional reactions that involve participants of a drama experience individually and as a group. I want to make it clear that in the theatrical experience we are always attuned to the group, the audience that is with us in the theatre at the same time. Moreover, people usually respond to the play in very similar ways and interact with other people by showing the same overt responses. However, there is no universal emotional response, and with children it is even clearer that the overt personal responses are individual. On one hand, they can “infect” each other with uncontrolled laugher, yet, on the other, there is the authentic response of a child who has his own sense of clarification and his own sensitivity which might imply, that s/he can not communicate with the others in the hall and/or with those on the stage. In many cases it would appear that the collective catharsis in the theatre does not correspond with the private catharsis one may experience. In adult audiences one can hear a roar of laughter while the person who sits next to you remains unmoved. This should not concern anyone since the emotional reaction of the group creates the atmosphere of the performance; the show goes on and the individual’s response for this matter does not affect anyone. On the other hand, when coming to examine this dissonance in theatre for young audiences we face a problem. The collective catharsis could be a source of confusion for a child whose private catharsis does not match the public one. The child can be very confused and feel threatened. In these cases, the adult who mediates between the child and the play should play a crucial role in the ways s/he can facilitate the child’s experience and the ways the child is able to enjoy the performance and will continue to want to go to the theatre in the future.

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The cathartic nature of a dramatic play is the answer for the audience’s feelings of anger, frustration, fear, and pity in the complex situations in which they are involved. Emotional tension in theatre for young people should be of shorter duration than for adults (Ward 1939/1950, p. 150). Though children enjoy the “as if” situations, due to the suspension of disbelief, they can easily become over-excited because the play becomes so real for them. We could see this very clearly from the responses of the children watching Moff and Morris as reported above. The balance between the duration of the emotional tension and the frequency of the relief is a key to build the right emotional construct for the catharsis to be developed. This catharsis has a therapeutic influence that helps to release emotions. But we also could identify catharsis in the sense of clarification. Insights that are acquired through cathartic clarification are equivalent to the acquisition of emotional knowledge (Winston, 1998, p. 65). However, the fundamental mystery of catharsis still remains unsolved. “The strange contradiction of pleasure through pain” in Edith Hamilton’s words, “still continues to concern some of the most brilliant minds the world has known…Pity, awe, reconciliation, exaltation - these are the elements that make up tragic pleasure” (Hamilton, 1930/1963, p. 166).

THE NEED FOR POSITIVE MODELS The child’s need for positive models and optimism is well documented in the psychological and educational literature. However, there is disagreement among researchers in the field of psychology, literature, education and children’ theatre as to which world and as to what kind of relationships the child should be exposed, and at what age and by what means. It is not an opposition between cultivating an optimistic view of life or a pessimistic one that we struggle with here, but it is how we examine what is relevant to the well-being of the young people. Considering that there are two different approaches competing against each other, one that maintains that the child should be protected from reality, and the other that advocates that the child needs to be prepared for real life (we know that this is not black and white and there are many shades of gray), we all agree, nevertheless, that drama deals with conflicts and with relationships and that there are different ways of presenting theatre according to the age divisions between very young children and adults that should be considered. An interesting question to ask in this context is that of Moses Goldberg’s: What is the process by which the child internalizes the theatrical experience? Is it realistic to expect that the theatrical experience will change the child? (Goldberg, 1974, p. 92).

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My way of thinking is that if we take catharsis as a measure for an intrinsic process that the child experiences while watching a play, we can conclude that it is not only a purgative process that the child is experiencing, which is the traditional interpretation of the idea of the catharsis, but it is also the emotional energy that can be channeled to reveal to the child things that he needs to know. In this sense, “with emotional knowledge can come moral knowledge for to learn the virtues is to learn particular feelings and particular emotional responses” (Winston, 1998, p. 65). The cathartic experience in the dramatic context of a particular play is a process in which the child is open to learning through an artistic experience. It is believed that art can produce a kind of pleasure, a buoyancy, in the words of Frye who maintained: “If any literary work is emotionally “depressing” there is something wrong with either the writing or the reader’s response.” (Frye, 1957/1990, p. 94). When we want to examine how the theatre affects the child, we must consider how the child identifies with the stage reality. How does the child perceive her/himself and how does s/he perceive the figures on the stage? Theatre for children “must begin with the inherent seriousness of life, with an unwinking recognition of the fact that young people are this way”, argued Corey (1974/2000, p. 66); he cites Timothy Mason, a playwright who said that: “For an audience of children life on the stage becomes a metaphor for all of the yearnings which spell out the meaning of childhood” (ibid., p. 66). Character is central for children’s drama, argued Corey, and personality and identification are essential to awaken the empathy of the spectator. If our understanding is that the theatre produces emotional contacts with characters on the stage, then we can assume that it has a real potential to affect lives. “How does it do so? How should it be used so as to maximize the chances that its effect will be an “improvement” since the reverse could also be true?” (Goldberg, 1974, p. 92). Trying to deal with the searching questions that Goldberg already raised in the 1970s, and still searching for good answers to them, leads us to examine the idea of identification. Some consider identification to be another modified version of imitation theory. It is argued that viewers often tend to adopt the aggressive behaviour of characters only if they identify with them and if the character’s behaviour is seen to be justified. Goldberg (1974) claims that we do not have to admire the character we identify with: “The key to identification is a perceived relationship to the self ” (ibid., p. 92). Identification is a powerful device: “By discovering what makes children identify with a particular character, one could write a play with a model in it who performed the actions which the playwright would like to see imitated. A revolutionary who wrote an effective play with a model close to many children could have this model defy authority, protest, and plant bombs, and the children would tend to

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change their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours in the direction of the rebel. They would tend to be more aware of revolution” (ibid., pp. 92-93. My Italics). I doubt if Goldberg’s explanation could give us a complete answer to the question of whether theatre can help change the child’s life. Furthermore, now, in the 21st century, we have a great deal of empirical research that has examined the influence that TV dramas have on children and we understand that “tend to” is not enough to change live and the exposure of children to theatre is negligible compared to TV or to the time devoted to computer games. Sometimes, going to the theatre can be only one unplanned experience in a whole year. It is, in fact, not realistic to expect that a theatrical experience will change the child’s attitude or the child’s ways of perception. We can only expect that the influence of the theatre lies in its power to arouse catharsis so that the theatrical experience itself is feelingful. In this sense it can be significant, and occasionally one single play will have an impact on the child’s emotions and understanding. Emotional truth should be the central interest of the playwright. Condescension and oversimplification ruin the very essence of the dramatic experience. Yet theatre for young people should be accessible to the child, to his ability to process the content and the feelings that it arouses. Goldberg (1974) explains, “because children are so receptive to the affective content of the play, it is necessary to control the relevant emotions in the play, as these will tend to side-track the child and confuse him as to the issue in the play. In Reynard the Fox, one can notice the repeated pattern of the animals’ greed, and Reynard’s superiority complex, which tempts him to ridicule greed in others. That affective pattern constitutes the main plot of the play. The subsequent jealousy/friendship which the animals feel for Reynard is the emotional sub-plot, following logically on the domain pattern” (ibid., p. 189). Goldberg gives as an example the two patterns that subsume all of the emotions that receive emphasis through the action of the play. This model for a good plot and the good building of a relationship could be misleading since the assumptions are that it is necessary to control the “irrelevant” emotions in the play, and that children should not be confused with irony and comic relief, for example, as they are not emotionally relevant to the play. I am not sure in the “relevance” of these assumptions. The only guiding principle that I would encourage is that the play should always challenge the audience. Thus the questions that this chapter opened with, i.e., how much sophistication do we need in order to establish a good plot, to create character, and to bring about catharsis in children’s theatre has no answer. It is impossible to explain the power of a play by outlining the plot, or listing its visual components, or identifying the variety of its technical elements. So how can we reach the goal of a good children’s play if its components are

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elusive? In Chapter Six, Ways to evaluate a theatrical performance, I will discuss criteria for evaluating good children’s theatre.

EPILOGUE Despite the voices that were heard in the 1970s, claiming that the idea of catharsis is considered passé by most researchers in social science, psychology and psychiatry, I argue, along with Scheff (1979, p. 21), that the closing of the debate over catharsis has been premature. Understanding the function of catharsis in theatre for young people should continue even if we lack a conceptual definition of what constitutes catharsis and do not yet have enough systematic evidence to support an argument that advocates catharsis. Catharsis is such a complex phenomenon that “no one has ever presented a single, definitive statement about what it means or how it works” (Abdulla, 1985, p. 3). Each critic looks at catharsis from a different point of view. My point in examining catharsis as playing a central role in the conceptual framework of theatre for young people is to say that its emotional and cognitive elements are at the heart of the communicative factor with children in the theatre. Thus, we must re-examine the method and the means by which we can bring pleasure and enjoyment to the young audience.

Chapter #5 CONVENTIONS Shedding Light on the Sign System used in Theatre for Young People

PROLOGUE While catharsis is associated with emotions and with moral values, conventions do not necessarily have emotional or value connotations, though sometimes they may not be free of them. Conventions, in a dramatic framework, express the readiness to name and accept a certain phenomenon and thus one can act accordingly (Ben-Peretz and Schonmann, 2000). Conventions are based upon the behaviors and manners dictated in advance that have been absorbed by the audience of a specific culture (Rap, 1973, p. 121). The central convention in theatre could be, “An agreement to pretend”. Accordingly, both the audience and the artists in the theatre are willing to accept as a convention the fact that one must refer to an artificial sign as though it is a natural sign. For example, a white actor playing Othello, who is ‘stained’ all over with black make-up, must be accepted as black without us ever questioning his dark complexion. Unlike real life, in theatre one can break the rules of nature and turn them into conventions. Thus, one can hang a cardboard picture on a wall and claim it is the sun. However, it is impossible to ‘break’ the rules that refer to the interaction codes of conduct among people because these are practiced on stage as they are practiced in everyday life. (Schonmann, 1995b, p. 92). This concept should be the basis for understanding conventions, as well as for comprehending their implications for children’s theatre.

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SETTING THE SCENE Theatre cannot do without conventions. In order to render the fictional world in full and vital expression the art of theatre uses methods of iconic representation and sets of changing conventions (Burns, 1972, p. 83). In fact, many claim that no iconic sign in a theatrical text is free from convention. Toward that understanding we should add that in theatrical conventions there is always an imaginary element “imprinted in the typical way of the theatre medium: in material which is similar to the model of imitation, at least by the mediation of live actors. Theatrical conventions thus, become an integral part of the medium of the theatre” (Rozik, 1992. p. 21). We can conclude that convention is any theatrical custom that is accepted unquestioningly by the audience. A crucial question in this context is: How can one help a child to “read” or interpret conventions properly? How can one help the child to distinguish reality from fiction? It is believed that the critical ability to distinguish life from art probably begins for children at about the age of four or five and is not fully developed until the child is about seven or eight or, sometimes, later. The child has to understand the basic conventions of the art of acting and how they are different from life. Furthermore, s/he needs to understand the concept of aesthetic distance in order to fully enjoy the theatrical experience. These two main issues will be developed later in the chapter.

BASIC THEATRICAL CONVENTIONS AND THE PROBLEMS THEY RAISE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE There are very many theatrical conventions; it is impossible to describe them all. However a few examples should demonstrate the problematic use of conventions in theatre for young people. A soliloquy is an example of a theatrical convention of the imagistic type. As Rozik (1992) defined it, a soliloquy results from a state “in which a character is put in the situation of describing non-perceptible aspects of his own behavior that could not have been conveyed otherwise to the audience” (ibid., p. 17). As adults we understand that, in real life, speaking to oneself is usually regarded as an indication of a mental condition whereas on stage it is understood as a type of convention, a way by which the character reveals his true self. Do children understand this in the same way? I doubt it. From my observations of thousands of children (aged 3-11) watching a play, I could see that children frequently need help in deciphering the code of soliloquy. They become restless and ask the accompanying adult questions. If the actor, however, adds a sentence or two explaining the situation then the children

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accept it right away. The decoding principle that underlies theatrical conventions should be made clear to the young audience, otherwise the conventions are not able to fulfill their function. Another variant of the soliloquy is speaking directly to the audience, to the people outside the fictional world. This variant has become a prominent feature in children’s theatre. It has become a way to involve the young audience with what is going on the stage. It is familiar to the children and they love it; it has become a major component in theatrical communication with young people. However, sometimes it is inappropriately used to provoke children and to hold their attention for the wrong reasons. Upon entering the theatre, young people must accept and submit themselves to the major theatrical convention; that is, in S. T. Coleridge’s (1772-1834) words: “willing suspension of disbelief for the moment”. Older children, like the adult, know that the play is only a play, an imitation or representation of something in real life. The younger child does not always have this awareness, at least not for the entire duration of the play. Thus a major difficulty lies in the participation of young children in a theatrical performance. For the play to succeed the spectator must accept the deception; s/he must be willing to both believe in the action of the play and at the same time, acknowledge that it is fiction. As said earlier, a convention of the theatre holds that the spectator be willing to suspend his/her disbelief for a while. Boyce (1987) argues that suspension of disbelief is a mental exercise that becomes easier with practice and experience (p. 21). Young children, inexperienced in theatre, tend to become immersed in the world of make–believe; for them, the illusion of reality is sometimes understood as reality instead of as illusion. When distance disappears art does too. Therefore, it is essential to envisage the audience’s reactions so that the aesthetic distance will be maintained. Children who are unable to perceive the distance between real and fictional worlds will find it difficult to distinguish between real life and the life in the theatre. I found an amusing example of this in Shoshana Ravid’s story (as told by Leah Goldberg, 1952). Shoshana was an actress in the Habimah Theatre, the national theatre of Israel. In the 1950s she played the role of Tiltil, the boy in the children’s play written by Maeterlinck entitled “The Blue Bird”. One day, after the show, she heard the bell ring on her front door. She opened the door and saw two children who had been in her audience. They held out a pine-cone, painted blue with a feather for a tail and a bird-like beak. They gave her the present that they had made and told her, “We found the blue bird for you”, before hurriedly departing. Major questions in this context include: How can we develop the power of the child to distinguish the real from the fiction? The actor from his role? How can we teach him/her the use of objects representing something else

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such as a tail for an animal, a wooden frame for a window, a lamp for the sun? Is the children’s gift of a “blue bird” a sign of understanding or misunderstanding the codes on stage? How can we understand the cases when, for example, the child who was able to distinguish between the witch and the actress playing that role will still boo the actress when it comes to applauding at the end of the play? The answers to these questions might come later in the chapter with the development of the idea related to the proximity between theatre and life. Another important convention that should be considered in the context of Theatre for Young People is the effect of the darkness when the play begins. The completely dark auditorium in contrast with the brightly-lit stage might frighten the younger children. This is a matter that should be regarded as a convention to be treated differently in theatre for young people. In addition, conventions related to music should be carefully handled. Young children have to “tune into” the atmosphere created by the music, the lights, and the scenery; they have to learn that the music heard in the theatre while the soldier is fighting on stage cannot be the sounds that soldier hears on the battlefield. Children should understand that the music on stage helps to create a proper atmosphere for the scene and it is a part of the sign system used to fulfill this art form. Of course it is not necessary for the young people to know all the professional vocabulary of the theatre, but it is important that they should understand the ways in which conventions function. The conventions are the language of the medium that they should possess as they possess a second language. The more they are exposed to the theatrical event the more they will accumulate experience of the basic use of that language. This is an understanding that the child should develop over the years until he is able to reach the optimal aesthetic distance that will help him to accept fiction as truth, and truth as fiction, and still be able to differentiate between them. When an actor plays his role too realistically it might arouse real fear in young audiences. For example, the actor playing a wicked role may trigger genuine fear instead of mere thrill. On the other hand, if the play takes the observer to the other extreme, in which the child encounters abstract images, s/he might not be able to understand and very soon will become bored. My point is, the different theatrical genres should be carefully calculated and take into account how the director wants to answer questions of how the magic should work for children. Should the child see that the actor is changing his clothes and should s/he see that the scenery is being changed? Or is it better for the child if s/he is lost for a while in the fiction at the mystery of it all?

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CONSTRAINTS IMPOSED ON THEATRICAL COMMUNICATION The theatrical text must be complemented by means of conventions. That is basically because the conventions have functions that stem from the various constraints imposed on theatrical communication. Rozik (1992) classified the various constraints as follows: 1. Performance constraints - regarding technical and budget problems in producing some iconic signs. 2. Style constraints - stylistic features of the text intended by the author 3. Perception constraints - regarding limitations in the spectator’s abilities, such as concentration and sensory perception. 4. Decorum constraints - regarding limitations imposed by a value system as to what may properly be shown on stage. 5. Medium constraints - regarding restriction of the iconic medium itself in conveying various types of information, such as the non-represented parts of the fictional world, its non-sensory and its conceptual or value meaning (ibid., p. 8). Rozik explains that the underlying aim of the theatre is to overcome such restrictions and compensate the audience for possible deficiencies. In other words, “these constraints compel playwrights to depart from the sheer iconic nature of the theatrical medium and employ theatrical conventions as the only and indispensable means available to fulfill certain theatrical functions” (ibid., p. 8). It is clear that the coding and decoding of verbal information in natural language is based on social convention and language competence. But communication in the arts, as many have argued, differs greatly from everyday communication. Occasionally, Kulka asserts, we can depend on convention, and then only partly; the concept of competence is even more complicated (Kulka, 1992, p. 25). He gives us the following situation to consider: “A child who does not know how to speak yet should understand the meaning of the word “car”. How can it pick up this meaning? Every time we show it a car, we say the word car. On the basis of conditioning, the association car - “car” is finally fixed. Is the car the real meaning of the word car for this child? It is not. The car is the sense of the word car. The child’s first words have no meaning, but they do have sense. As a consequence of the constant use of the word car in various situational or verbal contexts, the meaning gradually crystallizes as a psychosocial entity. The meaning is definitely established when the word car is incorporated into the system of language” (Kulka, 1992, pp. 25-26). The way children understand conventions in theatre develops in a similar way. A sense is to be regarded as the representation for an object and the

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code-significant, i.e. it is the meaning that goes with it. I can say that meaning can be defined as a consequence of sense. Since every sign has a meaning and this meaning is never an independent entity, we need to understand the nature of the “path” the child is walking along when s/he transforms sense into meaning. In other words, what are the different ways that the child undergoes in his journey to decode the conventions on stage? S/he should see the object or the sign, s/he has a sense of it and only then is s/he able to accord it meaning and might be able ultimately to express her/his understanding. This complicated process should be completed almost immediately, in almost no time, because theatre is a medium that exists only in the dimension of time. It would be right, therefore, to think that conventions in theatre for young people should be repeated more than once. The things should be worked out as in the case of the “car”. We need to find ways to introduce the conventions to the young audience in a way that the path, i.e. the connection between the sign and what it represents, is open so the theatrical communication can flow freely. A table may represent many different things: a mountain, a palace or simply itself, a table. The child as spectator accepts the illusion very easily when s/he has a sense of it in a clear context of the performance that enables him/her to accord it the right meaning. Thus the children gain knowledge to differentiate between the actor and his role. When children shout at and boo the actress who played the witch, even though they could differentiate between the actress as a person and the actress and her role, they boo because they are still in the grip of the convention that the play has not yet finished. As long as the actors are on the stage, the show is going on. The image of the witch or the bad queen, is still working on them even after the curtain falls. It is not that they cannot differentiate between the role and the real actor; it is that they are still “captive” in the power of the performance and its images and, as we saw in the previous chapter when discussing the matter of applause, applause at the end of the play is a separate element in their perception. This matter is associated with our understanding of how an image is constructed in our minds. I would now like to develop this idea.

CONSTRUCTING AN IMAGE IN OUR MIND I want to examine here, very briefly, the following question: can we identify the source of the power of an image constructed in our head so that we might struggle against this image if necessary by means of art in principle and in theatre in particular? From the various types of images, I

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want to analyze the kind we call a “mental image” because it is the strongest and the hardest to struggle with. And its best examples come from the theatre. A mental image is a holistic, highly integrated form of knowledge. Perkins said, “It is any unified, overarching mental representation that helps us work with a topic or subject” (Perkins, 1992, p. 80). I would like to use Perkins’s example: “Ponder for a moment the mental images of characters you construct by reading Othello. To test their vividness, try this thought experiment. Suppose that Othello’s neighbor stops by two-thirds of the way through the play and brings irrefutable evidence of Desdemona’s innocent conduct. Would Othello say, “Well, okay, I guess it was all in my head”? Certainly not! If you have a mental image of Othello (not in the literal sense of what he looks like, but in the sense of a feeling for his personality), you know immediately and intuitively that Othello would remain uneasy. He is compulsively suspicious of Desdemona’s behavior and nothing will cause him to change his mind. What about Iago? Hearing about the neighbor’s testimony, would he leave town, fearful of being exposed for the villain that he is? Certainly not! If you have a mental image of Iago’s character, you know immediately this would be too meek for Iago. He would try some further treachery to discredit the neighbor and to inflame Othello’s fears all the more” (ibid., p. 81). The example of Othello emphasizes the basic principle of mental images. Basically, they give us something to reason with. They let us view understanding not as a state of possessing some information about something but as the empowerment to do certain things with that knowledge such as appli-cation, justification, comparison, contrast, contextualization, and generali-zation (ibid., p. 82). My point is that since we all have mental images about the realities in which we live, about situations, persons and relationships, is it possible to demolish mental images that were constructed in our heads? How can the theatre, which helps to construct these images, be an effective tool to deconstruct images which were instilled in children’s heads and can cause them fears and anxiety? I have in mind the fears that arise from seeing the witch in Hansel and Gretel, from Captain Hook in Peter Pan, from the wolf in Red Riding Hood and from the stepmother in Snow White. The mechanism of building and destroying mental images probably has a psychological nature. “It is quite probable that encoding and decoding processes are regulated through psychological plans.” (Kulka, 1992, p. 28). Although it is not my intention here to develop the psychological dimension of this process, I do think it would be helpful to analyze one example of the basis on which a mental image can be created and to look at a few possibilities for it to be presented on stage. I would like to draw the

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reader’s attention to an example that I have been thinking about for some time: the presentation of the image of God on stage and how young adolescences react to it.

THE IMAGE OF GOD ON STAGE – CHALENGING THE CONVENTION OF THE UNKNOWN How should God be presented on stage? This provocative and controversial question can serve as an example to demonstrate how to address thematic questions that are philosophical in nature. Playing God in live theatre has been a controversial undertaking for several centuries of theatre history. Many reasons for this have been suggested, but the common denominator is the difficulty in defining an acceptable yet dialectic mental image of God. God is probably the greatest literary figure in the history of the West. Yet, unlike other literary ‘greats’, no serious study was done until Jack Miles’s (1996) remarkable work, God - A biography, in which the author examines the hero - the deity of the Old Testament - with a close and inspired reading that follows the development of God from his first appearance as Creator to his last as the Ancient of Days. As said, the problem of portraying God on stage lies mainly in the difficulty of finding a proper mental image of God and proper conventions to portray it. By proper, I mean, finding an appropriate way to speak meaningfully about a ‘relationship’ with an imagined being. God is typically thought to be omnipresent; virtually all religions provide tangible places such as churches and shrines where worshipers can go to be nearer to God (Kirkpatrick, 1994). For many, the stage in the theatre functions as an antidote to this notion. In the context of theatre for young people, this problem has additional aspect, since children, especially the young ones can visualize God in many different forms. Landy (2001) exemplifies this in a charming book of reflections of God through the eyes of children. This work provides insights that celebrate the unique spirituality of children. We know less about teenagers’ perception of God, yet it is important to touch upon this complicated religious-secular image of God through questions of theatrical conventions because it forces us, in a way, to bring the mind’s eye into some concretization embodied on stage and causes us to ask questions that are more important than the answers. Such questions relate not only to a personal image of the divine but also to life and death and the mystery of the world. For example, we should ask ourselves whether a play such as Euripides’ Medea could be considered as a children’s play. At the beginning of the twentieth century this question would not have been considered. It was clear that Medea was for adults to struggle with. Yet, in the first decade

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of the 21st century, this play has been staged for children in New York. This invites a key question: How can the passage of time change our perception of what young people should watch, and are there any taboos? Are there plays that a child should not watch? I would suggest that questions such as these can be resolved by using theatrical conventions that fit the age of the young people and their ability to construct and demolish mental images. In this context the question of how to deal with the image of God on stage is only one example of looking into how theatre deals with its conventions. How can theatre transmit a symbol or a concept to a concrete image on stage? Following the narrator of the Biblical texts and examining how he produced controversial meanings for the image of God, we read: “And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...; So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis, 1:26-27). We can turn this saying inside out: And Man said: “Let us make God in our image, after our likeness. So Man created God in his own image, in the image of Man created he Him; male and female created He them.” The basic assumption in these two versions, the Biblical one and the imaginary one, is that The Creator creates in his own image. Man created God in the image of his own spirit. The Biblical text speaks of God as masculine and singular. And, as Miles said, “if this God has a private life or even, as we might say, a divine social life among other Gods, he isn’t admitting us to it” (Miles, 1996, p. 29). Man created God as male and female, in the image of his own spirit as a loving, hating, mocking, generous, cruel, and promising entity, a mix of strength and weakness, a mix of contradictions. An echo of the philosophical argument - who creates whom - can be found in the following sharp exchange of words cited from Hanoch Levin’s play, Haholchim Bachoshech (Walkers in the Dark): “God (laughing): You’re telling me? I created you with this story altogether. You and this story, are part of my story. Narrator: Wasn’t it I who thought up you, with the thought that you created me?” What I want to examine here is: What are the Mental Images that guide our thinking when we ‘think God’? And what kind of conventions can we use in order to challenge the convention of the unknown? Earlier in this chapter I pointed out that a mental image is a holistic, highly integrated kind of knowledge. With that in mind, it is only reasonable to say that the very act of trying to imagine God on stage demands overarching mental representation. It demands divergent thinking, wideranging thought. It requires a reciprocal relationship between mental images

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and understanding: mental images of God allow understanding, and understanding builds mental images of God. The mental images of God reflected in the Bible are multifaceted because God as presented in the Bible represents the pluralism in culture (in literature, philosophy, art, and religion). There is not only one mental image to guide our thinking about God. However, I would like to argue that there are two main branches of mental images in the Bible. One is the personification of God. God can be shaped into a sculpture, a statue of a golden calf, or any other visual image, common among all other nations in ancient times. The second branch of mental images is the abstraction of God. In this imagery, God is an abstract entity that has no shape at all. “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus, 3:14) is no entity at all, but an abstract idea that symbolizes the dynamics of being. Mental images of God emphasize two main aspects. The first is that a mental image created in a human mind is often the central axis to that person’s understanding of the topic under study. The second aspect is that mental images are not necessarily part of a defined content but are more comprehensive and widen the range of learning and understanding. Presenting God on stage using only voice is one of the most popular convention chose through the ages to present God on stage. The convention of the unknown finds the voice solution acceptable and most convenient to manage on stage because it avoids any personifications that might offend people’s faith. Adam and Eve knew God only through His voice. He called them, he warned them, he blessed them, and he spoke to them. How could they possibly understand Him? They could, just as a baby understands his mother before knowing her language. When a mother says to her newborn baby ‘I love you’ the baby reacts accordingly; he feels the love and knows what his mother is saying to him. In this sense Adam and Eve saw the voice of God, they felt it. My point is that seeing by feeling is a theatrical action in the sense that one can understand human feelings according to which every emotion is born from cognition. For example, anger rises when injustice is done. Guilty feelings arise when one knowingly disobeys authority. The image of God as a Spirit in the first chapter of Genesis, personified through the voice, is the basis for the Jewish self-perception behind the divine image that Moses developed later in history. Later it turned into a more abstract idea, presented in the notion “I am that I am,” which is a belief in an entity that is not an entity but a kind of dynamics of being. In contrast to this perception of God, one learns from the third chapter of Genesis that a completely different mental image of God exists. The God in Chapter Three appears in the image of a voice that plays hide-and-seek with Adam and Eve:

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“And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, where art thou?” (Genesis, 3:9) as if He did not know where Adam was hiding; then He said to the frightened man: “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” (ibid., 3:11). The dramatic dialogue developing from this point shapes the understanding that God is a concrete being, and although one is unable to see Him physically, (in contrast to seeing as feeling) one can still argue with Him, one can negotiate with him. Yet talking to Him is not an act in the real world, but a construction of possibilities to approach Him. That image of God as a personified being becomes very clear in the vision seen by Daniel in a dream, in the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar: “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire” (Daniel, 7:9). The Almighty himself - God - appears in the likeness of an aged man, seated on a throne of flame: myriads of angels stand in attendance around him: and the books recording the deeds of the gentile rulers are opened. This description as the Ancient of Days, an old man, clad in a garment as white as snow, symbolizing purity, is the only clear and direct personification of God in the Bible. It evidently serves for the numerous images of God as an aged person. At this point of the analytical examination of how the image of God was created I would like to mention two examples; one is Arthur Miller’s play: The Creation of the World and Other Business, and the other is Hanoch Levin’s play, Haholchim Bachoshech (Walkers in the Dark). The opening scene of the Israeli interpretation of Arthur Miller’s play: The Creation of the World and Other Business, presented by Haifa Municipal Theatre in 1993, exposes the intimate life in the Garden of Eden, along with some of the most concealed secrets of the “innocent” residents who ate fruit from the forbidden tree. Arthur Miller, in his shrewd, sensitive and humorous manner “settles accounts” with God, with the Devil, and with Adam and Eve. As presented in this first scene of the Haifa theatre production God is an old, fat and heavy man, nice and kind, playing with Adam as a father plays with his child, wanting so much to please him. The teenagers who were in the audience were inclined to see this as parody and their loud laughter filled the air. On their first encounter with God on stage, they were not prepared for God to be presented as a heavy smiling father figure. They were very much impressed by dramas shown on TV or in the cinema in which the most common portrayal is that of God

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presented via the convention of his voice. In a way, observing the concretization of God on stage had narrowed the pupils’ free imagination. It is one thing to imagine God as a person and it is a completely different thing to respond to someone else’s ideas of God as a person. Interviews with twelve pupils ages 15-16, who were attending the performance with their class as a part of their studying theatre at high school (each evening another twelve pupils were interviewed during seven performances), revealed that what they liked least about the play was that the image of God on stage as a fat heavy man was in contrast to what they had expected to see. This visual image of God was considered a comic figure and they interpreted the text as a sheer parody, which was not the original intention of the play. Interviewers next asked pupils if they remembered having any particular feelings when they watched the play: did it conjure up any association with the image of God and the Bible? The most common response was that while watching the play they did not think of the Bible at all. Only one said that he was ashamed. He was not a religious youngster but he thought that it was not a respectful way to present God on stage. To the question, “How you would like to see him?” he responded that he preferred the accepted classic way of presenting God, by his voice and not by his visual appearance. The questions were not in the context of any formal research, but they served my students (as young researchers in the laboratory for research in theatre and education which I head in Haifa University) to begin struggling with their own ideas of how to present God on stage as a part of an ongoing project. Another response to the personification of God on stage was observed in a play dealing with the image of God, Haholchim Bachoshech (Walkers in the Dark) which was written in 1994, and was first produced in 1998, a joint production by Israel’s national theatre, Habimah, and the Haifa Municipal Theatre. The play was written by Hanoch Levin, one of the most distinguished Israeli playwrights and directors (1943-1999), one of the most original and innovative writers of his generation. The play reveals a vision at night, in which the narrator, God, the sick, the dying, the dead, and thoughts are all characters on the stage. The theatrical image of God is as a man with a suitcase who is trying to give some answers regarding his role in the world. An extract from the play now follows: Narrator: Ho, God, the heart breaks upon this folly! (God appears from behind the Narrator) God: Did anyone call me? Narrator: It is I, the teller of this story. God (laughing): You’re telling me? I created you and this story together. You and this story are part of my story.

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Narrator: Wasn’t it I who thought up you, with the thought that you created me? God (laughing): I created this thought as well. Narrator: Thanks, I appreciate it greatly. And if your worship is slow of speech, may I ask... God (to himself): He must be thinking I have some deep intentions in telling this story. (Sits on his suitcase and addresses the Narrator): I am usually asked two questions: The first: Do I exist? Well, Here I am. Narrator (glancing at him carefully, slightly worried): Have you got any proof... Documents? Certifications? God: No. Narrator: Thank you. Just asking. God: And the second question: Why have I created evil... suffering... death... and to that my response... (continues talking, but the noise of a passing train drowns his voice) Narrator: Your worship, we didn’t heard the answer to the second question because of the noise. God: I shall not repeat what I said. Narrator (to the audience, pointing at God): God - believe it or not a man with a suitcase, in the street, like nothing, like just ordinary, and finally - God. But, as you have heard, there is no proof. And we didn’t hear an answer to the second question either, because of the train. Oh, by the way, there’s no railway in our town. Could God have magically created a train for only five seconds, merely to drown out his answer to embarrassing questions? Is it possible that God creates trains just because he has no answers? Anyway, ladies and Gentlemen - God. (God rises, picks up his suitcase, giggles and turns away...) The image of God presented in this play is one of an ordinary person. The play depicts people with no defined names; they roam around and God is just one of many meaningless figures they meet. The mental image of God presented in this play is extreme in the sense that it becomes a superfluous notion highly compatible with Levin’s ideas about the meaningfulness and the meaninglessness of life and death. Levin was trying to demythologize God. He tried to present God in the most banal way one can imagine. The sharp dialogue captivated the young people’s imagination and they were fascinated by the exchange of words on stage. When they were asked to react to the demythologization of God, to his personification as an ordinary man, most of them said that being presented with that image of God enabled their imagination to find levels of meaning that did not exist when they just learned the Bible in classes. The encounter between the young peoples’

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perceptions of God and theatrical conventions which demythologized the image of God was actually to experience meeting God “face to face”, a provocative situation that not all the youngsters could face. So what is our responsibility to the young people?

OBLIGATION TO THE YOUNG AUDIENCES So far I have argued that the difficulty of portraying God on stage is mainly the difficulty of finding a proper mental image of God. By proper, as I already mentioned, I mean finding an appropriate way to speak meaningfully about a ‘relationship’ with an imagined being. The theatre is constantly searching for a theatrical language to describe God. There are voices that say that we must create new language to depict God. The point that I wish to make is that we need not a special theatrical language to describe God; rather we need to very carefully build the mental images of God. In theatre for the young people we have to be sure that we do not block their imagination; nor should we destroy the depth of the ideas that emerge from dealing with the concept of God. Along with those who believe that the audience is a central component of a theatrical performance, I claim that the ability to extrapolate general principles is one of the most important results that can emerge from the interaction between actors and their audiences. For young audiences this understanding is essential to what Maxine Greene called “to take on initiative, to refuse stasis and the flatness of ordinary life” (Greene, 1988, p. 123). When we ask the young audiences to struggle with the convention of the unknown - the image of God - we are calling for the awakening of their imagination. In this regard theatre provides young people with a good starting point for critical thinking. Exploring the mental images of characters in different plays, especially challenging the convention of the unknown, is making an effort to develop what Nel Noddings could have called an “ethical imagination” (Noddings, 1998, p. 159). While struggling to find new ways to develop new concepts in theatre for young people we may learn from this project that we should rid ourselves of the habit of one-track thinking, not only by having several views, but also by provoking thought, by seeking to find greater riches within what is considered worthy and what is theatrically worthy. From asking and answering “What is deciphering a text?” “What is feeling a text?” “What is a proper interpretation?” and above all: “What is structuring an idea? What is performing an idea?” A meaningful theatrical experience in theatre for young people should be extended to a dimension that drained both psychic and mental energy sometimes away from its casual course. My point is that we should try to

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find the “optimal experience” which according to Csikszentmihalyi (1991) is: “This is what we mean by optimal experience. It is what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair… It is what a painter feels when the colors on the canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a living form, takes shape in front of the astonished creator” (p. 3). The exploration of the Bible as theatre is an invitation for a dialogue between the two fields, argues Levy (2000), “Such an encounter between the Old Testament and Theatre not only exposes theatrical qualities and potential in the Bible, but also enriches our understanding of theatre” (ibid., p. 6). It is in this context that I have tried to ask the question: How can the difficulty of portraying God on stage be managed? I indicated earlier that mental images and their manifestation on stage pertain to the realm of conventions enabling representations of theatrical qualities we would like to pursue. While struggling to find new ways to develop new theatrical concepts in theatre for young people we may learn from the discussion above that when encountering thought-provoking images, young people open themselves to the dramatic form. Further more, I think it would be helpful to consider a few distinctions between the real world and the fictional worlds constructed in the theatre, and so to have some other points of view of how images are constructed, and the implications for further understanding theatre for a young audience.

THE UNIQUE AND THE PROBLEMATIC CONNECTIONS BETWEEN LIFE AND THEATRE I would like to begin this section by mentioning an incident between Denis Diderot and La Clairon. Seeing his beloved actress La Clairon for the first time in the privacy of her home rather than on the stage, Diderot cried out in wonder: “Ah, my Lady, and I pictured you a head taller than you really are!” (Diderot, 1830/1984, p. 31). Diderot’s expression of surprise highlights a simple truth, that an actor in real life and an actor on stage are different entities. On the stage, we are faced with the remarkable dimensions of the fictional character which has been created, and we are so impressed by the actor’s performance that we tend not to see the real living person who has created the character (this assumes, of course, that we are dealing with a really talented actor). This anecdote that Diderot tells us paves the way to our understanding that the audience’s theatrical pleasure springs from the act of filling gaps between the interplay of reality and fiction (Ubersfeld, 1982). However, the

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act of filling gaps can serve either as a source of pain or of conflict between aesthetic elements and moral perceptions. The pleasure and the pain which are the result of a performance or from participating in acts of drama are still a fascinating mystery which we should strive to decode each time anew since they are always related somehow to real life, to the context we live in, and to our new understandings about pleasure and pain. The understanding of the audience, young or old, regarding the stage world is subject to its perception of an extensive code system (Bennett, 1990, p. 152). This system is based on conventions that could be any theatrical custom that is accepted unquestioningly by the audience. But because of their different experiences in life, the theatrical custom known to children is not always the same custom known to the adults. Thus, in theatre for young people there is a constant need to adjust the conventions used in a play to the children’s life experiences. As adults who encourage the youngsters to go to the theatre, we need to know the mechanism of some very basic signals. For example, let us ask ourselves if we have ever noticed the difference between the tears brought to our eyes by a real-life tragic occurrence and those that well up in our eyes when we hear a pathetic story? What a bright question. I wish I had been the first to ask it, but Denis Diderot already posed it in the 1830s in his famous work “Paradox Sur Le Comedien” (The Actor’s Paradox). To this question, Diderot had a convincing answer: he argued that when one hears a pathetic story, slowly the head clouds, our eyes cloud over, the stomach trembles, and the tears flow. But when we witness a tragic occurrence the feelings and the impression are interconnected, the heart responds at once, and we release a scream, lose our composure, and burst into tears. These tears are sudden, whereas the others, those that fall on hearing the story or watching a play, have been planned, programmed by the authors. The intention behind Diderot’s question and the answer is to differentiate between reality and art, between theatre and real life. Tears as a sign of sorrow, pain or pleasure seem to have the same appearance in real life and on stage, yet the way they are produced is so very different. There are signs in nature, a cloud for example often indicates rain; the leaves falling in autumn are a sign of the coming winter. But there has to be a human reading of these signs. Theatre semiotics (the study of signs) is predominantly the study of the signs that humans put on stage for others to interpret and thus bridge the gaps between fiction and real. What kind of truth is constructed in this new reality created on the stage? Is it a kind of truth that can struggle with the problematic mental images mentioned above? Truth on the stage is not one of a psychological nature, but of an aesthetic and artistic kind. The actors represent something abstract, something beyond their visual appearance. Truth on stage is not about imitating real life but

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about representing it. The ability to create substitute entities makes the formation of the language of art possible. Dramatic activity is engaged in this human ability to create substitution, to “walk in someone else’s shoes”. The prior acceptance of the “as if” principle is a necessary pre-condition for the theatre. Children can enjoy theatrical performances only when they arrive at the mental stage in which they are able to understand such events. After seeing a play we should therefore ask ourselves if the actor has succeeded in presenting us with a substitute in the sense of representing something abstract - an idea, a moment of excitement, a thrill, a symbol, and with it the opportunity to break out of the concrete that normally surrounds us. An example of this would be Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. In the 1980s the Municipal Theatre of Haifa presented a bilingual Arab-Israeli version of Beckett’s play. The intention of the director, Ilan Ronen, was to ‘close’ Beckett’s ‘open’ text within a restrictive Israeli political context. The classical, symbolic tree was replaced by scaffolding with Arab builders, Vladimir and Estragon, who were speaking a kind of Hebrew mixed with Arabic words. The play, initially planned to be ambiguous, transformed its original open ambiguity to a definite place and time, thus closing gaps in a frequently stated political way that aroused the resentment of the right wing in Israel and pleased the left but could not even slightly alter the conditions of the Palestinians nor the attitude toward the problem. The actors were so involved in the situation that they lost any sense of aesthetic distance, and the audience’s reactions resembled those of spectators at a football game. These reactions took place each evening including the evening when I was there with a group of teenagers from high school. Seeing this play was part of their studies. When acting is no more than an act of imitation, the aesthetic distance disappears and we can find ourselves in a sea of real-life turbulent feelings that prevent us from enjoying the artistic performance because the dramatic act in question does not provide opportunities for going beyond the limits of what we would normally experience. The teenagers were so upset that evening that a few of them lost their self-control and responded to the stage like infants. Childish behavior was observed: They hissed, they shouted at the actors and they encouraged each other with their frustration. It was necessary to interrupt the show a few times. So what is the essence of a dramatic experience? To fully understand the exceptional quality of the dramatic experience we should ask ourselves: why does a murder on stage, for instance, leave us with an entirely different sort of experience from one that we might have undergone had we witnessed a real-life murder? Let us consider how this issue can be addressed in a particular theatrical instance. Think of classical plays such as Medea, in which a mother murders

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her own children; consider Othello who murdered his beloved bride out of sheer jealousy. How can we enjoy or appreciate these characters or these violent events? How can we applaud an act of murder on stage when it is performed very artistically? How can we applaud an actor who plays the role of Hitler so convincingly? The answer is by no means the trivial one referring to the “as if” situation, namely, that we know that the murder has not really been committed on the stage. We should look for answer in the domains in which the imagination plays a constructive role. I think, therefore, along with Polanyi (1958), who inspired me to deal with this question, suggested that we should examine the idea of metaphorical essence of any dramatic experience and its enormous power to affect the audience. We might try to understand the meaning of “metaphor” as an imaginative entity created through the integration of two non-matching components, translated into a mode of knowing only in our imagination, which create a third world referred to as “the metaphorical world”. The same mechanism, I argue, affects us as a theatrical experience. We mobilize our imagination in order to absorb what we see into our consciousness to produce a meaning. The essence of the dramatic experience is perceived through the imagination; and imagination, as we have learnt from Greene (2001), is “the mode of grasping, of reaching out that allows what is perceived to be transformed. It is what allows four older actresses, each a personality, each a star, to be transformed into a gathering of elderly sisters, interwoven with one another, creating a pattern, a structure, a phalanx with one another… without this ability, there could scarcely be an aesthetic experience” (p. 31). The essence of the dramatic experience is perceived through the imagination, through mental images constructed in our minds, using theatrical sign language. This language does not look for the truth but for pleasure or pain extracted from the artistic endeavor. Convention is a zone, which reminds actors as well as audiences that they are in the heart of an artificial experience of human behavior. We have to remember that all occurrences presented on the stage are completely artificial. Conventions are based on culture and serve as bridges from reality to imagination and back again. If one pins a tail on oneself to represent an animal, then the imagination will accept this with no further questions. But if one stages a murder scene using slow motion, for example, which is a conventional way to hold the moment on the stage, the director will probably face a moral dilemma in his aesthetic choice to emphasize the horrifying moments. In the old Greek theatre they did not show the act of murder on stage. Medea killed her children off-stage. The audience, in those days, did not have to witness the horrifying deed, but had to create the horrendous situation in their

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imagination; and imagination is what Maxine Greene (1995) calls “the power to mold experience into something new”. The audience had no need to draw the boundary between the real act and the metaphorical entity while watching a play since the imagination invoked the possibility to perceive alternative realities in a metaphorical way. The notion of boundaries between the real and the fiction leads me to another distinction; it touches upon the question of boundaries between the “self” and the “character”. I recall the wonderful movie from the 1950s, “Never On Sunday”, in which Melina Mercouri, the great Greek actress, played a woman who could not accept the idea that Medea had killed her own children. In the film, we see the end of the play – when all the actors who had appeared in Medea stand in front of the curtain to receive applause from the audience. At this point, the woman played by Melina Mercouri tells anyone who would listen “You see - they are alive! I knew she did not kill them!” The convention of embodiment is the mutual understanding between the actors and the audience. Laurence Olivier will die as Hamlet and will lift up after curtains, and will bow. It is crucial to believe in the fiction as truth. Sometimes, albeit very rarely, this essential belief might lead to problems. It was my experience a few years ago when I took my students to see an autobiographical play by Dan Volman, who was playing his own life in his own show. During the performance, there was a scene in which he had to cut an apple and eat it, he did it convincingly then his head fell on the table, and for quite a while he did not move. We thought he did it beautifully. No one suspected that at that time he had lost himself in the fiction and was so emotionally upset that he had had a kind of light stroke on the stage. One of the cast sensed that something was wrong, and turned to the audience to ask: Is there a doctor in the house? Is there a doctor here? We thought it was part of the show so realistically conveyed. None of the audience realized that it was “for” real, that Volman needed a doctor very urgently. It ended with an ambulance coming and saving his life. The actor’s greatest talent lies in his or her ability to maintain the flow of their acting and to embody the role they have taken despite the boundaries between the self and the character s/he plays, without us, the audience, noticing that the boundaries do exist. Understanding this idea of theatrical embodiment, i.e. keeping in mind the boundaries and yet acting as though they do not exist, is one of our main goals as theatre-drama educators. In theatre we seek to communicate what we know but cannot express, namely deep structures of knowledge; we want to accord a meaning to the relationship and situations but we do not attempt to present any truth. It is no wonder then, in the long history of theatre, we have no examples of theatre that has transformed reality. However, we do have to develop the

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understanding that what happens on stage is a reality in its own right, sufficient unto itself, and needs no bolstering from outside (Csikszentmihalyi, 1986). The right question to ask is: How can the reality on stage have such a spiritual power that can transform the self ? How can the activity of moving in and out of the “as if ” situation help to understand different levels of meaning in dramatic action and in mental images already constructed in our heads? This balance between the virtual and the actual as if transformation is carried out by conventions. And “Conventions are indicators of the way in which time, space and presence can interact and be imaginatively shaped to create different kinds of meaning in theatre” (Neelands, 1991, p. 4). Thus, different conventions will emphasize different theatrical possibilities which are the means by which one can have a sense of the theatrical experience and thus accord it meaning.

FICTIONAL WORLDS AND REAL WORLDS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD The above theoretical discussion can serve as a basis to explore empirical data. The fine boundary between imagination and reality can be studied from the viewpoint of the child watching a theatre performance. The following analysis is based on observational research in which I examined if and how children aged 5–8 live the aesthetic experience of a performance, and how their involvement in the performance affects the reduction of their understanding the aesthetic distance. Research on the young child as spectator and his or her perception of aesthetic distance in a theatre performance is new and ground-breaking. The few works already published on this subject or on related topics (such as those by Saldana, 1995, 1996; Klein 1995, 1997; Grady 1999; Burton, 2002; Lorenz, 2002) are a good start. However, I was interested to explore the aesthetic experience of a performance as related to the idea of convention and I aimed at developing an instrument for assessing aesthetic distance in early childhood. I intend to present these ideas, based upon a previous publication (Schonmann, 2002) here. The Proximity of Playing to Art Declarations such as “Drama develops the imagination,” “Drama means self–expression,” and “Drama has a therapeutic effect” are frequently heard. But such claims could also be made for music, painting, and dance. It is therefore important to present the special nature of theatre as distinct from

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the other arts. Its uniqueness lies in its materials and its tools. The essential elements of drama and theatre are human materials; the themes are always associated with people, their spirit and body in the context of life and death. The actor’s body is his instrument. S/he has no violin or piano or paintbrush or anything else with which to realize his or her creation. Body language, movements, gestures, and mimicry serve to unfold the actor’s art. The unique advantages of this form of expression also give rise to dangers. Theatre art is direct; it has force, power, and influence. Plato, as we know, understandably excluded drama from the arts in his ideal republic, although he allowed it as something “which only the slaves may perform.” Drama education theorists as well as practitioners have long debated issues of the child at play, arguing about the purposes of play: promotion of personal growth, a means of social development, or a learning tool. Only a few addressed the child as spectator. Thus, I argue that this void signifies the problematic nature of understanding the elusive concept of aesthetic distance. I would like to discuss how aesthetic distance operates in early childhood, opening a wide vista not only to understand the child as spectator, but also to shed light on the signs that are used. As Huizinga (1938/1955) showed in his book Homo Ludens, culture and play are interwoven. Playing is one of the foundations and causes of culture. The proximity of playing to art is obvious. Like art, playing creates an imaginary world detached from reality. When a person plays, he or she wittingly leaves the everyday world. The playing child, like the adult, knows that he or she is playing. This departure from the real world does not detract from the seriousness of the game, but turns it into an element of the human being’s most sublime activity as a creator of culture (Barash, 1984). Like a game, playing is a free activity conducted willingly, but when it takes place obligatory rules and order reign over it. The starting point of the discussion is the understanding that every person can catch the acting “bug,” and in any case every person assumes various roles in daily life and throughout his or her life’s course (Goffman, 1973; Harre, 1979). While playing, children have the chance to be imaginative and expressive in order to develop their social, emotional, physical, and intellectual abilities. In dramatic play they have the opportunity to explore the way their bodies move, how they can interact with others, and to make distinctions between the real and the imaginary world, all of which involve high–level thinking operations. For example, when observing a four–year–old playing with chairs one often sees that he turns the chair into something else, such as a car or a train, and that a dramatic element is inherent in his playing. In active play children acquire forms of control. In their games that involve acting, always active playing; children express their own feelings and interpretations in reference to any given context.

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The Design of this Study The study was designed as long-term observational research conducted over a period of three years, and as a specific type of applied research whose results are directly relevant to educational practice. My choice of methodology depended on the research questions, which were: How do we obtain direct information from very young children (five to eight years old)? How can we gain an understanding about their ways of perceiving theatrical performance? What behaviors should we observe? Children watching a play, their reactions to it, and their ways of explaining their understanding of the play were the aspects studied, and my general question was: How do the children’s behaviors (verbal and non–verbal) reflect aesthetic distance? I held short personal conversations with the children during and after a play. The research was conducted in a natural setting, namely children watching a play at a theatre in real time. I wanted to study their behavior as it occurred naturally. There was no control of their behavior or of any elements of the external setting. The situational context was the important element for data analysis. I took the qualitative approach, which is “much less controlled, allowing observers’ hunches and judgments to determine the content and sequence of what is recorded” (McMillan, 1996, p. 150). My goal was to understand the ways young children react, behave, accept, and enjoy theatre performances. The emphasis was on their ability to view a play within their theatrical understanding that maintains aesthetic distance. I wanted to study the children’s appreciation of a theatrical event and their ability to enjoy it. In other words, the methodological approach was based on my observations and their interpretations within a particular interpretative paradigm. The fragile boundary between imagination and reality was studied from the viewpoint of the child attending a theatre performance. In this pioneering research I examined if and how children aged 5–8 live the aesthetic experience of the performance and how the involvement of an audience composed of children affects the reduction of aesthetic distance. My way of dealing with the data conformed to Elliot Eisner’s position; years ago he called for an artistic attitude to educational research (1979). I took a hermeneutic approach, a way of interpreting a text (either the original or a script of the performance) that takes into consideration the stance of the interpreter toward the subject under inquiry. We are challenged, as Smith (1991) argues, to ask what makes it possible for us to speak, think, and act in the ways we do. The aim is not merely to find another interpretation to the subject being investigated, but to release the imagination to enjoy a new understanding. In my case, I am looking for a new understanding in the world of the theatre. I have tried to trace the inherent creativity of interpretation

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while a child is watching a play via the process of creating parameters for aesthetic distance in early childhood. The underlying assumption is that within everything said or done by the children there is something unsaid; therefore, understanding the interpretive activity of the children’s behavior involves what Schleiermacher has referred to as a “commonsense endeavor” to understand the texture of their behavior. Research using hermeneutics clarifies the link between social phenomena and the need for interpretation. As chairperson of the National Committee for Children’s and Youth Theatre in Israel for a few years, I had access to all children’s theatres around the country. I observed at least three performances every month. The discussion and the analyses that follow are based on these observations as well as on monthly discussions of the National Committee in which twenty– five members (actors, directors, teachers and school principals) discussed the plays they had watched that month. The Child when Acting and Playing When playing, the child operates in the area between make–believe and reality, the same area in which the dramatic act is performed. This is the basic principle needed to understand the art of theatre. The child has to be able to say, “This is happening to me now” and “I am in a drama,” but “I know it is imaginary;” that is, the playing child has to sense and understand the paradox of the experience. Small children cannot always separate fiction from reality. One example is a child hauling a bucketful of water to fill the moat in the sand she has dug to defend the castle she has built. As we watch her we cannot say with certainty whether she is playing or working (Wheeler, 1995). Nor can the child. In her playing she evades boundaries. For pre-school children, the word drama is a synonym for playing and the activity is a natural part of their learning process. For older children, playing stimulated by drama expands their experience in the direction of learning activities involving cooperation; in such instances drama enables children to know and to feel. A dramatic act is always concrete, a physical expression of a role. In fact, it gives form to thoughts and feelings; it is thus significant and symbolic. It can be spontaneous, improvised or elaborated through much rehearsal and planning but, by nature, it is always expressive and communicative. Development of skills for social games is a necessary step on the way to the dramatic game which, in turn, is an indispensable step on the way to theatre games which themselves are essential in the process of presenting a performance. Game/play activity, at every stage, is based on two tenets:

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1. The starting point of the game/play is always known to the participants, and it obviously has the potential to develop in the next stage. 2. In game/play, as distinct from reality, there is always a way out. Here lies the educational strength of the game/play situation. Dramatic activity in all its variations, from social games to drama games to theatre games, is closely connected with social nature and exists in every society. In their earliest years children begin to act, to develop a sense of humor, to pretend, and to play roles. This identity is the basis of the dramatic process, whether the child turns out to be a lion or a cat, or whether at a later age she is a cowboy (Courtney, 1982). The human ability to imagine, to distinguish between truth and fantasy, and to create dramatic situations in which fantasy is truth may be developed, honed and trained; and in some situations it may attain the status of art. One of the many questions yet to be explored in this context is: Do these characteristics of the playing child, based on understanding the nature of a dramatic act, exist for the child as spectator? The Child as Spectator In watching a play the child is given the chance to differentiate between reality and fiction. Theatre involves stepping into an imaginary world. To make this world meaningful, the child must be skilled in “reading” what is happening on the stage. Dimming the lights and raising and lowering the curtain at the beginning and at the end of an act are both part of the “a highly complex, rule–based principles of the dramatic text, established through the generic and stylistic evaluations of theatre and performance conditions” (Aston and Savona, 1991, p. 17). The theatre as a sign-system is based on learned conventions. The child can gain insight into the nature of the theatre art by being taught to “read” dramatic elements such as light/dark, movement/stillness, sound/silence. These and other elements are integrated by the director into the play and are essential for a real understanding of dramatic action. The child moves through a range of moods s/he is attuned to. S/he can hear, see, and be involved in the three main aspects of drama: the sights, the sounds and the action. Each child as a member of the audience becomes involved in watching the performance “by assimilating the actor’s characterization into his or her own preexisting set of ideas, ideals, and emotional nature” (Boyce, 1987, p. 4). Observing the child as “receiver” we should be aware that the total communication of the play is transmitted through many channels of which the child is aware. From the audience’s perspective, the art of the theatre is a dynamic phenomenon that includes the immediate interaction between audience and artists. The child’s involvement in the fiction should therefore be suited to

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his/her stage of mental development as well as his/her experience in watching a theatrical performance. In a play, young children will usually work productively with a partner from their peer group, but as spectators they will more often require an adult partner. Watching a play, children often require an adult partner to sit beside them to provide security and support. Presumably, viewing a play requires an ability that is different from the act of playing; it is linked to the child’s capacity to cope with the tension between fiction and reality. Viewing and doing are separate activities, and require different abilities. In playing, children are given a chance to explore their own potential; in viewing, they are given the chance to gain the feeling of physical and mental equilibrium as a general sense. In viewing, the child must acquire or maintain a level of self-control. If s/he cannot control herself, s/he is no longer a spectator. Watching a play allows flexibility to respond positively or negatively. The response is intuitive. Approaching the dramatic play from the angle of the child as spectator alerts us to contextual aspects affecting the child’s experiences, and to the emotional encounter the child may face as s/he undergoes transcendental experience in viewing a play. To be theatrically literate, the child should be encouraged early to decipher theatrical signs. Along with Hobgood (1987), I argue that just as it is necessary to train the ear to listen to music and to distinguish the sounds produced by different instruments, so the child should be trained to distinguish between actions that are dramatic/theatrical and those that are not. Here we face one of the controversial issues in understanding theatre, and in defining dramatic talent. What are these distinctions? According to Laurence Olivier (1986), for example, even without a definition of distinctions it is possible to state of dramatic talent that: “You know it when you see it.” On the other hand, we can learn from Fergusson’s (1949) idea of theatre, in which he speaks of “histrionic sensibility” as a form of perceiving dramatic art: “The trained ear perceives and discriminates sound; the histrionic sensibility (which may also be trained) perceives and discriminates actions” (p. 236). Fergusson is declaring that action is central to drama, and is also capable of being developed and observed. Children “must learn that bodies on a stage make a statement” (Bolton, 1992b, p. 25). However, I have argued (Schonmann, 1997) that it is necessary to gain an understanding of aesthetic distance in drama/theatre education in order to understand dramatic actions because aesthetic distance makes it possible to work on feelings and to act in both the real and the imaginary world. The sense of aesthetic distance should be cultivated because it has the ability to make feeling function on a cognitive basis, and it has the potential of discriminating between actions that are dramatic/theatrical and those that are not; those that are merely

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mundane in nature. One of the many questions yet to be explored in this context is: How do distancing effects (physical distance, emotional distance, aesthetic distance) impinge on the child as audience, and how do they affect his/her ability to enjoy the performance? As already explained in Chapter Four, the concept of aesthetic distance can be traced to Aristotle. Since then it has been further developed by psychologists. Bullough’s essay (written in 1912) on the concept of psychical distance was a central intertext in the theatrical situation (Bennett, 1990). Aesthetic distance is a kind of detachment on the part of the spectator, a gap between the work of art and its audience. When the distance disappears, there is no art. With aesthetic distance we can watch a play not as a scene from real life but as a representation of life. Vaughn (1978) argued that: “Our detachment allows us to enjoy on a fictional level stories that, if they occurred in real life, could be unpleasant or even horrifying. “Distance” should not be taken to mean disinterest. In fact, by divorcing one’s personal needs and one’s practical self from the work, one is able to appreciate a play with even greater and more vigorous interest at the level of art” (p. 6). The theatre of Brecht versus that of Stanislavsky is a good example of separation of player/role, as opposed to possession in ritual drama, and for separation of audience/player (Courtney, 1987). The Situation of Viewing a Play Going to the theatre involves preparation, from elementary behavioral codes such as not eating, and not talking during the performance, to understanding theatrical conventions and modes of presentation. Preparing children to see a play is one of the main concerns in drama/theatre education now being addressed through special curricula plans. The following is a typical example of children seeing a play, as described by a kindergarten teacher: The children’s behavior in my kindergarten (aged 5–6) is usually like this: when the auditorium goes dark they immediately settle down: they all become quiet, extremely focused, waiting for the play to start. Then one hears their enthusiastic reactions to the scenery, the play of light, and the sound effects. My children love to cooperate with the actors: they join in the songs, answer their questions loudly, and clap their hands when invited to do so. They are so involved in the event that they seem to forget themselves; they are lost in the fiction. They love to offer all sorts of advice to the characters who are in “real” trouble in the play. At some moments of tension, they hide their faces, or leave their places, moving to the far side of the hall. Then, when the stress is over, I see them running back to their seats.

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Sometimes, the children sit on the floor, on carpets. On these occasions they like to sit huddled together, very close. Some of them become immersed in the fiction, some test the situation all the time and make comments such as: “It’s not real,” “It’s only a play,” “It’s for fun.” For certain shows, younger children (aged 3–4) join us. Then the situation is completely different. Some of the small children cry even before entering the hall. The nearer they get to the hall, the more they cry. Some of them simply do not want to go in. After a while, and only after many attempts to persuade them to enter, some of them agree to watch the show, but some prefer to stay outside (being looked after, of course). The very young children usually are mesmerized by the performance and are glued to their seats. Very slowly you see that they begin to move again, and afterwards some of them are even willing to take an active part in the situation. Observing children as they watch a play, one sees that they sometimes have difficulty believing situations and events, but sometimes they are drawn into the fiction and lose themselves in it. This double–edged situation was precisely what I sought in attempting to understand modes of behavior (verbal and non–verbal) and the signs that indicated enjoyment (or otherwise) of the performance. Here are two more examples - The Case of Naomi (age 7): We could see that at the beginning of the play, when the lights were turned off, Naomi was sitting on the edge of her chair; during the performance she changed her position few times. In the scene where Don Quixote was fighting with the windmills, she said, “What a noise!” She did not realize that a musician was on the stage creating the noisy sounds until her friend pointed him out. Then she laughed with enjoyment and commented from time to time, “It’s beautiful.” When she saw the woman from the inn, she said, “Look, she is walking on her knees. That’s why she’s so short.” She asked, “Is Don Quixote his real name?” After a while she lost interest in the play and asked to leave. Naomi’s reactions to the play were a mixture of “belief and “suspension of disbelief.” She entered the theatre with the intention of enjoying the play, and she got herself ready for viewing by sitting on the edge of the chair, so that she would be able to see more clearly. At some points she could not understand how the fiction was created, and asked for explanations. Yet, at other times she reacted by willing a complete suspension of disbelief. She showed her understanding that “a play is only a play” by explaining that the woman from the inn was so short because she was walking on her knees. The spectator has to maintain the convention that a play is an imitation of life, until the very end of the performance. Naomi was swinging between belief and suspension of disbelief until she lost interest. My claim, along “

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with Boyce (1987), is that willing one’s suspension of disbelief is a mental exercise that becomes easier with practice and experience. The Case of Avi (age 6): Avi sat on the edge of the chair most of the time. His eyes were wide open. From time to time he turned to his father to see if he was still there. He laughed several times when nobody else did. He pretended to enjoy eating some chocolate when the narrator informed the audience that Don Quixote liked chocolate. He did this a number of times. In the scene where Don Quixote was fighting with windmills, Avi became tense and had to be reassured by his father that it was only a play. At the end of the scene he relaxed, and lay back in his chair. At a certain point he asked why they had not brought a real horse onto the stage, and laughed out loud as he asked the question. In a way, Avi’s reactions were very similar to Naomi’s. He too was swinging between belief and suspension of disbelief. Yet from his reactions we can learn something about expressions of tension and ways of seeking relief. Along with Scheff (1979), I maintain that tension is a necessary condition to experience dramatic action. Yet this must occur in a context that provides a measure of emotional safety. In Avi’s case, his father’s presence provided this safety-net. Laughing, crying and other emotional reactions all belong to the idea of catharsis. Children, like adults, seek stimuli that provoke fear or grief, and catharsis can explain the paradoxical behavior of “thrill–seeking” (see Chapter four). We can observe how different children’s reactions are, how differently individuals respond to the theatrical performance. Not all spectators react alike: different connections develop between the stage and each member of the audience. Children’s involvement in and reaction to a play is an ongoing communication from the beginning of a play to the end. Sometimes children are encouraged to participate in the theatrical event and to voice aloud their ideas or feelings. But most of the time they are asked to sit quietly and watch. Yet even without speaking the child sends messages to the stage when he or she cries, laughs, or applauds. In turn the child receives feedback from the actors who are aware of every sign.

PARAMETERS FOR AESTHETIC DISTANCE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD In the absence of any theory on children’s involvement in fictional worlds as audiences, we decided to look at four parameters for distance: 1. The children’s body language e.g. how they sit, stand, jump up and down, or wander from one place to another; how they use their

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hands — waving, holding hands, putting their hands over/in the mouth; how the body is held; how their faces express tension, fear, joy. 2. Explicit expressions of emotions such as: crying, shouting, laughing, happy sounds, fear utterances, boredom. 3. Every word the child says: this reveals what s/he is thinking at that very moment. 4. Reacting to other children, adults or the surroundings in the auditorium: this reveals or conceals his/her awareness of the theatrical event. These parameters serve as criteria to organize, describe and interpret the children’s behavior at a live theatrical performance. They help to determine three levels of engagement: 1. “Low” distance, in which the child is so immersed in the fiction that s/he cannot separate the imaginary world created from the real world s/he lives in. 2. “High” distance, in which the child is completely detached from the performance and is not involved in the fictional world created. 3. “Optimal” distance, in which the child shows that his/her involvement is of the appropriate measure and results in artistic–aesthetic pleasure. Throughout the performance the children move from one level to another. The relationship between them and the stage is determined by the actors’ ability to hold their attention as long as possible and to help them to maintain an optimal distance. Since drama depends on its audiences, the various levels of engagement are essential to understand the ways of perceiving theatrical art. People differ in their ability to react and one person may have varying levels of distance in the theatre. Therefore it is fundamental to understand, as Bullough (1912) argued, the variable essence of psychical distance as an aesthetic principle. He identified two critical limits: underdistance, namely intense involvement with the art object, versus overdistance, in which one is completely detached from it. “All art requires a distance - a limit beyond which, and a distance within which only aesthetic appreciation become possible” (p. 98). The following instances exemplify the three levels of behavioral involvement based on the four parameters mentioned above: ‘Low’ distance signs were expressed by: 1. Beckoning to the actor to “come to me”; going toward the stage: “I want to go and help Don Quixote to...”; hiding under the chair: “I don’t want to see, he will kill him...” 2. Hysterical crying, loud laughter, or shouting out of proportion: losing control over one’s feelings.

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3. Calling out to the actors on stage: “The witch is cruel! run away...” “The thief is behind you...” “Look at the clock! Cinderella, it’s almost 12 o’clock.” 4. Sitting on the adult’s lap, saying: “I’m scared that the lion will jump out of the cage”; hugging the adult lightly at different times during the performance. ‘High’ distance signs were expressed by: 1. Walking up and down the sides of the auditorium, kneeling on the chair, with their backs to the stage. 2. No emotions at all were expressed. 3. “I want some popcorn,” “Where is my doll?” The child could not “escape” the darkness and the special atmosphere of the theatrical event and asked to leave: “Mommy I want to go home.” 4. Hitting children sitting nearby, pushing the adult, talking to someone about things unconnected with the play: “I don’t like you,” “Go away,” “Do you want to play with me?” Optimal distance signs were expressed by: 1. Sitting on the chair and watching the play with an expression of concentration. 2. Crying or laughing as the occasion demanded. 3. Saying, “What a beautiful dress, I want one like that,” “I also have a superman.” 4. “Father, is that the real King David?” “Mommy, look, you see the legs of the donkey? They are Tommy’s legs,” “Look at that, the snow is made out of paper.” It is reasonable to say that aesthetic pleasure is a complex emotional and intellectual experience, embracing a combination of parameters of aesthetic distance. This is a multi–layered flexible construct which changes according to the development of the fiction on stage; it does not seek to achieve any scientific or utilitarian target but it is the thing itself. Only when one maintains equilibrium between the two limits of the distance can one derive pleasure from the performance.

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EPILOGUE Usually the goal of a children’s theatre production is to absorb the audience in the illusion of the world on stage. Yet it is important that the child as a spectator should be aware that it is a play and will be able to live both the fictional world and the real world. As a spectator the young child may be influenced and changed in some way, simply by having experienced the theatre production. The optimal distance can guarantee an aesthetic pleasure needed to control the experience. I agree with Eisner (1998) who claims, “The common function of the aesthetic is to modulate form so that it can, in turn, modulate our experience. The moving patterns of sound created by composers, in turn, create their counterparts in the competent listener. The physically static forms produced by visual artists create in the competent viewer a quality of life analogous to those in the forms beheld. In sum, the form of the work informs us. Our internal life is shaped by the forms we are able to experience” (p. 34). My intention was to open one more path toward understanding the “aesthetic mode of knowing,” a phrase coined by Eisner (1985) who insisted that we have “to free the aesthetic from the province of the arts alone to recognize its presence in all human formative activity” (p. 28). All human formative activity could be summed up with one word: life. Of all the arts, theatre has the closest relationship to life. Hence, my intention was also to emphasize that despite the problem of defining aesthetic distance and despite the elusiveness of the concept there is no doubt that in the eyes of many that this distance is an essential component of children’s theatre. The child as spectator should be nurtured from early childhood. Bresler (1992) pointed out that when teachers discuss their views on the arts, most of them highlight its uniqueness for the children; yet most teachers do their work intuitively. Like Bresler, I argue that this is not enough. More comprehensive pedagogical and aesthetic ways of thinking and working need to be developed on the basis of children’s reactions to a play. A key for accomplishing that would be continued work on conventions as they alter according to changes of time and culture and attitudes.

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Chapter #6 CRITICISM Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical Performance

PROLOGUE I believe that it would not be an exaggeration to claim that all attempts to define art or the aesthetic experience have failed. Nevertheless, when we speak about and refer to art it seems everyone knows what we mean, just as when we speak of aesthetics a shared meaning is denoted. However, we have no objective criteria by which to gauge art. Elliot Eisner illustrated this with the following example: If you present two students with an identical mathematical task, their solutions will be identical, or nearly identical; whereas if you present two students with an identical task to be completed using a specific art form, be it music, plastic arts, drama, or literature, it is likely that they will come up with different solutions, both of which would be considered appropriate or “correct.” Since no objective and definitive criteria exist, our judgment of a work of art relies not on a set standard but on an appealing type of rationalization that seeks a match between form, function, and the content exhibited. This suggests that we cannot apply a single set of rules to assess the outcome of an artistic act. “Outcome assessment” in terms of children’s theatre is therefore essentially subjective. However, it would still need to meet the criterion of the match between “form,” i.e., the use of theatrical signs, and “meaning,” i.e., the significance derived from the signs and comprehended by an audience of children. This measure still fails to take into consideration the emotions that a theatrical performance is expected to evoke or the degree of pleasure it produces, which is the ultimate objective of any performance.

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The issue of pleasure has been addressed in Chapter Four in relation to the topic of catharsis. In this chapter, the focus of discussion is the question of whether there should be a set of standard criteria by which to critique a performance, how to define such criteria, and the difference between children’s and adults’ critique of theatre for young people. In this context, we will also examine the claim that “children can’t be fooled” because they “know” what makes a good play.

SETTING THE SCENE The theatre experience is not all that “natural” to many among us. An interesting study has shown that a total artistic experience depends on the viewer undergoing several cognitive and emotional processes that indicate his or her active participation in the experience (Kreitler, 1993). Kreitler distinguishes between a reaction to an artistic creation, such as a critique, and the artistic experience, and claims that the latter is not an “all or nothing” type of experience. Thus, the most pertinent question in regard to children is: To what extent are children capable of having an artistic experience? Kreitler proceeds to pose another question: If the artistic experience makes such demands on the viewer, is it fair to assume that elementary school and junior high school children are capable of participating in an artistic experience? The artistic experience is a type of response to an artistic stimulus. Kindergarten-aged children are capable of listening, concentrating, and understanding metaphors. At a later stage they develop the ability to understand more complex signs and integrate their impressions of the experience. Of course, the development of these aptitudes depends on the length of time the child is exposed to a work of art or a drama, and on the complexity of the symbols and messages. I question the generally accepted view that children will not tolerate a poor production. Having seen hundreds of performances staged especially for children, I will give evidence later in the chapter to show that it is quite clear that children sometimes do not know the difference between a “good” and a “poor” performance, and their reactions to the entire production sometimes lack any artistic or aesthetic justification. The reasons for and the sources of the young person’s enjoyment are, in many ways, quite different from those of the adult. In this context, the questions that concern me are: What is the meaning of maintaining “high standards” in children’s theatre? Are these the same “high standards” that we apply to theatre for adults? When, if at all, can we definitively state “that’s not a play for children”? What criteria do we use to evaluate children’s theatre? How do we define what is “good” and what is “poor”? For whom, the adult who accompanies

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the child to the theatre or the children themselves, is it “good” or “poor?” Are “good” and “poor” the right terms to use when dealing with theatre for young audiences? Theatre has its own language, which should be studied right from the beginning, at a very early stage of the learning process. As we saw in the previous chapter, this language is based on a sign system in which conventions play a central part. The sign system of the theatre involves the transmission of meaning through symbols and conventions; and it expresses multiple realities, experiences, and cultures. The child has to understand the symbolic nature of the theatrical performance, which has many components: the words themselves; intonation; facial and bodily expressions; gestures; the actor’s use of space, make-up, and costumes; and properties, such as lighting and music. This does not mean that the child should be able to decipher all the symbolic components and their uses, but s/he has to be aware of certain symbolic elements that are directed at the audience’s perceptive abilities.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH CRITERIA FOR CRITIQUING AN ARTISTIC PERFORMANCE? A statement that one particular work of art is better or of greater aesthetic value than another assumes that there are criteria by which to arrive at such a conclusion. The method by which such criteria are determined may stem from a positivistic approach, which seeks to establish absolute universal standards, or from a relativistic approach, according to which standards may be conceived as an individual’s value preferences. Although it appears that these are two conflicting approaches, I believe that they complement each other, as long as the universal standards have withstood the test of time and the individual preferences are not based on an arbitrary “I like it” type statement. In regard to the setting of standards, Selden (1941/1967), for example, “[felt] very strongly that critics in every field of the dynamic arts (music, dance, and drama) ha[d] failed to give proper value to the sensuous foundations” (p. 302). In contrast, Yurka (1959) claimed that it is very easy to set a standard, and she proposed a simple test: “if you can answer me in a few sentences without naming names or describing characters, and if your few sentences make a clear, understandable story, often you’ve seen a good play” (p. 21). She claims that in all the good examples (Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, and more), the theme will be remembered long after plot details are forgotten. She spoke of plays in general, but this could be adapted very easily to children’s theatre as well. Nevertheless, the difficulty, as I see

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it, is that this proposal over simplifies the issues. Surely, a play can be very good, yet the production a catastrophe. Yurka (ibid., p. 26) stated, “Character must be real, must seem to be following genuine impulses” and “Whatever the plot, the characters must be believable. It takes more than a dark mustache and a sinister leer to make a villain” (ibid., p. 24). I wonder if this is also true for children? How can we be sure not to spoil the experience for them? Since, for them, a dark mustache and a sinister leer can make a villain, how do we teach them the difference between a superficial and a “good” play? I argue that this is learned distinction. Theatre has its own language that should be learned at a very early stage of education. Yurka relates: “Long ago, I picked up a volume of critical essays, The Scenic Art, by Henry James, in which he describes his impressions of the Paris stage in the late eighties. He speaks of a young actress of limited talent... her only asset her charming voice... all personality, little or no technique... Will not go far.” The name of this young actress was Mlle Sara Bernhardt” (Yurka, 1959, p. 120). In view of the fact that Sara Bernhardt was one of the greatest actresses in the long history of the theatre, in my mind, this quote demonstrates the very essence of the problem of assessing art in general and theatrical performances in particular. Thus we come back to the starting point: trying to deal with the question of criteria to evaluate performance. The discussion about making artistic and aesthetic judgments deals with one of the most difficult issues in the history of culture, because it seeks to define the essence of a creative entity and our attitude towards it as a cultural product. The question “what makes a work of art great?” is repeated from generation to generation, yet it remains unanswered. Nevertheless, the reemergence of several criteria throughout the history of art and culture serves to substantiate their validity. I refer to the communicative ability of a work of art, its ability to arouse emotions, to impart a sense of meaningfulness, its complexity (levels of meaning) as well as the technical aspects of the artistic creation, and the relevance of the themes of the play as well as its sources. All of the criteria listed above can serve as a solid list to think of when approaching the complicated issue of setting up principles to evaluate the aesthetic and the artistic of a theatrical performance. However, the question remains: Since the time of Plato, what progress has been made in our ability to define a theory of aesthetics? Every artistic period, movement, and philosophy has attempted to formulate the artistic ideal. The attempts made nowadays are no less interesting, as they revolve around the same question: “What is the nature of Art?” Some claim that the notion of creating a theory of aesthetics is logically doomed, since aesthetic essence escapes definition. Defining a set of necessary and sufficient attributes of a work of art is not feasible, since that would reflect a restricted conception of art; whereas, in its essence, art is

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limitless. Others claim that the main question is not “what is art” but rather, “what concept or idea does it express?” This kind of a claim can be based on Wittgenstein, who stated that playing games is an indefinable activity, and yet collectively we refer to common properties of a play activity. In the same vein, I suggest that we cannot define art, but we can identify and explain common or similar attributes of a phenomenon that enable us to include it in the category of art. In the human history of aesthetic appreciation there has been a preference for order, symmetry, balance, and harmony, yet the same history emphasizes that asymmetry and disharmony are also among the acts of art. In fact, each period adds innovations to the aesthetic regulations, and there is diversity between periods and between cultures. Despite all of these changes, some elements remain constant; for example, we consider whether a work portrays order or lack of order, harmony or disharmony, shapes, colors, etc. In the eighteenth century, David Hume, in his Of the Standard of Taste (1760/1975) stated: It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another. There is a species of philosophy, which cuts off all hopes of success in such an attempt, and represents the impossibility of ever attaining any standard of taste. According to Hume, beauty is not an attribute to be found in the object itself; rather, it is in the spirit of the beholder, and each spirit conjures up a different type of beauty. To seek a real beauty or real deformity is as fruitless an inquiry as to pretend to ascertain a real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposition of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and bitter; and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute when it comes to tastes. It is very natural, and even quite necessary, to extend this axiom to mental as well as bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often at variance with philosophy, especially with the skeptical kind, is found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing the same decision. But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to have attained the sanction of common sense; there is certainly a species of common sense that opposes it, at least serves to modify and restrain it. Amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, it appears that there are certain general principles of approbation or blame whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind. From the original structure of the internal fabric, some particular forms or qualities are calculated to please, and others to displease. As Hume claims, the same Homer who pleased Athens and Rome two thousand years ago is still admired today in Paris and

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London. All the changes of climate, government, religion, and language, have not been able to obscure his glory. The same is true in our own era. Certain works of art withstand the shifts of time and remain consistently pleasing. There are some qualities that pertain to the object itself that render it inherently pleasing. In other words, there is an overall rule, order, or way of observing things that is pleasing to all, regardless of time, place, or culture, and this rule or principle is not determined arbitrarily. This discussion brings us back to the opening of the chapter where I suggested that despite the failure of all attempts to define art or aesthetic experience, we all share a kind of common notion when we talk about art and aesthetics. My point is to try to dismantle the obstacles noted in the prologue of this chapter, and attempt to establish criteria for assessing children’s theatre, both from the point of view of the “expert,” i.e., the theatre critic, who is skilled and informed, and from the perspective of the “novice,” in this case the child, who relies on intuition and is only beginning to garner experience in theatre as well as in life.

THE FORGOTTEN LANGUAGE Any discussion and assessment of a play we have seen is problematic, in that it contains expressions that reflect the viewer. Such a discussion is essentially subjective, although it may aspire to attain objective validity. John Dewey taught us: “Every critic, like every artist, has a bias, a predilection, that is bound up with the very existence of individuality. It is his task to convert it into an organ of sensitive perception and of intelligent insight, and to do so without surrendering the instinctive preference from which are derived direction and sincerity” (Dewey, 1934/1980. p. 324). The function of criticism, according to Dewey is: “The reeducation of perception of works of art; it is an auxiliary in the process, a difficult process, of learning to see and hear” (ibid.). Dewey’s approach establishes and explains the role of artistic criticism, and it can serve as a reference in our discussion when doubts arise as to how to establish critical standards for the theatre. Nevertheless, even with this helpful guidance, we are at loss when it comes to TALKING about a theatre experience, describing the experience in an informed manner. The task of providing a verbal formula to explain the artistic and aesthetic value of a play is redundant. Erich Fromm can help shed some light on this problem: “Let us assume you want to tell someone the difference between the taste of white wine and red wine. This may seem quite simple to you. You know the difference very well; why should it not be easy to explain it to someone

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else? Yet you find the greatest difficulty putting this taste difference into words. And probably you will end up by saying, “Now look here. I can’t explain it to you. Just drink red wine and then white wine, and you will know what the difference is” (Fromm, 1951, p. 11). This is how Erich Fromm opens Chapter Two “The Nature of Symbolic Language,” in his seminal book The Forgotten Language, written in 1951. This fascinating book is an introduction to the understanding of dreams, fairy tales, and myths. Fromm explains, “You have no difficulty in finding words to explain the most complicated machine, and yet words seem to be futile to describe a simple taste experience” (ibid., p. 17). Following Fromm, I believe we face the same difficulty when trying to describe the feeling of any experience. When one attempts to explain a mood, such as loneliness or pain, s/he searches for the most suitable words, but often finds that the description fails to capture the intricate web of emotions and feelings. The words are only symbols. The image one sees in a dream is a symbol. Art is a symbol. Fromm explains: “Symbolic language is language in which we express inner experience as if it were sensory experience, as if it were something we were doing or something that was done to us in the world of things. Symbolic language is language in which the world outside is a symbol of the world inside, a symbol for our souls and our minds.” (ibid., p. 12) There are different kinds of symbols but for the purposes of this discussion, I refer here only to what Fromm defined as a universal symbol: “The universal symbol is the only one in which the relationship between the symbol and that which is symbolized is not coincidental but intrinsic. It is rooted in the experience of the affinity between an emotion or thought, on the one hand, and a sensory experience, on the other hand. It can be called universal because it is shared by all men, in contrast not only to the accidental symbol, which is by its very nature entirely personal, but also to the conventional symbol, which is restricted to a group of people sharing the same convention. The universal symbol is rooted in the properties of our body, our senses, and our mind, which are common to all man and, therefore, not restricted to individuals or to specific groups. Indeed, the language of the universal symbol is the one common tongue developed by the human race, a language which it forgot before it succeeded in developing a universal conventional language.” (ibid., pp. 18-19). In adopting Fromm’s understanding for the purposes of our discussion, I consider the “forgotten language” to include also the system of symbols used for the assessment of Art in general, and theatre art, in specific. A discussion about personal preference and taste in theatre for young audiences reveals a relativistic approach, which casts doubt on universal judgments. Hume and the proverb claim, it is “fruitless to dispute concerning tastes”; however,

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Erich Fromm’s concept offers a different approach, a mission to reclaim the “forgotten language” of universal symbols that make it possible to join physical experiences with mental ones. As we watch a play, we often find ourselves commenting, “a wonderful performance,” “an important play,” “fascinating,” or “the play is irrelevant, boring.” We TALK ABOUT the play and expect our interlocutor to agree with our assessment or, at the very least, understand the language we used. Are such comments comprehensible? Are they shared by the entire audience who watched the same play performed? Are they shared by the critics? What do these utterances represent? Do they establish the essential conditions that make for a successful play? Raising such definitive questions may lead to the expectation that this discussion will culminate with the finding of definitive answers. I must warn against such expectations: the intent of this chapter is mostly to raise questions and open a discussion regarding the value of an informed critique presented by a learned and experienced observer, as compared to the critique presented in the intuitive assessment of a child observer. The origin of the word intuition is from the Latin intuitio, i.e., the act of contemplating, which is to say that observation is part of the meaning inherent in the word intuition. An intuitive understanding implies that as I view a good play I am able to immediately identify it as such, much like the person who distinguishes between red and white wine by taste. Similarly, the observer can distinguish between a good and a poor play, although he may not know how to talk about the distinction he made, or verbally express his intuitive knowledge. Nevertheless, the question remains, what type of knowledge should we bring when we come to critique a performance? Is it a type of expertise, such as that of the professional wine taster, who relies on years of experience? Or can we rely on intuitive knowledge? When judging a theatrical performance for children, should we exercise the intuitive function of the novice that recognizes the naive pleasure, or the function of informed, analytic pleasure, formulated by the expert? What would be the difference between the two perceptions? What are the implications of this for the establishment of a standard by which to critique children’s theatre?

EXPERT VERSUS NOVICE JUDGMENTS IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCE My research on the differences between expert and novice judgments is based on observations collected during the annual International Children’s Theatre Festival in Haifa, Israel. Each year the festival includes a

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competition and awards prizes for the best play, the best actor, producer, director, stage setting and scenery, costumes, etc. In several of these festivals, I was involved in different roles in the process of judging, and I was able to discern some of the problematic aspects of judging children’s theatre. I will confine my observations to two examples from two sequential years, 1993 and 1994, when the festival engaged two panels, one of adults and the other of children, to reach a final decision regarding the awards. This arrangement emphasized the difficulties of judging children’s theatre. In the Children’s Theatre Festival of 1993, 30 children aged 6-13 were selected from schools in the region of Haifa and northern Israel to judge the plays performed during the festival. In addition, 7 adult judges were also selected, all professionals in the field, with a rich experience of viewing and critiquing plays for children, and each an expert in a particular aspect of theatre: directing, acting, teaching, playwriting, and critiquing. The adult judges saw all of the plays of the festival, whereas the young judges were divided into groups according to age and saw plays that corresponded to their age group. At the end of the process, after viewing all of the plays, there was a closed forum debate among the adult expert judges, which took into consideration the notes and questionnaires filled by the novice judgesthe children. Each of the adult judges used his or her set of criteria and notes taken during the festival. In addition, each adult judge also completed a questionnaire in which the following attributes of all plays were ranked on a scale from 1 (low quality) to 5 (high quality): the play, the acting, directing, scenery and set, costumes, music, and lighting. In a group discussion, the judges explained their choices, argued, and finally decided on the winner by means of an open vote determined by the majority. A different process was used for the children’s judgment, which was conducted in stages. In the first stage, before commencing the festival, the directors appealed to the area’s school principles and urged them to select intelligent, curious and attentive children to serve as judges and assess the plays in the festival. These children needn’t have any particular affinity for the theatre. At the end of this stage, 30 children from various schools were chosen to participate. In the second stage, the children met three times, for a 3-hour guidance session each time. These were in the form of a theatre workshop that aimed to create a common language for viewing theatre. The third stage was the completion of a specially prepared questionnaire intended for judging the plays of the festival. The questionnaire was presented to the children, and each question was reviewed with the children to ensure that they understood the questions and the instructions. There were three parts to the questionnaire. The first included background questions such as name, school, grade, title of the play viewed, and the date. Part two included the

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following five statements, regarding which the children had to indicate a choice between “never” “sometimes” or “often”: 1. I enjoyed the play 2. I liked the acting 3. The plot interested me 4. The set/scenery/costumes were beautiful 5. The music contributed to my pleasure. Seemingly simple, the questionnaire was devised after much thought and discussion among experts. The underlying rationale for its organization was to allow general impressions to be expressed regarding elements such as the content, the acting, and the visual aspects. Only then were the children asked to fill in the third part, which included four open-ended questions, intended to analyze their general impressions and to find the broadest common denominator that made the particular play enjoyable. These questions were: − If I could talk to one of the actors after the play, I’d choose _______ and tell him/her... − What bothered me in the play was... − I especially liked... − I will recommend this play to my friends Yes / No (circle the appropriate response) In the fourth stage of preparing the children for their role as judges, the children watched a play that was not competing in the festival, and they were then asked to fill out the questionnaire. The fifth stage was an open discussion with the children about the findings of the questionnaires, in which the conversation focused on ensuring that the children indeed understood what was required and that the questions were clear. It should be noted again that there was a wide age range, in order to appoint a judge whose age matched that of the intended audiences. The most notable finding, which gave the experts (adults) pause and caused them to reconsider the process of judging and its outcome, was the fact that the children’s choice of best play, “The Mermaid’s Tail” (fictitious name) was considered by the adults to be the worst play in he festival. What the children enjoyed most was that “the mermaid was so beautiful,” “the magician’s tricks made me laugh,” “it’s such a beautiful story - I’ve heard it before,” “I was glad her tail disappeared,” “my favorite part was when the man brought her gifts – that was exciting!” “I love the blue of the ocean,” “I enjoyed everything,” “the fireworks were so pretty.” The responses to the item “What bothered you in the play?” included “almost nothing,” “nothing bothered me,” “the mermaid jumped around too much,” “it started late and I got impatient waiting.” These were the type of responses given with a degree of variation.

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The characteristics of the play chosen as best by the children were: − The play described a situation that the children considered beautiful or emotional; − The subject of the play was very easily identified; − There were a limited number of associations related to the subject of the play; in fact, associative enrichment was insignificant. These attributes coincide with what Thomas Kulka describes as the three conditions that define kitsch in Art. Kulka was in fact referring to painting, but conceded that these conditions hold true for all artistic forms.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH KITSCH? Kitsch deals with the trivial, in a trivial manner. As Kulka (1992) stated: Kitsch renders parasitic information about existing associations without substantially enriching our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes. Thus, the information it affords us is redundant. The attraction of Kitsch is rooted in the subject it depicts. In the postmodern era, Kitsch has been elevated to the status of Art. The concept of Kitsch includes the aesthetic void. The origin of the term is unknown, but it means cheap, worthless. Kitsch is notable for its mass appeal. It is trivial, and offers no added value; its message is flat, direct, recognizable, and familiar. The techniques used to design Kitsch are conservative, conventional, and worn out. Kitsch is based on emotionally charged images engraved in the memory of the masses; it does not refresh or renew. It does not create its own beauty or significance; rather, it works on associations familiar to the viewer. It is effective only in the short term. In a work that is Kitsch one could change any of its elements, such as the background or the colors, without changing the overall effect of the work in question. By contrast, a work of art is a whole creation; nothing about it can be changed without affecting its entirety: one wouldn’t consider altering even one brushstroke in the Mona Lisa, nor a word or a punctuation mark in a Walt Whitman poem. These attributes of Kitsch, gathered from literature on mass culture (which usually focuses on the plastic arts), are often contrasted with those of true art, which usually include unity, complexity, and intensity (in accordance with Beardsley’s definition of art). There is a common assumption that children lack the “good” manners of adults, and therefore, if confronted with a poor play they would simply reject it. In other words, this implies that children know a good play when they see one; their spontaneous reaction reflects their untainted judgment. However, according to the findings of a study conducted during the Children’s Theatre Festival, and relying on hundreds of additional observations of plays and child audiences, this assumption is apparently misguided, much like the

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assumption that children never lie (We often say: “Let’s ask the child. He’ll tell us the truth”). The observation of children’s viewing and judging process during the Children’s Theatre festival found that at all age levels there was a tendency to prefer plays defined by adults as Kitsch, that is, children preferred plays in which the components of Kitsch were dominant over plays that included significant dramatic elements. Attributes related to the true art of drama suggested by O’Toole and Haseman (1989): Focus, dramatic tension, symbols and meaning, meaning and truth, conflict, and atmosphere were not in their judgments. In addition to the Kitsch elements, the fact that the children were familiar with and liked the story of “The Mermaid’s Tail” was another factor that made them choose it as best play. In the words of the children: “it’s my favorite story,” “it’s the same as the story my kindergarten teacher told us,” “even the teacher told that one.” The children’s responses mentioned here are similar to those of the audience in ancient Greece, 2500 years ago. Then too, the audience loved to see plots they already knew; likewise, children nowadays are often familiar with the plot and know what is going to happen, whether in regard to traditional myths, legends, or stories. At times they know words and rhymes. Occasionally pleasure is derived from sheer repetition of the familiar, and other times from discovering a new aspect that the actors bring to the character or the story. As one child put it: “in the story that mom told me, Hansel was a stupid boy and Gretel was the clever one, but here it’s the other way around. I like it better this way.” Of course, as you can imagine, a boy voiced this opinion. The principle at work in the child’s reaction is similar in some respects to that which characterizes the reactions of many adults, those who have seen Hamlet performed more than once, and will probably go see the play again and again. They look either for what they already know and love, or for new interpretations or alterations introduced by the director. Therefore, I dispute the common approach that considers the art of children’s theatre to be inherently limited, in terms of language, themes, symbols, or metaphors, limitations which, it is claimed, prevent dramatic achievement. As in adult theatre, the only limitations in children’s theatre are those that exist in the minds of their creators.

THE ENORMOUS GAP BETWEEN THE CHILDREN AND THE ADULTS’ JUDGMENTS I return now to the description of the Children’s Theatre Festival of 1993. The enormous gap between the children and the adults’ judgments made it nearly impossible to select the best play of the festival. A compromise had to be found, whereby the focus shifted to a play that was awarded much

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positive attention by both experts and novices alike. This was a play entitled “The girl from Jerusalem” (fictitious title), and was listed in second place by the majority of adult judges and by approximately half of the child judges. In other words, there was reasonable agreement between children and adults regarding the selection of this play for the first place award. It is interesting to note here that in the discussion, some of the children raised the issue that the “girl wasn’t really a girl, but was actually a grown woman,” in other words, they found it disturbing that the part was played by an adult. This type of concern was not voiced in other discussions, because in this play the “girl” had to get through a small opening, but since she had adult dimensions, she didn’t manage it smoothly. This fact caught the children’s attention, and they claimed that the play would have been better had the part been played by “a real girl.” This touches on an important issue in children’s theatre, namely, the age of the actors. In a study conducted in 1999, Sharon Grady reported that when talking to children about representation in children’s theatre, “71% of the children in this child audience felt that children’s roles should be played by child actors” (p. 89). As one student bluntly suggested: “If you need a kid, cast a kid; if you need an adult, cast an adult” (ibid., 88). Despite the limitations of Grady’s pilot study, the reported results should be taken seriously since the issue points to core differences between children’s aesthetic understanding and adult aesthetics, a difference which is, as Grady claims: “understandable, given the issue of age (and the beliefs, tastes, and assumptions that go along with it) as it pertains both to the individual subject and to the social grouping” (ibid., 90). The lessons learned regarding the gap between children and adult judgments were applied the next year at the Theatre Festival of 1994, for which a new set of judging rules was devised. The two groups, adults and children, were to work separately; there would be no more joint discussions. The method for selecting the child judges was also changed. This time, the age range was significantly limited: instead of ranging from 6 to 13, only fourth and fifth graders were selected. From the 35 children initially selected, only seven were selected to act as judges following the preparation phase. These novice judges watched all of the festival’s participating plays rather than only those that were age appropriate. The questionnaires from the previous year were found to be clear and efficient so they were used again for both adults and children. Another change that year was the introduction of two sets of prizes, one awarded by the expert judges and the other by the novice judges. Despite these thoughtful changes, there was an even greater gap in the findings of the two panels than there had been the previous year. This time the adult panel of seven experts selected a play titled Louisa and the Moon

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(fictitious title), which received the award for best play, best director, and best actress. The panel commented: “this play features excellent use of many of the artistic elements of a play: stage setting, plot, characters, and lighting.” In contrast, the novice judges ranked this play fifth out of seven, close to last place. The children were bothered by the fact that “at the end, Betty didn’t find a solution to her problem,” that “the actors kept repeating the same phrase over and over, maybe twenty times, ‘the forest is in danger,’” (an aspect that the adults approved of and considered stylish). Children were further disturbed by the fact that the king “didn’t want what was best for his daughter,” and because there were no “magic tricks” in the play. They enjoyed the costumes and the songs, but not sufficiently to give the play a higher ranking. One child wrote “the play was excellent,” but gave it only 6 points out of the possible 10 allowed. When asked to explain why, he could no longer remember his reason. Another play, Don’t Leave Me Alone (fictitious title), was highly acclaimed by the critics. A professional whose critiques of children’s plays are published regularly in the daily newspaper wrote about this play: “this play was unique. Sometimes one impressive play can justify the entire festival... This play was performed in two rooms in the theatre’s underground shelter, thus dealing directly and powerfully with what are some of today’s children’s most real and deepest fears. The play exhibited modes of expression that are far from typical of children’s theatre productions... At night, Yossi’s fears grow and take on fantastic and demonic dimensions, until he finally overpowers them in a flourish of sound, motion, lights, and surreal images, all of which come to bear on the viewers’ senses in dosages that are purposefully beyond what the audience can absorb. A different aesthetic standard was employed here, as was the strong emotion experienced at the end of the play, a purifying experience of being purged of the immobilizing fears and being able to approach objects that had appeared threatening.” All the children - novice judges ranked this as a poor play and it received the lowest mark possible (33 out of the 70 points possible). They wrote that they didn’t like “the location where it was performed,” “the location was lousy,” “the lights interfered with the play and bothered the audience,” “I didn’t like the fact that they kept moving us from room to room instead of changing the scenery,” “I went deaf from the loud music,” “the play was not for our age,” “I couldn’t understand many things.” The novice judges noted also the aspects that they did like: “the part with the battles,” “the audience participating with the actors,” “the cat acting with Mrs. Silberstein,” “that there was a great moral to the story and that you have to be careful when fighting; hitting is not a game.” In other words, the children did not like the transgression of familiar conventions, in terms of either the physical space

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where the play was performed, or the lighting, used in this case to portray images. In contrast, the producer, director, and the actors were willing to go far to develop and extend the symbolic language of the theatre, an attempt that was artistically appreciated and encouraged by the expert judges, the adults. Another finding that reaffirms the existing gap between the two judging teams was the children’s response to the play The City Mouse and the Country Mouse (fictitious title). The professional critic didn’t bother to make any reference to it at all, implying it was of no theatrical value worth noting; the children however ranked it in first place (awarding it 62/70 points). They liked the fact that it told a story that was familiar, the content was clear and unambiguous, and they were attracted to the Kitsch-style of the visual aspect. They appreciated the “tricks” and the mouse’s escape route, and they particularly enjoyed the jokes that the mouse repeated over and over. Despite the noticeable gap in judgments, the two panels mostly agreed on the visual presentation, the special stage effects, and even on the music. For example, the play Papaguino (fictitious title) received the award for best scenery from the adult judges, and the novice judges praised it for its scenery and costumes. The play Mosquitoes and Flies (fictitious title) was awarded the prize for best technical effects and music by both panels. These findings lead us to reexamine the significance of the gaps in judgment. How can we understand this trend? What does this tell us about assessing children’s theatre? Should the criteria for a good children’s play follow the observations of the “expert” (the adults) or of the “novice” (the children)? The issue of the novice theatre viewer is significant and central in children’s theatre, more so than in any other art. Since the play is intended for this particular audience, we have to wonder whether it matters if the adult doesn’t agree with the child’s taste, or if children do not enjoy the plays selected by the adults. The issue of good quality theatre has been addressed in previous chapters: in Chapter One when the definition and the limitations of theatre were discussed; Chapter Three dealt with the question as it relates to the differences between the two kinds of audience and the difficulties this implies, with an emphasis on children as audience. We face the same issue again when attempting to establish criteria for assessing children’s theatre and while addressing the issue of the gap between children and adults’ judgments. The issue of expert versus novice is pertinent to any professional field: the expert possesses personal knowledge that stems from learning and professional experience, whereas the novice brings a new and fresh view, based on intuition. Expertise has a clear advantage in the arts, as Elliot Eisner argues: “Connoisseurship, unlike criticism, is a private act. Its aim is to appreciate the qualities that constitute some object, situation, or event...

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connoisseurship imposes no obligation upon the connoisseur to articulate or justify, to explain or persuade” (Eisner, 1991, p. 85). The advantage of expertise in terms of children’s theatre is problematic, because in order to persuade, the professional does need to interpret and explain how he or she arrived at the particular assessment. But in the case of children’s theatre, such persuasion does not reach the intended audience. An artistic and aesthetic critique presented by an expert adult is of dubious value for the child viewer.

EXPLAINING THE GAP BETWEEN CHILDREN AND ADULT JUDGMENTS As we have already noted, the attempts to define the terms artistic value and aesthetic value have failed, and while their definitions may not be clear, unequivocal, or widely accepted, these are the terms we must use, as they are irreplaceable. The terms are comprehensible in a general sense, and customarily used in the literature. The aesthetic experience is associated with the concept of beauty (rather than with the notion of truth) and pleases the senses. In the theatre, the aesthetic experience is grounded in aesthetic distance. Aesthetic distance ensures deeper understanding of the aesthetic object; it is located at a midpoint between excessive distance (i.e., too far from the object) and insufficient distance (i.e., too close to the object). It describes the point from which the play is viewed, from which the artistic creation is received, and it affects the viewer’s judgment. The issue of aesthetic distance in children’s theatre was discussed in Chapter Three, where it was introduced as a major component of the audience’s viewing experience; in Chapter Five aesthetic distance was mentioned as part of the conventions of the theatre, and the explanation there is pertinent to this discussion as well. Insufficient aesthetic distance means that the work of art or the play ceases to function as a symbol and is perceived as part of reality. In this case, for example, a member of the audience might dash onto the stage to stop the actions of a “murderer” or of a villainous character. If there is excessive aesthetic distance, the audience is indifferent to the goings-on on stage. As argued in previous chapters, the term optimal aesthetic distance refers to a point located at midrange between the two extremes. It is essentially a psychological mechanism employed by the viewer of any artistic creation when viewing an artistic object that arouses emotions because of its resemblance to something in the viewer’s reality; however, the viewer knows that in truth it is not real.

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In the theatres of Grotowski and of Artaud, for example, the aesthetic distance is purposefully reduced in order to feel the world with all of one’s senses, an experience of “total immersion.” Aesthetic distance is much greater in the theatre of Brecht and Sartre, for example, although Brecht could not help but arouse strong emotions through his plays. The discussion of aesthetic distance is a major component in the aesthetic experience. Among other things, aesthetic distance is a function of the viewer’s age, comprehension, overall experience, personal taste, etc. The difference in perceiving aesthetic distancing is the key reason for the gap between the expert and the novice judges. A study by Verriour (1994) found that the ability to perceive an object as an aesthetic symbol develops at a relatively late stage. At age 7, most of the children participating in the study could not identify symbols, at age 9 some of them did, and at age 11 most of the children were able to understand symbols. This finding is reasonably substantiated by theories of cognitive development, whether Piaget’s or those of other cognitive psychologists, who would argue that to understand the symbols of the theatre, i.e., to realize that the fictitious world of the theatre is not reality, a child must be capable of some degree of abstract thought. In other words, the child must be able to comprehend the symbolic nature of the theatre, to understand the use of objects to represent articles, living beings, or reality. The child should understand that the use of music on stage fulfills the need of the audience not of the character on stage. She must understand that “pretense” is a necessary condition for a theatrical performance. The comment made by the child who contended that the “girl from Jerusalem” should have been played by a child actor clearly showed that he did not understand the notion of role playing, of an actor playing a character. He had not internalized “pretending” as the essential quality of the theatre. If we “pretend,” anyone can play the role of a girl, an animal, a plant, or an object. If the child spectator exhibits the same emotions he would express in reality, we know that he or she has not achieved proper aesthetic distance. It should be noted that the spectator’s associations and mental state influences aesthetic distance. In adult theatre, for example, a jealous husband with a particular experience in his matrimonial background would watch Othello with a completely different outlook than that of a fellow spectator who had no such experience. Similarly, a child who has had an experience of abandonment would watch Moff and Morris (discussed in chapter Four) from a different aesthetic distance than that adopted by a child who has always enjoyed a warm and loving home. During a play, the viewer moves back and forth through the range of aesthetic distances. To enjoy a play means to find the appropriate aesthetic distance, i.e., to view the events without losing oneself in the fiction, yet being able to maintain a fair distance without estrangement. Thus, the

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spectator attempts to remain emotionally aware, as described in a comment by Pavis: “I am fiction and you must believe in me.” Judgments based on preference and taste pertain to the novice or child, are of an intuitive nature. Expert judges, professionals exercising their knowledge, render judgments of artistic value or of aesthetic experience. The ability to formulate an analytic critique for public perusal, i.e., informed connoisseurship requires education and knowledge in the field and an ability to use the specific jargon created for this purpose. Occasionally the gap between experts and novices cannot be bridged, yet it can be explained in terms of the different aesthetic distances applied by the different viewers. The difference between novices and experts may suggest that there is no need to establish criteria for judgment. However, I will argue that it is necessary to define such criteria for judging the quality of plays in children’s theatre, precisely because it is possible to educate for artistic appreciation. We can develop the child’s ability to make informed judgments by constantly providing theatre education, much like teaching any medium of art that includes a critical approach to that same artistic medium.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE - A PROPOSAL The one common denominator of all theatrical forms is that they require an audience (Brook, 1968). Actually, all artistic forms need an audience, but in the theatre the audience is necessary in order to complete the theatrical event. A painting or a poem or a story, any of these works of art are considered “complete.” A theatrical work of art is not complete without a viewing audience. That is why it is important to note that theatre is not about the actor’s performance nor is it about the audience’s response; it is about the interaction between the two. Historically, innovators in theatre arts such as Aristotle, Brecht, Brook, Pavis, or Schechner all focused on the relationship between performance and audience. Therefore, a critical approach to theatrical events and the establishment of analytical standards must, in my opinion, be derived from the meeting between stage and audience. This implies that critical criteria should not be based, as it is in current critical practice, solely on what takes place on stage. The convergence between stage and audience can be regarded as a type of “scheme,” an agreement to participate in a game that has its own rules. The actors must both forget about the audience and keep it forever in mind. The viewer must relinquish his or her ties to reality in order to enter into the fictitious world and yet be able to exit from it. This is where the difficulty

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arises. Clearly, Aristotelian concepts cannot lead to the same insights or definitions of good quality theatrical performances as those afforded by the Brechtian approach. Despite the difficulty of establishing criteria by which to judge theatrical performances, I venture to offer such criteria based on an understanding that we need a framework by which to educate for the theatre. In this endeavor, I have relied on theories of theatre, empirical research, and my own studies and experience with children’s theatre to formulate three criteria for judging plays intended for young audiences. These criteria relate to the central principle in theatre arts, i.e., the relations between the stage and the audience. 1. The Truth of the stage The spectator must be able to believe the events on stage. This principle is essential to the theatre, which aims to create fictitious worlds on stage. This is not a psychological truth, but a truth that stems from necessity and reasonability, since anything that takes place on stage is artificial. This then is an aesthetic and artistic criterion. 2. An offering of alternative reality The viewer must be able to escape from his/her particular reality into the fiction presented, in order to return full circle, back to reality. This criterion has to do with the viewer’s psychological development. Theatre facilitates the exit - or if you will, escape - from reality in order to come back and participate in it to a fuller extent. In other words, the spectator must be able to enter and exit the fictional world. This raises the issue of adjusting the play to the audience’s mental age. This criterion is a criterion of psychological and social development, which is based on the ability to understand the concept of aesthetic distance. 3. A structured symbolic language An alternative reality should be created on stage, featuring thought and emotion expressed in a comprehensible manner. In other words, the theatre offers a language of universal symbols that should be understood by the young viewers. This then is a pedagogical criterion. The criteria I have described here are indispensable. They belong to the realms of the aesthetic, the psychological, and the pedagogical. But are these criteria sufficient for setting standards for high quality in children’s theatre? Apparently, they are not; however, the discussion of the issue in this chapter should be considered an invitation to continue the efforts to define such criteria, a debate that began in the 1970s. In this context we should note Moshe Goldberg’s contribution. Goldberg (1974) cited an article, published in 1961, in which Kenneth L. Graham stated that there were five values that could help prepare children for the theatre: entertainment, psychological growth, educational exposure,

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aesthetic appreciation, and the development of a future audience (p. 14). Based on Kenneth L. Grahame, Goldberg suggested a similar categorization, yet he drew other contours by which to comprehend the same dimensions and depicted three areas into which he grouped the values of good theatre for children: Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and Psychology. Noticeably, I have followed Goldberg’s dimensions, but I have developed them differently. Goldberg claimed that the primary aesthetic value is derived from emotionally stimulating entertainment through participation in an act of creation. The act of creation is symbolic in its nature and Goldberg thinks that the children’s naiveté and their lack of preconceptions about theatrical form make them more receptive to it. The pedagogical value, he claims, is due to the fact that children’s theatre can be a powerful force of far-reaching consequence by indirectly exposing truths and ideas from which the spectator can choose. The psychological value is attained by seeing problems solved, thus one learns that problems can be solved.

THE COMMUNICATIVE QUALITY What does the above discussion mean in terms of the dispute about “high standards” in children’s theatre compared to high standards in adult theatre? It was Stanislavsky who said, “It is necessary to act for children as well as for adults, only better” (Goldberg, 1974. p. 23). I never understood the value of these kinds of claims other than that they pay lip service to TYP. However, there are elements of the theatrical language that impress children more than adults, and these elements are very powerful, as we saw in the expert-adult versus novice-child judgments in the festival. The communicative quality in the theatrical performance for children must be considered and executed very carefully (regarding the language, the ideas, the scenery, the conventions, and the manner of acting). As I have noted, the common assumption that children do not accept a poor production is not necessarily accurate. Children, many times, do not distinguish between a “good” and a “poor” production; their reasons and sources of enjoyment are in many ways different from those of adults, and that is exactly the reason why we should be concerned about educating children in this respect. It is very true that if children spectators do not like a particular play, we may find them wriggling, talking, making paper airplanes from their programs, and exhibiting other kinds of misbehavior, but their reasons for not liking the play do not necessarily emerge from it being a poor play. The opposite is also true: good behavior is not necessarily because the production is very good.

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We know that theoretical philosophy cannot supply us with practical principles for making artistic judgments; yet understanding the essence of the artistic activities that are the subject of criticism can contribute to our discussion here. How do we appreciate a work of art? Although our critical review showed that no accurate prescription has been found, we can nevertheless describe the pattern and the problems that characterize the nature of artistic appreciation. My line of thought on this matter coincides with that of Lorand (1991), who claims that any appreciation of a work of art is appreciation for the solution that this particular work offers in regard to its raw materials (p. 190). What can we learn from this understanding that pertains to our attempts to appreciate a theatrical work? It may help to look closer into the idea of raw materials. Raw materials are the elements that the artist uses to create his or her work. Raw materials can be very personal, culturally based, traditional, or of a psychological nature: anything the creator chooses can serve as raw material and be used in the artist’s work. According to Lorand’s view of appreciation, if the raw materials are completely strange to the audience, if the spectator cannot identify nor recognize the raw materials, then he or she will be unable to appreciate the artistic value of the work of art. Furthermore, an audience or spectator that does identify the raw materials of the art must be able to perceive them as raw materials before they are able to develop an appreciation for the artist’s manipulation of them, the artistic solution. Thus, we can say that artistic appreciation is not only appreciation of the meaning that the artist has given to the raw materials, but also an appreciation of the raw materials themselves. This distinction leads us to search for ways to educate our children to recognize the raw materials in a play. How does the topic of the raw materials of a play bring us back to the question of establishing high standards for children’s theatre? I believe it is because the issue of the play’s raw materials emphasizes the central role of the spectator in constructing meaning. Using primary materials, the play channels the viewer’s response (Shoham, 1989); however, this is possible precisely because these materials form part of the viewer’s spiritual and experiential world.

AN INDEX FOR THE EVALUATION OF THEATRE PERFORMANCES I worked with students from the Theatre Education Department who participated in the seminar “Issues in evaluating the viewing experience of children in the theatre,” to devise an index for the evaluation of theatre

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performances. This endeavor followed an in-depth study of the semiotics of the theatre, as Kowzan suggested in the 1960s, and a careful study of the Pavis questionnaire in the 1980s. The index was implemented on various occasions during the academic years of 2003-2004. It is presented here, as an example, with findings (indicated in percentages) that reflect the responses of 158 high-school aged students who viewed a performance of The Suitcase Packers by Hanoch Levin, produced by Haifa University Theatre in January, 2003. An index for the evaluation of theatre performances Title of the play: ____________

Theatre troupe: _______________

6

7

8

9

Absolutely

5

Very much

4

Reasonably so

3

Barely

1 2

Check the column that best suits your response to the following statements

Not at all

Circle your response: student in the 10th, 11th, 12th grade / teacher

Did you enjoy the play? Did the play lead you to use your imagination? Were the themes of the play relevant to your life? Did you understand the play? How clear were the words spoken on stage? Did the music contribute to creating an emotional response? Did the stage setting help you understand where the scenes took place? Did you find the scenery aesthetically pleasing? Did the costumes help you understand the characters?

– 1.8

1 7.6

9 31.4

31.8 37

58.2 22.2

5.4

19

34.5

23

18.1

1.8

3.6

16.3

44.7

33.6

–

–

7.2

35.4

57.4

1.8

10

22.7

42.8

22.7

3.6

15.4

32

30.9

18.1

7.2

26.5

40.9

15.4

–

1.8

9.3

40.3

48.6

14

15

16 17 18

19

20 21 22

Absolutely

13

Very much

12

Reasonably so

11

Check the column that best suits your response to the following statements

Barely

10

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Not at all

#6. Criticism

Were the costumes well designed? Did the lighting add to the play? Did all the visual aspects come together aesthetically? Did you find (fill in name)’s acting convincing? Did you like the director’s work? As a spectator, were you moved by the play? Did the play have weaker moments? Were you bored at times? Do you feel that the actors worked as a team on stage? As a spectator, was the play intellectually enriching? Did the play provide an aesthetic-artistic experience? Did you like the play overall? Would you recommend this play to your friends?

–

1

22.7

40.9

35.4

1

8.1

21

34.5

35.4

–

1.8

25

46.2

26.8

–

1.8

18.3

35.4

44.5

–

11

32.1

39.5

17.4

21.8

42.8

25.4

9

1

41 –

37.2 1

18.1 18.5

2.7 37.9

1 42.6

3.7

7.4

34.2

36.2

18.5

1.8

9.2

28

41.6

19.4

1

1

11.7

20.9

65.4

1

7.2

17.2

21

53.6

Add any comments you wish: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

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The index, which contains 22 statements that seemingly focus on the spectator’s observations of the events on stage, in fact expresses the interaction that takes place between the viewer and the developments on stage. Some statements relate to the spectator’s perceptions, feelings, or thoughts, evoked in response to the performance, while still others concentrate on the design of specific theatrical components. With the help of the evaluation index, the viewer may note that a particular theatrical sign (for example, the costumes or the scenery) was overused or, on the contrary, overlooked. The correspondence between signifier and signified is the principle underlying the design of the evaluation index. Thus, we may see whether several signifiers are used to create a single signified. For example, Kowzan (1968) claims, rain can be signified on stage by one or several of these signifiers: sound effects, lighting, costume (raincoat or accessory), and gesture (actor shakes off rain before entering on stage). Many other examples can be provided to illustrate the relation between signifier and signified and the way these may be (over- or scarcely) used to create a theatrical language. The evaluation index assumes first that the relations among the components are meaningful and, second that it is a certain balanced combination of the theatrical signs that creates the theatrical experience. The issue of the tempo or pace of the play is addressed by indirect questions related to the kind of experience the viewer had. The percentages resulting from this particular evaluation render a clear profile of the quality of the play according to this group of spectators. They found the play interesting, and reported having both an aesthetic-artistic as well as an intellectually enriching experience. The distribution of percentages regarding most items indicates that the majority of spectators had a similar response to the play and considered it a very good play. Thus, the evaluation works to create a profile of the play and to indicate the relations among its various components. In doing so it helps us determine the overall quality of the play.

EPILOGUE According to Carol Lorenz (2002), too often theatre scholars interested in theatre for the young exclude themselves from the larger theatre discourse. She reproaches the theatre scholars, claiming that even the language used in the discussion and criticism of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) is not the language used in much of the criticism and scholarship of adult theatre. Her examination of journals and periodicals led her to conclude, “there is relatively little attention paid to the scholarship of TYA in terms of critical

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theories applied to adult theatre” (ibid., p. 109). In this chapter, an attempt was made to arouse a discussion on the ways to evaluate theatrical performances for young people. To do so, I suggested moving beyond the pedagogical educational discourse and locating the criticism within the broader framework that questions, philosophically and practically, the nature of art. However, we should be wary of the other extreme, namely, focusing only on the artistic aspects of the performance. In other words, my basic claim is that there is a “missing link” in the discourse of scholars dealing with criticism of theatre for young people. We must develop the intellectual arguments and the language of criticism as part of the ongoing discourse on the theory and the practice of a special kind of art, the theatre for young audiences. Theatre for young people is first and foremost a form of art, i.e., it is Theatre (Lorenz, 2002; Klein, 1997; Saldana, 1996; McCaslin, 1975; Levy, 1998). However, in our eagerness to find this “missing link,” we should not forget that in this special genre of theatre, the audience is young, and therefore neither the pedagogical nor the psychological dimensions should be overlooked. In fact, any theatrical performance should take all of these dimensions into consideration; doing so would raise the standards of what we may consider a good theatrical performance.

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Chapter #7 THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AS A SCHOOL EVENT Advantages and disadvantages of children attending a play en masse

PROLOGUE We can identify three types of theatrical events for children using the time, the place, and the audience as characteristics − During school hours, the entire class, and in fact many classes from several schools, goes together with the teachers to the theatre. They are bused from school to a university auditorium or a theatre in town, or to another venue where plays are staged. − Children go with their parents or another adult during their free time after school. − Classes from the same school view the play at school, in the gym, schoolyard, or in the (theatre) hall. In this chapter I will describe and analyze the first type of theatrical event, i.e., a visit to the theatre during school hours. I argue that one should free the child from the tyranny of being “herded” as part of a pre-structured excursion (with the class) to a theatre performance. Based on observations and interviews with children, I’ll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of children going to a play en masse. Going to the theatre involves preparation, beginning with elementary behavioral codes (such as “we don’t eat and don’t speak during the performance”) at one end of the spectrum, and understanding theatrical conventions and modes of presentation on the other. Preparing children to

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see a play is one of the main concerns drama/theatre education is now addressing through special curricular programs. Here, I shall describe a few scenarios, drawn from the New York arena, that are typical of the experience of going to a play en masse. On these occasions, between one hundred and four hundred students were herded into an auditorium where they sat, first waiting for the performance to begin, then for the duration of the performance, and finally after the performance, while a discussion of what they had just seen ensued.

SETTING THE SCENE When can we actually consider a theatrical event to be an aesthetic event? When would we say that a theatrical event contains elements of aesthetic value? Among the factors discussed in previous chapters, we noted the audience’s behavior during the event, which can serve as an indication of aesthetic appreciation. This is the focus of the current chapter. As early as 37 years ago, Demmery (1978) claimed that theatrical events that take place on a proscenium-type stage or in an open arena stage before an audience of three hundred to one thousand spectators will always result in a negative experience. By contrast, events performed in a small hall before sixty or seventy youngsters or youth have a greater and more positive impact desired. Demmery testified from her own experience that “the techniques used in performing scripted plays in large theatres were not adequate for the kind of acting required for children. The tendency to over-project vocally, to over-emphasize characterization, pick up a scene to such a degree that it was taken at too fast a pace, so that the children of this age could not easily take in the information and follow the plot of the story” (p. 12). In addition to the significant issue of voice projection and its implications for articulation, diction, and ultimately delivery before an audience of children, we should not fail to note the theatrical venue. Theatres were built for adults, for their size; therefore, from the start, a theatrical event performed before an audience of “poorly-placed” children is doomed to be disrupted. If children cannot sit comfortably in suitable chairs, they will inevitably find it difficult to open themselves up to the cheerful excitement of the play. If from the beginning of the theatrical experience, children are seated in chairs larger than their actual size, then this physical discomfort might determine the quality of the entire viewing experience. We know that the first factor that influences the audience, children and adults alike, as it enters the theatre hall is the physical arrangement of the space where the performance will take place. In addition to the issue of the size of the seat relative to its occupant, other influential factors include

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the space between the seats, whether the seats are fixed to the floor, the distance between the stage and the audience, the height of the stage relative to the audience, and the size of the hall itself and its organization, (e.g., whether it is an improvised theatre, whether the audience surrounds the stage on three sides or all around). All of these factors affect the viewing experience. Most plays performed before an audience of children take place on proscenium type stages. Usually the seats are fixed, the stage is permanently raised, and the child faces a space that he cannot control and sometimes cannot manage at all. Unfortunately, in most cases no advance consideration is allotted to the needs of a young audience; this can be crucial to the way children may or may not be able to concentrate and follow the performance they are about to see. The architectural character of the theatrical venue and its interior design are central in determining the quality of the theatrical experience. The children as an audience cannot adequately focus their attention on the play if they are experiencing physical discomfort. As mentioned earlier, children have a lower tolerance threshold than do adults; if someone is blocking their view, if they are unable to hear clearly, or if they are drowning in an enormous chair, they will vocalize their discontent. Throughout the process that made the art of theatre a fascinating component of human culture, there has always been a tendency to seek out new ways to involve the audience in the events that take place on stage, to create interaction and cooperation between the audience and the stage; in other words, to establish a reciprocal relation that enhances the theatrical experience. In children’s theatre, the relationship between the audience and the stage is vital, and the children play a crucial role in determining the ultimate success of the play. This is because the artistic experience presented in the play is often grounded in broad educational and pedagogical contexts, the value and necessity of which will be called into question herein.

OBSERVATIONS COLLECTED DURING THEATRICAL EVENTS Leah Goldberg (1952), renowned Israeli poetess who wrote extensively for young audiences and knew how to touch their spirit, claimed that anyone who has ever taken the time to sit in a theatre hall for a performance of children’s theatre is familiar with the pleasure of watching this audience’s enthusiasm and willingness to believe anything that might take place on the stage, its anticipation to partake in the play, and its eagerness to hate the villains and cheer for the good guys. From my observations I can add that the adolescents in the audience are also attentive observers, prepared to

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immerse themselves in the play as long as it leaves room for their active imagination, creative thinking, or any other kind of pleasure that can be derived from it. Children and youth alike are readily drawn to the art of theatre and can easily enjoy a superficial play that includes propaganda messages. Goldberg claimed young people were open to receive anything presented as a “complete and perfect whole” that requires no additional creative efforts (ibid., p. 238). As long ago as the early 1950s, Leah Goldberg suggested that to refine the young viewer’s taste one should find different ways to stimulate the viewer’s mental energy, draw on the urge to participate in the play, activate the individual’s imagination and thus motivate him or her to attend as many high quality plays as possible. Accepting Leah Goldberg’s advice to present children with numerous opportunities to view high quality plays and activate their imaginations, I will now describe children’s play-viewing behaviors, drawn from several separate visits to the theatre to watch a high quality play. The following examples, which I consider representative of the typical scenario in such cases, were selected from hundreds of occasions on which I went with a group of children to the theatre to watch a children’s play. In contrast to Chapter Five, in which I analyzed the young audience’s viewing experience in terms of aesthetic distance and the question of theatre conventions, here I would like to focus on the phenomenon of a homogenous audience of children attending the theatre en masse, and the problems inherent in the viewing experience they encounter there. Before I begin describing the scenarios and delineating their basic characteristics, from which I hope to glean some useful insights, I want to draw the reader’s attention to Moses Goldberg’s (1974) understanding of children’s experience of the theatre, as described in his book Children’s Theatre: A Philosophy and a Method: “It may be helpful to describe a typical experience. Ideally, children should start formal theatrical activity at about five to six years of age, when they start school. More typically, they begin at about nine or ten, with a trip to the university theatre in a school bus, or at an assembly in the gym with a group of housewives presenting a classic fairy tale. The following is a fairly accurate description of a better than average experience in an American university” (p. 19). Moses Goldberg then presents (pp. 19-22) a scenario typical of a school in the U.S. as he experienced it in the 1970s. The following is a summary of the chronology of Goldberg’s description: − Preparing for the event at school, which includes distributing brochures intended for the parents and requesting payment; a review of the contents of the play presented by the teacher; and occasionally

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preparatory activities for the class, as recommended by the producers and included in the materials that were sent to the school in advance. − Traveling from the school to the theatre hall. The buses, which have been booked in advance, arrive much too early. Keeping to the predetermined schedule is mandatory, to ensure that the rest of the daily routine remains unhindered. − Lining the children up against the theatre wall to wait until they can enter the auditorium. − Entering the auditorium, the dimming of the lights, followed by the children’s eager applause. − Occasionally, an intermission during which the children are given the opportunity to stretch their limbs with a few organized exercises. − Again, dimming of the hall lights followed by the children’s applause. − Exiting the theatre after the play in an organized fashion, children wait in line next to the wall until the buses arrive to take them back to school. − Returning to school for lunch at school, occasionally followed by a discussion or another activity for processing the recent theatrical experience. In other words, the theatrical event includes preparation, viewing, and processing. Indeed, this is the formula presented by other writers describing the event of children attending a play outside the school grounds. We must now ask ourselves: has anything changed? And if so, has it changed for the better or for the worse? What characterizes a theatrical event nowadays, more than thirty years later? In the next section, I will present four scenarios drawn from theatre events that took place in Manhattan (NYC) in 2001-2002.

THE CASE OF WOMEN OF WONDER The time: April 21, 2002, 3:00 p.m.; 75 minutes, no intermission The place: The Provincetown Playhouse, Manhattan, New York W.O.W! Women of Wonder by Lowell Swortzell and directed by Nancy Swortzell I was seated among an audience of approximately 150 children of ages 10-12. David, a Graduate Assistant (GA) in the Educational Theatre program at New York University who helped produce the play, began working to create the appropriate atmosphere. He addressed the children: David: Hi, I’m David. How are you today? Choral response: Good morning David (they sound pre-programmed)

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David points out the location of the restrooms, the exits, the need to keep the place clean, and the need to remain quiet for the duration of the play. He presents the children with a set of rules of behavior at a theatre. He does this amiably, cheerfully, and the children respond in a controlled chorus. As an observer I am struck by the same feeling I have after boarding a plane, while the flight attendant recites the emergency regulations already known to all passengers; nevertheless, most of us listen again and again. In the theatre, all this takes place in front of the already raised screen (few theatres still feature the heavy red velvet curtains); that is, the stage is set and the colorful scenery is visible to all. The scene on the stage seems taken from the land of fairytales. I carry on a casual conversation with a group of 11-12 year old girls next to me: “What does ‘W.O.W.’ mean?” They don’t know. One comments: “I heard this is a premiere, what’s a premiere? Is that the name of the actress?” Another girl says: “I’ll bet it’ll be exciting and I heard there’s even some violence. Is violence allowed in the theatre?” I don’t have time to respond because just then the lights are dimmed and the children begin to applaud. In Chapter Three there was discussion about the ecology of the play and the issue of applause in the theatre in general, and applause produced by children in particular. Here is yet another instance where the children’s applause does not follow the same code of behavior as that of adult applause, a phenomenon pointed out earlier. Indeed, in contrast to adult behavior, here, as the hall grows darker, the children’s loud applause is an expression of their excitement and anticipation of the viewing experience. The feeling of excitement increases as the darkness spreads and there is a sense of transcending to another time and place. Interestingly, at the end of the play the applause is less pronounced and David encourages them: “Are you having fun?” Choral response: “Yes!” “And when we enjoy something, what do we do? We clap –don’t we? So let’s have a big round of applause for these fantastic actors!” and the children responded with increasingly loud applause. This, then, was an obvious example of the process of socializing an audience of children to the culture of theatre viewing according to the adult code of behavior. I found myself wondering: was this really the right thing to do, to program children’s responses at the price of contaminating their spontaneous reaction? I thought this merited further consideration. The children apparently enjoyed the play, but they weren’t overwhelmed. David asks: “Are you ready for a discussion?” and they answer in chorus: “Yes!” Thus, immediately following the play, without any intermission, we move on to the second part of the event, though not before David leads with

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a few more exercises, which include stretching the arms, relaxing the legs, and emitting words into the general space of the auditorium. The discussion is handled with the help of several graduate assistants (GAs) from the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University. One of them asks: “Give me adjectives to describe the children in the play.” The audience obligingly tosses some at him: “smart, strong, intelligent, ugly.” One girl says the boys in the play were ugly and her friends immediately cheer and applaud her. The GA continues: “let’s make a list of the female characters in the play and find adjectives to describe them.” Adjectives are sent out into space: “strong, healthy, cool, beautiful, quiet, knowledgeable!” The GA encourages them: “Great, keep going! Now let’s see what they have in common. What did you say about the boys? And how about the girls? So what do they share?” The lists are repeated and meanwhile the actors come out to the front of the stage, prepared to have a discussion with the - now warmed up - audience. “All boys love sports – is that a stereotype?” asks one of the GAs, and requests that this be discussed in small-groups. Every 2 rows join together to have a discussion. The girls next to me start chuckling, enjoying their conversation about David’s good build, and the gym teacher that likes to help the girls with the high jump. The GAs walk among the groups, then settle down to join and participate in a particular group’s discussion. They encourage the conversation and offer guiding questions. The girls next to me are still giggling and it seems nothing could be farther from their minds than an intellectual discussion on issues such as “what is a stereotype, how is it formed, and what was its role in the play they just watched?” As I consider these questions, it occurs to me that the play has already been forgotten, not only by the group of giggling girls, but also by me! As if the whole event was really meant as some sort of lesson. While the GAs are trying (charmingly, it must be admitted) to conduct a discussion on what they believe to be the play’s main topic, teachers are circulating among the groups, calling for quiet, raising their voices to tell the kids not to use bad language, not to move, not to shout, not to eat... not to... anything. All this manages to completely obscure the artistic experience they just had. The experience of the “guided lesson” has taken over the entire atmosphere, and so, it was no wonder that the conversation I tried to have with the group of girls next to me about the play they had just seen had no meaning whatsoever. I asked: “what was interesting about the play?” Answers: “Everything.” “Yeah, everything!” I tried again: “what was the most interesting part?” response: “everything.” In other words, they had, unwittingly, blocked out any attempt to peel off the outer layer and penetrate toward deeper meanings. This “interpretational” situation did not suit them at this stage, immediately after

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viewing. They weren’t focused on the play at all. It seemed that they had forgotten about it completely; despite the fact that it was interesting and artistically done. David, with the help of the other GAs, then moved the discussion regarding stereotypes back to the audience as a whole. A representative of each group was asked to report on the group’s discussion. In this, as in any other classroom lesson, the “teacher” asks and the children respond politely by raising their hands and waiting their turn to speak. Yet there is no chance of developing the conversation and moving beyond the delimited and carefully defined topic because each group has to answer the same question in turn. Then the focus turns to the actors, who were asked how they chose to portray their character. At this point, each actor responds in turn; however, the children have long since lost interest and would have gladly moved on to another activity all together. The increasing restlessness could be noted in the frequency of requests to go the restroom, the frequency of little incidents of teasing and annoyances, accompanied by teachers’ attempts to quiet them down. Thus, the entire event was turned into another “lesson” that the children are waiting to get through. So much so, that as I sat there among them, I had just about forgotten what the play was about and I could scarcely remember why I hadn’t written anything about it. As I looked around and took notes, I wondered “what’s wrong with this picture?” and it occurred to me that the entire pseudo-intellectual discussion, including its clearly predictable outcome, which was conducted in a typical (and not very well-done) classroom format immediately following the performance, simply exhausted the young audience and eradicated and distorted the theatrical experience for which they had journeyed from the far ends of New York. “[The play] W.O.W! Women of Wonder stems from a curiosity about why there are no mythical American heroines, no female counterparts to Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and many other larger-than-life pioneer spirits whose stories were created to be told around campfires and on winter evenings in log cabins.” This is a quote from the playwright’s notes, cited in the playbill. Lowell Swortzell, who was interested in finding out more about the absence of women in the stories that helped build the cultural heritage of the American nation, asks: “Did these great men have no great ladies beside them, wives and daughters assisting in their adventures, who were part of the mythology?” Of course they did. Therefore Swortzell invited colorful and courageous women to tell their stories. In terms of the questions that concerned Swortzell, there can be no doubt that the themes of the discussion following the play were suitable. But this is not the point. My point is that in essence, any discussion immediately following the play is redundant by nature.

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The post-performance discussion takes the spirit out of the play and diminishes the theatrical experience, which in this case was much more complex and aesthetic than any question and answer session - whether well done or mediocre - could ever hope to be. The experience should be allowed to have a life of its own. Let the images speak for themselves; let the imagination soar; let the understandings well up inside the audience, rather than force-fed to the children in small chewable bits. I will now turn from this play, performed in a relatively small theatre before an audience of 150 children, to a larger scale event performed before approximately 450 children.

THE CASE OF TOM ’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN The time: October 24, 2001, 10:45 a.m.; 120 minutes (including intermission). The place: New Victory Theatre, Manhattan, New York. Tom’s Midnight Garden by David Wood Grades 3 and up This theatre is located in the heart of Manhattan, on the recently gentrified Forty-Second Street. It is the major venue producing children’s theatre for families in the NYC area. The newly renovated theatre seats 499 and provides a classic setting for large-scale performances. Every year, on its proscenium-style-raised stage, a seasonal children’s program is presented with much consideration and respect for the young audience’s taste. I had the pleasure of watching many children and family theatre productions in this theatre, and I will relate two of them here. The first is Tom’s Midnight Garden by David Wood “The clock strikes thirteen-thirteen- and Tom immediately knows that things won’t be the same anymore in Mrs. Bartholomew’s old house. Sneaking downstairs to explore, he discovers a mysterious Victorian garden that transports him back through time. Thrilled by the adventures that lie within, Tom returns there every night for fun, with Hatty, his new best friend. In the beloved tradition of The Secret Garden and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe comes this captivating interpretation of Tom’s Midnight Garden. The unicorn’s enchanting show, filled with live music and shifting sets, vividly captures ‘the essence of one of the best children’s stories ever written, in a dream of a production’” (Time Out, London, October 2001). I chose to present here a play that I considered excellent and that received rave reviews. Tom’s Midnight Garden originally played in England. The excitement and anticipation of its New York audience, the 450 children of

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ages 9 through 14 and of the 20 accompanying teachers, was evident. The youngest groups, the 9-year-olds, were seated in the five front rows. The audience was of diverse backgrounds, origins, and schools, and of a relatively wide range of ages. The main hall and the balcony were almost full. One class arrived late, which caused the play to start fifteen minutes later than scheduled. The children, it should be noted, waited quietly and behaved appropriately. Finally, Helen, the Theatre’s director of Educational Programs, came on stage and initiated a discussion on “rules of good behavior.” Helen: Good morning, children! Responses: Good morning! Helen: How many of you have been here before? All hands go up. Helen: Then you all know the rules here? Responses: Yes. Helen: No food, no photographs. Responses: It’s forbidden Helen: Please turn off your cell phones. Are they off? Responses: Yes! Helen: After the play there’ll be a discussion with the actors, so please remain patiently in your seats after the performance. Enjoy the show! The lights are dimmed and the applause rises. The reaction is the same as described regarding the other plays: the characteristic applause of the children in anticipation of the experience symbolizes a statement to the effect of “here we are - you can start now.” Again I find myself criticizing the mini-discussion Helen just gave. It was short and cheerful, but why was it necessary? Why establish an atmosphere of permitted and forbidden? Why ruin the viewing experience with a school-like atmosphere instead of creating a celebratory event distinct from regular school days? The children in fact know the rules and have received endless reminders at school before heading out to the theatre. So why add the “pre-flight safety instructions” when there is really no danger in the theatre? The play was in fact fascinating, and held the interest of both children and adults. When the lights went on at the end of the first act, the boy next to me asked: “what? Is it already over?” I answered: “No, we’re just taking a break,” but it made me realize that the series of commandments in the style of “thou shall not...” that are delivered before the play begins could easily be replaced with a series of helpful, positive and informative statements telling the children how long the play will be, whether there will be an intermission and how long it will be, the location of the restrooms, etc. In other words, we

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could choose to tell them what they need to know, including what is permitted and expected. The intermission is a difficult topic in both the art of theatre in general and in children’s theatre in specific. While there is an option to continue the play without a break, occasionally the length of the play or other organizational factors, such as the need to change the scenery on stage, make an intermission a necessity. The director and producers, who allegedly know what would be the optimal conditions for presenting their specific play, handle these decisions. Here the play included an intermission, during which Raymond, a member of the production company, came onto the stage and began conducting stretch and relaxation exercises with the children. The children responded gladly, since they were not allowed to exit into the hall. Some of them, after obtaining permission in an orderly fashion, went to the restrooms. Raymond was charming and well versed in the task: he called individual children to the stage to exhibit their skills, and each time, as a sign of appreciation, the crowd applauded their peers’ talents. It is interesting to note that there was no applause at the end of the first act; although there was no doubt that the audience had been fascinated and had thoroughly enjoyed the theatrical experience. This observation only increases the significance of the previous discussion (Chapter Three) regarding the phenomenon of children’s applause. Following the play, there was a discussion with playwright David Wood, who came in from England, and with the actors, who introduced themselves briefly in the following manner: “Hi, I’m Iman, and I’ve been acting for ten years.” “Hi, I’m Johanna, and I’ve been an actress for over forty years.” And so on. Five of the actors came forward, prepared to answer children’s questions. Here is a sample of questions asked: “why was there barbed wire on stage?” “What caused you to write such a play?” “How do you feel when you’re acting?” “Why did you decide to work in this play?” One child - about 11 years old - saw me taking notes and asked: “Are you a reporter? Please write that this was a beautiful play, but that I want to go home now.” I asked “why” and he responded: “this isn’t part of the play.” It occurred to me that this perceptive child was absolutely right! This “discussion” was not part of the play! What then is the significance of the discussion? Why have it? What is the purpose of answering several unrelated questions in front of an audience of more than 300 children, who have already been confined to their seats for about two hours? The teachers were busy hushing the children who had become restless, patrolling among the rows, pointing a threatening finger at anyone found dancing in his seat or agitatedly changing positions. Why must the viewing experience be “contaminated” in this fashion? Why is it eradicated of its own significance?

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It is as though the play on its own would be devoid of meaning. Why add an element that clearly does not belong? Why conduct a pointless “discussion”? The question-answer format was clearly neither a discussion nor a dialogue; it was a verbal antithesis to the emotional experience obtained while watching the play. The entire endeavor took no more than fifteen minutes, but it felt unending, in contrast to the viewing, which took about 90 minutes, but flew by unnoticed. I promised the boy I would report what he told me.

THE CASE OF: PETER AND WENDY The time: February 2, 2002, 10:45 a.m., 135 minutes (including intermission) The place: New Victory Theatre, Manhattan, New York Peter and Wendy, from the novel by J. M. Barrie. Adapted by Liza Lorwin. Directed by Lee Breuer. For grades 6 and up Mabou Mines is a collaborative theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City. This group usually produces plays intended for an adult audience, but chose to produce the tale of Peter Pan, which became such a success that it was invited to tour not only throughout the US but also worldwide. Peter and Wendy astounded audiences with its brilliance and magic when it played the New Victory Theatre in 1997. This innovative adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s classic novel, a celebrated evocation of exuberant joy and bittersweet longing, won rave reviews and two Obie Awards - “Best Production and Outstanding Performer for Karen Kandel” (The Star-Ledger). Indeed, it was a moving experience. The impressive production lures the viewer into the world of fantasy and imagination, as described in the New York Times review of the play: “Flights of Fancy that peel back new layers of enchantment. A classic reborn” I point out the praise the play received in order to bring us back to my opening observation in this chapter: that the education of youngsters for theatre appreciation must be based on the experience of viewing many high quality plays that are capable of igniting the imagination. However, in the school visits to the theatre described above, the educational framework constructed around the play, especially the “educational event” that takes place in the theatre before, during, and following the play, casts a didactic shadow over the entire experience, rendering it barren and impotent. I suggest that the purpose of this activity should be reexamined. Or perhaps, the “educational element” should simply be abandoned, and we should readily recognize the child’s ability to take in the experience and enjoy it.

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There is no need to construct “straw-agents” whose task it is to explain the experience to the child. There is no need to give the children crutches and thus render them disabled, or in this case, incapable of handling the aesthetic experience, particularly when the experience is facilitated by an exceptional production that is an artistic and theatrical success. What follows here is a brief description of observations made as children from several schools in the city came to watch Peter and Wendy. This time I have to emphasize the wait until the doors to the theatre were opened. It was February and the temperature was below freezing. Ushers, teachers, and GAs kept circling and repeating: “Guys! Guys! One line please, one line! Hey you! Get in line.” Waiting outside in snowy weather was unpleasant. I found myself asking out loud: “Is this worth waiting for?” One girl answered: “No. I’m cold.” And another added: “Yeah, but at least we’re not at school!” The first girl said: “I’m not even interested in this babyish story” and the second responded: “Who cares about the play? All I know is I need to go to the bathroom!” There were about 450 children waiting outside; they had come from 5 different schools in the city. Outside in the cold, all 450 waited in an endless single file for one more busload of children to arrive. In the background the calls of the teachers, GAs, and ushers were heard: “Get in line! Back in line!” Twenty minutes of this pass. As it turned out, that particular school had cancelled the activity because they realized they would not be able to keep to the schedule and be back in time for lunch. There would be no bus arriving. It was 3 degrees below zero (centigrade), and the children were clinging to each other and the wall for warmth, restless and frozen. When the signal was given and the doors opened, the children marched in, and as one of them said: “Even my pee’s frozen, I’m so cold!” Helen, the educational director, was waiting to greet them at the entrance, but they were busy pushing and shoving as they tried to make their way into the heated auditorium. Next to Helen were piles of playbills and preparatory materials. She explained that she wasn’t going to distribute them at this point because they would quickly be transformed into paper airplanes that would litter the auditorium and serve no purpose. So instead, at the end of the performance, every teacher would receive a stack to take back and distribute at school. I wondered why all these well thought out materials hadn’t been sent to the school in advance. Perhaps they could have been used to conduct a preparatory activity? Or, perhaps, there is no real need for such materials, at all. As we entered the auditorium, the stage was open and visible to all; there was no screen or curtain. The auditorium filled with the sounds of preperformance conversations, which, as an actor once told me, sounds to the

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team backstage like “an attack of the Huns.” Helen came to the front of the stage and said: In the name of the theatre company and myself, we’d like to welcome you. We’re about to start, but first, I want to ask you to pay attention to the following things. How is the story told? Is there something different about the way they tell it? What’s special about this play? As Helen adds to this list of questions, I can feel my objection rising: “why are they doing this? Why not let the children succumb to the intoxicating experience and let their responses later be authentic, rather than pre-programmed? If the play really needs to be explained in advance, shouldn’t this be done earlier, at school? The true experience lies in the encounter with the art of theatre. Why is this experience belittled and transformed into a mediocre lesson, at best?” The play itself was visually stunning. The children were captured in its charm; they watched attentively and remained focused throughout the play. None of the adults had to exercise authority to keep them quiet. Then, at intermission time, Helen came on stage: “Now let’s do a few exercises, we’ll stretch our limbs, and in a few moments we’ll find out your answers to the questions I asked earlier.” The children stand up, stretch, some go to the lavatory. I hear some of their comments: “How did Wendy fly?” “That was so beautiful...” “I didn’t want...” Then, interrupting these spontaneous conversations, Helen “harasses” them with well formulated, teacher-like questions, such as: “So, what do you think was the role of the narrator in the play?” She conducts a ping-pong conversation and supplies reactions, such as “Lovely, that’s a nice answer.” “That’s right - exactly!” Her questions are about form and content, information, and clarification. I was impressed by her ability to “conduct” over 450 children, something a single teacher often has trouble doing in a classroom of 45 children, yet here she was, managing a full auditorium. Then I realized the auditorium was heavily “policed,” with ushers, teachers, and GAs standing at the end of every row, so that it became a regular classroom, enlarged tenfold: a wellmanned lesson. The format was familiar: question-answer, complimentary reaction, and again a hand went up, question-answer, etc. Why was it necessary? The play itself was powerful and fascinating. The puppeteers dressed in white and the overall visual play of black and white were enchanting. The children expressed their enthusiasm with shouts of “Wow!” and spontaneous applause as an acknowledgement of anything they found exciting. In contrast, the lesson being presented by Helen from the stage cast a layer of boredom over the entire experience. One child commented to her friend: “she’s such a bother!” After the play, another such discussion ensued, although some of the children had to leave because they came from a distant school and so if they

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stayed any longer they wouldn’t make it to lunchtime, an activity that seems to hold a sacred value in the American school culture. Only three classes remained for the post-play “conversation with the actors,” which was conducted much like the one described in the previous observation. It’s high time that we reconsider this formula. In countries all over the world, things are done in much the same way: the same format and the same reactions to the same activities. Isn’t it time that we release the children from the tyranny of the didactic pattern that has taken over art and let them enjoy the viewing experience without placing road signs that obstruct the process? The phenomenon of children attending theatre productions en masse is problematic because, among other things, the viewing experience gets steamrolled under repressive didactic endeavors that void the experience of a meaningful value or pleasure. Maybe the time has come to seriously think about freeing the child from the tyranny of going to the theatre en masse.

THE CASE OF KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, ANYBODY HOME? The Paper Bag Players The time: February 17, 2002, 3 p.m., 50 minutes (without an intermission) The place: The Kaye Playhouse. Manhattan, New York. Knock, Knock, Knock, Anybody Home? Written, Designed, and Directed by Judith Martin. Judith Martin, an original Paper Bag actress in 1958 and the artistic director since 1963, has devoted herself to the development of contemporary theatre for children. She has written, designed, choreographed, directed, and performed 34 Paper Bag Players shows. I chose to attend Judith Martin’s play in the hope of finding out the secret of the Paper Bag Players’ ability to continuously charm audiences for nearly half a century. When the troupe first began working together on children’s theatre productions in New York during the 1950s, their ticket was “simplicity.” Everything was made of paper. The idea that “any and every child can do this” is what made - and still makes - this troupe a theatrical success. It is interesting to note that the audience of children attending a Paper Bag Players’ production has no problem suspending its disbelief while a 50-or-so year-old actor plays a baby on stage. As for the adult actors, they clearly enjoy their roles. The troupe has always consisted of only four actors. I mention all this because the age of actors and stars is becoming increasingly significant in the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, in Judith Martin’s theatre, no one worries about age.

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Their work is based on improvisation, humor, and optimism. The events on stage are presented as episodes, in the style of “Sesame Street,” if you will. The auditorium was nearly full when I attended, with parents and children totaling about 200 people. The scenery was simple, made of paper, indeed, giving the impression that any child could have prepared it. The children in the audience were of ages 3-6. At times, the adults applauded and the children didn’t; at times, children laughed out loud while their parents sat silently. One of the actors addressed the audience: “I lost my mitten! Have you seen it?” The children shouted back, trying to direct him. In general, the performance tried to examine episodic scenes from everyday life, or topics that preschoolers may be involved in: online; the cookie store; shadow; dinosaur; lost and found, and more. According to Judith Martin, children do not need advance preparation to fulfill the future role of “adult audience”: what they need is to enjoy the experience, here and now; simple pleasure, which can be derived from the simple things, the episodes of daily life. I think Judith developed the “Seinfeld principle” long before it was introduced as a television sit-com for adults; that is, presenting irrelevant everyday occurrences as an artistic subject. Judith Martin, much like Seinfeld at a later date, understood the ingenuity of magnifying the mundane, observing the simple “incidents,” such as brushing teeth or wearing socks with holes, from up close, at an intimate distance. Both artists were able to see the humor in these episodes, to raise a smile and a wink, and especially optimism. In the audience, one grandfather has fallen asleep while the child seated in his lap remains attentive. One grandmother is shouting along with the children, helping the actor find his mitten. There is an unpretentious, warm and embracing atmosphere. Pretend play rules on the stage and among the audience alike. Therefore, there is no need for heavy and complicated scenery. If you need to add a tree, a fish, or a clock, you simply draw one, right in front of the audience. “That’s all it takes. Pretend. Anyone can.” After the performance, I met with Judith Martin at a small corner café nearby, to ask her about the play and her theatre. She said the children know that they are acting, that they’re not policemen, thieves, or Indians, and yet the children play along. She told me of a time she played a witch, and after the play a young child approached her and said: “Next time, be more evil.” Children can easily enter the fictional world, she claims. In her opinion, there is no difference between a child engaged in pretend play and a child watching a play. Both are capable of effortlessly entering and exiting the fictional world. Children understand the rules. Judith rejects the view that tragedy is a higher form of drama. She wants the children in her theatre to have fun, be amused, and laugh out loud. When they laugh she is happy. Hers represents a naive approach, full of human compassion and optimism.

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If we give children the freedom to think independently and encourage and develop their imaginations, we help them become confident. They should talk about a play the way they talk about a soccer game; the entire didactic endeavor is redundant. If children don’t understand something, she claims, they’ll ask; there’s no need to tease it out of them. All we have to do is stimulate their imaginations. I relate this experience here as an opportunity to reflect on how it contrasts with the other experiences described here, and in order to reclaim children’s lost dignity. Somehow, the older they get, the more we suspect that their capacity for understanding has diminished. In contrast to the ideology underlying Judith Martin’s theatre for children, which expects children to be active participants in the fictional world on the stage, it is common belief nowadays that older audiences need the play to be explained and processed for them, that they need us to provide the didactic keys that will open the gates to a deeper understanding, without which they are incapable of enjoying the play. This relates to our basic approach to the child as an individual and to the work of art he or she is viewing. Some of the principles that guide the Paper Bag Players Theatre are worth adopting: the principle of respecting the child’s intelligence; the non-didactic approach; a belief in the artistic theatrical performance as a medium that can stand on its own without the support of an accompanying “lesson,” that is, without the aid of “guiding discussions” either before or after the show; and finally, letting the children’s thoughts and imaginations run free.

CHILDREN’S THEATRE AND EDUCATION: CONFLICT OR HARMONY? Going to the theatre en masse, with an all student audience on a regular school day has the advantage of a social event. At times it can become a meeting of cultures or of socio-economically diverse groups. Thus an important statement is made by the educational system; it acknowledges the significance of theatre and of the event by allocating the time and resources for it. However, these advantages are nullified by the fact that no social interaction actually takes place between the children. They are marched in single file before and after the play, and they sit in pre-arranged pairs as they are bused back and forth. There is no real opportunity for social interaction to develop, not to mention the anonymity of being massed together with hundreds of other children. Even the time allotted for this activity is defined by the requirements of a mass lunch and the teachers’ schedules that oblige them to be on time for their other classes. At best, the experience of going to the theatre is remembered as a temporary release from the daily routine of

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school; at worst, there is the unpleasant necessity of waiting outside in the heat or cold, pushing, shoving, and tolerating boring discussions. Only infrequently does going to the theatre en masse become an artistic, theatrical experience. I will mention that these comments are limited to my observations and experiences in the U.S. and Israel, specifically, in Manhattan and Tel Aviv. In Israel, the experience of marching to the theatre en masse has been revamped recently. At a 1993 ASSITEJ (International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) conference, the chairperson at the time, the renowned Israeli actress and Israel Award recipient Gila Almagor, made the following remarks in her address: In recent years I’ve had the opportunity to participate in several children’s theatre productions, including a few classic Israeli plays, “All My Sons” and “The Summer of Avia.” I am an actress with much experience, and when I leave home I know I will face an encounter with the audience. Nonetheless, I do not find it worthwhile to leave home to go act in front of an audience of students. We are damning ourselves (excuse the expression) from the word “go”, because they tell me “Gila, talk to them before the show.” I said, “wait; give them some credit. Maybe they’ll behave?” But as soon as you arrive at the theatre you hear them screaming and shouting; it’s a jungle and it’s scary. As soon as the lights are dimmed they produce shrieking whistling sounds and pop their bubble-gum. Then I go on stage and ask: “Any volunteers? Here are four garbage bags.” Then the volunteers start picking up the litter. Who ever heard of such a thing? Then I say: “It is our main goal in life to come here and act in front of you, but we feel like you’re against us. We have to stand up here and defend ourselves.” In one performance, students threw something on to the stage. I asked Alex Peleg (a fellow actor): “Did you go on with the play? If I had been in the cast, I wouldn’t have continued.” And then I find myself in the role of teacher. The noise starts right from the beginning of the play, then we stop the performance, I come to the edge of the stage and say: “If you don’t quiet down…where are the teachers?” well two are here and two are out doing something else presumably better - with their free time. If I do address the teachers, they complain about me. No one knows what to do... I don’t want to be a teacher; I’m an actress. They used to bring the theatre to the schools, into the filthy gyms, and they’d say: “Children, today we’ll see a play presented by... I don’t know the actors or the troupe... it’s something about...” If you want children to see a play, make sure they go with adults who

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purchased the tickets at full price, so they won’t allow a sixteenyear-old hooligan to ruin the experience. There’s a significant difference between a mixed audience that includes students and a group of students massed together to form an audience. The latter is a disaster, a threat to the art of theatre, to the play, to culture in general, as it is an audience devoid of culture. A mob led en masse cannot be receptive to culture. (Gila Almagor, in Excerpts from a Conference titled “Acting for Children,” March 30, 1993, The Society for the Promotion of Theatre for Children and Youths, established by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Theatre Department of Tel Aviv University, pp. 39-40). Given that the live communication between the actors and the audience is a central element in the art of theatre, it may be expected that the “cry” sounded by actress Gila Almagor and cited here would find its way to the attentive ears of culture policy makers and those who adopted the formula of going to the theatre en masse. A child can attend a play and feel like she is in class, or she can attend a play and have an emotional experience. The theatre experience is context dependent, and the correct ongoing education can reverse the experience. It should be acknowledged that at this point, after fifteen years of Israel’s Ministry of Education’s activities via its “culture program,” a small shift can be noticed in children’s viewing habits. Although the intolerable behavior described by Gila Almagor still occurs, it does so less frequently. As I write this, another such event occurred at a play produced by the “Cameri Theatre” troupe, one of the seven largest repertory theatres in Israel: the play had to be halted due to an uncontrollable fight that erupted among a group of students. Clearly, the phenomenon still exists, but it appears to be diminishing. Nevertheless, if we understand that the art of theatre demands the active participation of and interaction between actors and audience, it becomes obvious that educating for theatre by viewing alone is insufficient; the root of the problem lies in the practice of sending a group of students to the theatre en masse. In other words, we must seek alternatives that would undo the package of 500 students led in twos or threes to the theatre, perhaps by giving them the ticket and allowing them to attend the play independently, as part of a mixed audience of theatregoers. This would enable them to go with a friend, during their free time, thus creating the appropriate social experience. Students should be given the opportunity to take responsibility for their behavior, and attending a theatre production as part of their personal schedule affords them just that. They should be encouraged to participate in the decision of which play to attend, and in preparing the discussion materials for class. The event could become a cultural project created with and by the students.

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The question raised above, “Children’s theatre and education - conflict or harmony?” is a matter of outlook. It encompasses issues of ideology, policy, and aesthetics. I have no doubt that the intentions behind the practice of attending the theatre en masse and conducting formulated discussions before, after, and as we have seen, occasionally during the play, were positive ones that stemmed from the search for a way to incorporate the theatrical experience as part of the process of socializing the students to the norms of Western culture. Yet I find it surprising that after all these years the pattern hasn’t been changed. Society has changed, children’s culture has changed, educational and pedagogic perspectives have shifted, yet the collective trip to the theatre under the guidance of a didactic framework has remained unchanged. My principle claim is that the theatre experience must be separated from its packaged presentation, which is pedagogical - at best, and didactic - at worse. We must seek alternatives to the practice of attending the theatre en masse. Young people should be given the opportunity to choose the play they wish to attend, and be allowed to do so on their own free time as part of a general theatre audience. In general, according to the approach espoused here, the artistic experience should speak for itself. Frequently attending high quality plays enables children to develop their own taste, knowledge, and sense of expertise based on their experiences, a process that may be accompanied by spontaneous conversations. This experiential process may then lead to personal creative initiatives instigated by a specific viewing experience. The theatrical experience must not be sacrificed on the altar of “motivating, (explanatory) discussions.” It is this pattern that creates a conflict between theatre and education, where there already exists a natural harmony, based on the inherent interconnectedness of theatre and education. Education and theatre are, by definition, intertwined in the single viewing experience. They do not require the services of a didactic mediator. A good play is educational, and a well-grounded education includes multiple viewing experiences in the theatre. The attempt to create a more intimate bond between theatre and education must prioritize the aspect of pleasure in the theatrical event. The communication between stage and young audiences should spring from the very essence of the aesthetic and artistic experience.

EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS: TEACHER AND STUDENT’S RESOURCE GUIDE As discussed previously, in some countries, field trips to the local theatre and follow-up sessions back at the school are part of the school’s required curricula. After the show, there are often a number of assignments such as

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“Describe your favorite moment in the play” or “Write a story about...” The idea of processing the play after viewing it, preparing for the viewing experience, or providing guidance during the play represent an approach that desires to control the way the artistic experience is processed. I use the word “control” because most often these processing activities are conducted quickly and superficially, with the intent to impart some knowledge or understanding about the play without which, so it is apparently conceived, the play will not be comprehended or the experience will remain incomplete. The brochures distributed by the production companies, the instant preparation materials, or the unprofessional follow-up activities prepared by theatre students or by the theatre’s “educational team” are most often intended for marketing purposes. There are many ways to prepare teacher and students’ resource guides, but actually, one common denominator they share is that they are both teacher - and child - proof materials. That is, the teacher’s resource guide is designed in a way that enables any teacher to apply its ideas in very simple ways. Although this may sound like an effective approach to creating educational materials that can be easily implemented, it nevertheless causes problems due to the superficiality of the lessons and misunderstandings regarding the basic elements of theatre as an art form. Thus, they are harmful in the long run. The main questions are: Do we really need this kind of intervention? What do these materials achieve? Occasionally the preparation of special material is warranted, such as when dealing with a special-needs population or the difficulty of a particular genre employed in a specific play, or even if we wish to use the theatrical experience to promote social, political, or moral ideas. However, such examples should be instances embedded in a broader approach to theatre education, part of a structured and ongoing endeavor, rather than sudden context-less gestures. Good educational materials are not easy to prepare: they require expertise not only in the particular discipline but also in how to teach it. Therefore they ought to be prepared by experts in the field whose work is guided by professional concerns and considerations If the idea of preparing materials is basically to help the theatre make its point, then we don’t need them at all. The theatre should speak to its audience through the medium of art. If the idea of preparing materials is essentially to help the teachers prepare the children for the play, whether to ensure that the children behave appropriately when they arrive at the theatre or to inform them in advance of what they will see on stage, this preparation requires another type of approach, which must be carefully planned so as not to undermine or interfere in the actual experience of viewing the play. However, if we consider the liaison between theatre and education to be obviously inherent, then there must be a way for children’s theatre companies

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and schools to cooperate, so as to help each other share their mutual goal of strengthening the impact of good theatre. In this context I would like to mention Tony Jackson’s edited book Learning through Theatre (1993) in which an attempt has been made to represent some of the developments in some countries in TIE (Theatre in Education) programs. Jackson is interested in the same questions but in the context of TIE: “Is TIE education or theatre or both? Does theatre make the education offered superficial, transitory, untrustworthy?” (p. 34). In the 1970s, the “pedagogue” was a recognized administrative position in most Eastern European children’s theatres, but it was only rarely found in the West. It was through the pedagogue that the Soviet government ensured the proper educational use of the theatre. We should be wary not to adopt the concept of the pedagogue: art must be free and the child must be free to use his or her imagination. I understand Jonathan Levy (1998), in his book - A Theatre of the Imagination: Reflections on Children and the Theatre, to recommend relying on aesthetics in theatre for young people. He wrote: “The impulse to create theatre for children is the impulse to give a gift, without strings. It is this impulse, I would suggest, we should call up and call upon when we find ourselves in the theatre tempted to teach” (p. 9). It seems clear to me that this is a call to liberate the art of children’s theatre from its didactic inclinations. He argues: “In short, when art is used to teach, either the teaching or the art must suffer. The didactic imagination and the artistic imagination work in different ways” (p. 8). I agree with Levy’s claims. In theatre for young people, we should focus on the aesthetics, and seek to develop children’s sphere of artistic imagination. Theatre for children should take many forms: aesthetic thinking should develop the attempts to find theatrical ingenuity, which will serve the imagination, not in didactic ways, but rather, in aesthetic ways.

EPILOGUE Since the era of Greek theatre when the theatre served as a religious and social place where thousands, entire families and generations, congregated to watch plays during festivals, the theatre has undergone several transformations in terms of its role in society. On one end of the spectrum we find Gogol’s statement that good theatre is likened to a public university for the masses, while at the other end is the view voiced by the cultural analyst Pierre Bourdieu, who considers theatre the highest of the arts and clearly, high forms of art are meant only for the elite. In fact, since the seventeenth century, only the culturally privileged have been able to attend the Theatre; however, in the second half of the twentieth century, the theatre as well as

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the other performance arts underwent a significant change and became more accessible to a wider range of the population. All over the world there are ongoing attempts, some more successful than others, to bring children and youth closer to the art of theatre; however, these attempts have not been extensively studied. This chapter aims to address this paucity and draw the attention of the various educational and cultural institutions to reexamine the artistic and educational concepts that underlie the phenomenon of taking children to the theatre en masse. Alternatives to the current practice should be devised so that the didactic packaging that encases the theatrical experience no longer jeopardizes the transformation that can result from a deep artistic experience. To understand why children are interested in works of art, the society of adults, artists and educators alike must consider how an individual sees himself and how he perceives the world around him. Art adds significance to our lives and to the world; it helps us organize our world. At the heart of the idea of creating an artistic experience is the desire to increase our pleasure. Exposure to art is the key ingredient to enabling an artistic experience. The ability to criticize and analyze this experience pertains to a different, cognitive field, which can be encouraged and systematically developed through various educational programs in schools; but it remains beyond the scope of this study. In Variations on a Blue Guitar, Maxine Greene (2001) articulates some principles that should guide us in developing an aesthetic of drama and theatre for young people: “For us, education signifies an initiation into new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, moving. It signifies the nurture of a special kind of reflectiveness and expressiveness, a reaching out for meanings, a learning to learn... Our core concern, of course, is with aesthetic education; but we do not regard aesthetic education as in any sense a fringe undertaking, a species of ‘frill’. We see it as integral to the development of persons - to their cognitive, perceptual, emotional, and imaginative development. We see it as part of the human effort (so often forgotten today) to seek a greater coherence in the world” (p. 7).

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Chapter #8 THE CULTURE OF SCHOOLS AND THE SCHOOL PLAY Social, Pedagogical and Artistic Dimensions

PROLOGUE Over the last few decades the cultural life of schools has been a topic of interest for educational researchers, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists. Significant research and influential discussions took place in the twentieth century and the issue of the cultural life of schools and the possibilities for change are still on the public agenda of any progressive country. In this chapter I deal with the cultural life of schools in order to explain the foundation upon which the concept of the school play was developed. This chapter diverges from the main idea of the book; i.e., professional adult actors performing for young audiences. However it is tidily connected with the previous chapters because it considers the same main themes, such as conventions and catharsis, criticism, pleasure that emerges from being involved in art, and theatre for young people as a school event. It focuses on clarifying the idea of actual or fictional education and it connects the ideas under discussions to the idea of the school play. Another unifying link between this chapter and the rest of the book is my intention to point out and elaborate upon the principles that connect education with theatre. The hope is that the young people’s experience in drama class and on the school stage may well lead to a deep and lasting source of enjoyment (Ommanney, 1960).The cultivation of the emotions, the demand for more self control, the ability to give and to accept criticism, the ability to develop norms of behaviors as conventions all are only some of the key elements that tie 169

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theatre to education. The issues in this chapter lead to analyzing performances of pupils guided by a team of teachers or other professionals, on national holidays, school holidays, and other events chosen by the school. I chose this subject because, I believe that the manner in which teachers work with their pupils on a school play has a crucial influence on their pupils’ appreciation of professional plays and affects their expectations and behavior as an audience. This chapter will not examine school plays from the perspective of “how to”, rather it will focus on the conceptual level and the significance of the play in the school environment where culture is created.

SETTING THE SCENE The concept of culture as a dynamic process is the underpinning of this chapter. Culture has been a subject of debate for many years. There is debate concerning negotiation of meaning and significant of symbols (Turner, 1974; 1983). There are numerous definitions cited in the literature, including a societal meaning in which culture serves as a medium for the cultivation of society and an anthropological perspective that views culture as a collective life. According to Clifford Geertz (1973), culture is, in essence, patterns of meaning passed on from generation to generation. The manner of expressing these patterns of meaning may be explicit (by use of symbols), or implicit (by use of beliefs that are accepted without question). Thus culture is a collection of suppositions and shared behavior within a particular group. The group utilizes these to define itself, and consequently, they shape and define the group in a cyclical manner. Culture is expressed through rituals, ceremonies, symbols, and imagery, all of which serve to reinforce and maintain each other. The culture of schools is conceptualized in various ways; climate, ethos, and oral tradition are some examples of these. Describing and analyzing school culture is a difficult task. We can, however, find work that succeeds in explaining this dimension of life in schools (such as: Jackson, 1968; Lieberman and Miller, 1984; Sarason, 1971; McLaren, 1984; Perkins, 1992; Eisner, 1998). Deal and Peterson (1990) presented school culture as comprising a deep sense of principles, faith and tradition, formed throughout the school’s history. Heckman (1993) claimed that the origins of such a culture stem from the shared beliefs of teachers, students, and principals. Taking the perspective of culture as collective life, Terrence (1995) claimed that schools operate more successfully when myths, faith and basic assumptions can freely express themselves in the form of ceremonies and artifacts.

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These interpretations reflect the urge to establish a more creative learning environment and focus on “core principles” required in order to teach young people. Life in school is organized according to an established pattern, or units of time, on a daily as well as a yearly basis. The school system is defined by means of specific tasks implemented on a general level of organization, on the level of organizing the classrooms, and organizing groups of learners. Hierarchical relationships between teachers and pupils along with a discipline and learning structure help characterize the school culture. It is possible, therefore, to define school culture as patterns of meaning passing down through generations: patterns that shape the thoughts and behavior both of teachers and pupils. Moreover, patterns of meaning construct social norms, values, beliefs, ceremonies, tradition and myths shared by the school community. To sum up this glimpse into an enormous and complex discussion about school culture, I would like to quote from Sergiovanni (1995): “School culture includes values, symbols, beliefs, and shared meanings of parents, students, teachers, and others conceived as a group or community. Culture governs what is of worth for this group and how members should think, feel, and behave. The “stuff” of culture includes a school’s customs and tradition; historical accounts, stated and unstated understandings, habits, norms, and expectations; common meanings; and shared assumptions. The more understood, accepted, and cohesive the culture of a school, the better able it is to move in concert toward ideals it holds and objectives it wishes to pursue” (p. 89). This is a broad definition that includes a vast range of ideas relating to what school culture comprises. It is possible to trace the culture of school via cultural indicators (as in stories or heroic characters). At times stories change, but the organized events (such as conventions, assemblies, the opening and closing of the school year, award ceremonies) are unchanging symbols. These traditional events are given more consideration in elementary school than in high school. Traditions such as these provide stability for the pupil. The internal rhythm of school life is partly determined by the tension created between the school year and school holidays. Events are usually celebrated in school prior to the start of the holiday. A part of the holiday experience relates to preparation for these related events. Ceremonies, schoolplays and various events in school are the artistic and historical realization of the potential for a school’s cultural life. School performances are a quest for the poetics of an internal cultural life and can serve as a catalyst for meaning in pupils’ lives. Under the right conditions the school play is a powerful device to empower school’s culture, but under the wrong conditions it can cause friction more quickly and more powerfully than almost any other activity (Courtney 1966, p. 5). The relationship between the cultures of

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schools and the school play pertains to the quality of life in schools. Therefore, I would like to examine the actual life in schools via metaphorical lenses and to understand the suitability of some of the metaphors when working on school performances. This discussion will bring us back to some of the main issues in this book: the option of catharsis with young people, the ways pupils perceive theatrical conventions, and ways of observing and behaving in theatrical performance.

ACTUAL OR FICTIONAL EDUCATION What is the contemporary reality in the majority of schools? Let us imagine that researchers from Mars sent a delegation to survey various phenomena on Earth. They land next to a school building and report seeing hundreds of small cloned creatures scurrying everywhere. They also note the presence of a fewer number of larger creatures. At times signals and sounds are heard. In response to these the creatures enter into cubicles, duplicate identical structures, until once again a signal is heard and there is an eruption from the smaller cubicles into larger open areas. The continuous crowding, inside, outside, is ongoing, an unexplained ritual. This is a paraphrase of the description in Sarason’s (1971) book, The Culture of School and the Problem of Change, in which he claims that the “stranger” observing the school perceives an extremely unflattering picture. Many other educational researchers and scholars who study twentieth century schools endorse Sarason’s view. Philip Jackson (1968) argued in his classic book, Life in Classrooms, that in most schools crowd, power, and assessment are the dominant feature of life in classrooms. If we build on this understanding, adding the dimension of permanence, we will have an experience that can be described as follows: A massive number of children enter permanently assigned classrooms with permanent teachers, permanent friends, and permanent curricula operated by these permanent teachers. Although numerous attempts have been made to search for innovations and changes within the educational systems, the culture of schools remained almost the same.

A METAPHORIC VIEW It seems to me that it would help us to understand modern day school reality and the formation of culture if we considered it as a metaphor. Our conceptual world is largely metaphorical (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and the use of metaphor is one way to reduce the complex to a more comprehensible

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state. Metaphors are created consciously or sub-consciously, and thus present new aspects of life. From the time of Aristotle until Richards, metaphor has been understood as the essence of the principle of analogy. Today’s modern rhetoric terminates the use of analogy and metaphor as logically valid theoretical phenomena (Rozik, 1981; Schonmann, 1995). The essence of metaphor, according to Lakoff and Johnson, is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (1980, p. 5). Further more, they claim that metaphors partially structure our everyday concepts and that this structure is reflected in our literal language (ibid., p. 46). Reliance on metaphor takes into account the limits of metaphor. The way it focuses the attention on specific elements while ignoring important others may distort the topic or the situation under discussion. Research done by Foshay in the 1980s took the approach that structural metaphors are grounded in systematic correlations within our experience. In order to explore this notion more thoroughly, I examine and respond to several of Foshay’s metaphors. The child as slave Foshay claims that those who perceive a child as a possession, a person devoid of rights, are those who also consider a child as a “tabula rasa”. In this respect, the child is considered a blank page upon which the teacher may write what he wishes. This philosophy, according to Foshay, positions the child as slave. Who among us does not respond negatively to this perception of the child? It seems inconceivable, abrasive, and violent. However, odd as it may sound, ponder for a moment the array of reinforcements a teacher gives a child. For example: “Wonderful, Dana, your writing is lovely”, “Very nice, Oliver, good answer”, “No, Valerie, you cannot continue”, and other positive or negative reactions such as these in effect create a pupil who is dependent on the teacher. A pupil needs to receive legitimacy for everything s/he does, thinks, or says: a pupil is conditioned via praise, or lack of praise as delegated by the teacher. From this perspective, a pupil metaphorically can be considered as a “slave”. Children tolerate this type of violence as part of “the education game” and, because they do acquiesce, they are thus “enslaved”. The child as enemy According to this metaphor the child is perceived as an enemy to be controlled. At first glance, this notion may seem far-fetched. Nowadays with the abundance of new and innovative methods of cooperation and teamwork, the needs of the children are at the center of the stage. How is it possible that such a description could exist? The response could be that it is not farfetched by any means. The most common expressions uttered by teachers in

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the teachers’ lounge include, “Today I controlled the class” or “Today I could not control them” or “I conquered their spirit”, or “That is the goal”, “That is the purpose”, “The strategy of lesson planning”, “My tactics in the lesson.” In many teaching seminars “innovative teaching strategies” and “tactics” are taught. With this particular conceptual vocabulary (control, conquer, tactics, and strategies) it seems as if there is almost no other reading but to understand the subliminal message: all is fair in war and one must survive at any cost. This, of course, leads pupils to lying, copying and other negative behavior. Thus, a culture of struggle is developing in which the way we speak affects our deeds (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). The child as a machine Foshay uses the child as machine metaphor in relation to the fact that a child in the contemporary educational system does not exist for him/herself, but rather is educated to do what is expected of him/her. It is possible to take Foshay’s claim to an extreme and say that a concept of “input and output” develops. In other words, a child’s response is programmed as s/he is expected to act in a certain situation. Programming a child’s response is the central idea in teaching strategies or learning tactics that relate to the educational product as expected and previously determined. The child as chameleon Foshay explains that like a chameleon that receives its color from its immediate environment, a child also has the ability to adapt himself and accept the controlling circumstances. In the 1980s, when I first read Foshay’s article, I thought to myself that this must be a highly unrealistic and imaginative metaphor. Today I believe that it is an accurate one. real. Consider a pupil who every forty five minutes needs to replace his/her “tape”, and shift from mathematics to language, or from geography to Talmud and also to replace “the teacher’s tape.” A pupil is forced to get into the habit of switching quickly and repeatedly from math, to physics, to literature, to recess, until he reaches a state of utter exhaustion. Naturally, this metaphor takes into consideration the fact that the child is able to suit him/herself quickly to new learning situations. The point to be grasped is that the child is sensitive to the many fluctuations within the learning environment and because s/he is unable to cope with the pressure and speed of these endless fluctuations s/he simply learns to protect him/herself and develops camouflage-type methods, like the chameleon does in its struggle to survive.

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The child as miniature adult This metaphor was common in the eighteenth century; yet according to Foshay, it has never truly been abandoned. Nowadays we use expressions such as: “A man never cries” or “Sit like a lady - not with your legs wide apart.” One could claim, like Foshay, that adults project their own perceptions and way of behavior onto children. The Wall by Pink Floyd In the cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd’s album, The Wall, metaphors describing educational situations go beyond imagination. Film themes derive from realistic constructs and via the editing process surrealistic images are created. Ideas are taken from reality and are woven with a carefully chosen style associated with metaphors creating a new reality and symbols, offering socially explicit maxims. The ideas are derived from the familiar elements of teachers, pupils, teachers’ lounges, classrooms and school bell. We see images such as the combination of clockwork systems, children as miniature adults dressed in suits and adorned with ties and top hats, cloned children marching in and out of classrooms, and a meat grinder (suggesting that education reduces children to minced meat). While these images flash we hear the song lyrics in the background, “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” I have already made the claim that one limitation of metaphors is focusing attention on specific elements of a phenomenon while ignoring others. As a result the general picture received is one of extreme exaggeration. However, a metaphor is perceived as characteristic of human thought and behavior. The picture does not reflect reality in a simple manner but rather aids in constructing judgmental attitudes in relation to the complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is being described. Metaphoric imagery is directly linked to the “actual” found in the field of education and it only strengthens understanding of the “desired” in education and the methods needed to obtain it.

THE QUESTION OF THE DESIRED EDUCATION The majority of the effort in educational reform has ultimately failed and it has been stated: The more things change, the more they stay the same. I am inclined to claim that we live in the shadow of Shakespeare whose character Jaques, in “As You Like It” states, All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. He specifies seven ages in the life of a person. The second age is:

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Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school. (Act 2, scene 7) I wonder why this boy has been creeping to school like a snail, unwillingly, for over four hundred years. Bearing in mind that schools today are very different from schools in Shakespeare’s day, how is it that we have not overcome that reluctance manifested by children who, centuries later, are still unwilling to go to school? Is it a “curse” that surrounds those involved in education? Like Highet, as early as 1951, as well as Elliot Eisner (2002) and Maxine Greene (2001), and others of our time, I believe that education has elements of art. A definition of education, according to Highet, follows: “Teaching is not like including a chemical reaction; it is much more like painting a picture or composing a piece of music, or on a lower level, like planting a garden or writing a friendly letter. You must throw your heart into it - you must realize that it cannot all be done by formulas, or you spoil your work, and your pupils, and yourself” (p. viii). It is possible to view schools as a textual site when creating a new internal syntactic entity. Transforming one’s emotional and conceptual viewpoint toward schools is the basis for all change. Perceiving school as a textual site, the learner can be exposed to various forms of knowledge, such as: moral, aesthetic, scientific, narrative, contemplation and phenomenological knowledge (Smith, 1991; Gordon, 1988). A person requires all types of knowledge in order to react with critical thinking to express his/her emotions. By means of various types of knowledge the learner develops greater conceptual awareness of his/her thoughts, emotions, and actions. Furthermore, s/he is in possession of the ability to experience events more fully and to enjoy them. Enjoyment, a long disregarded concept in education, must be restored to the center of educational thought and function. Education should be perceived as a process of exposing the student to knowledge in order to create knowledge-ability, thus achieving the enjoyment of knowing, creating wisdom.

STANDING TALL: SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AND THE QUESTION OF ITS HEALING POWERS Based on the metaphoric view and the question of the desired education that I have presented, I will now examine school performances in an attempt to understand the suitability of these notions when working on a school performance, making an effort to connect theatre to education, or when discussing issues in theatre for young people.

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There are many types of school plays. The following example is taken from the John Meltzer Charrette School in New York City where I was invited to see a performance on May 24, 2002. The name of the play was Standing Tall. It was created and written by Robert Landy, directed by Damaris Webb, and based on the stories and the work of Rachel Croyle’s fourth and fifth grade class. The playbill tells about Rachel: “She had been a classroom teacher for three days when she walked through the red doors of Public School (PS3) on the morning of September 11.” The Standing Tall Project was created to provide meaningful arts programs for schools identified as being the most directly affected by the events and the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Rachel Croyle explained that her work as a drama educator and therapist was about helping people tell their stories. Thirty-one fourth and fifth graders, from the school witnessed the terrifying attack on the World Trade Center outside their classroom window on their fourth day of school. The project, Standing Tall, was intended as a response to this. The goal of the project was to help restore a sense of balance to the children’s life and to discover a way to transform their fear into hope via the healing power of storytelling and drama. Damaris Webb was an experienced teacher who had directed children in various schools throughout the US. He believed Standing Tall to be an opportunity to collaborate with a group of young people on an exciting original production. The developmental stage included guided storytelling and composition work through games and role playing; activities that provided the material from which Robert Landy wrote the script. Landy, a professor of Educational Theatre and Drama Therapy at New York University, is best known for the books, articles and plays in the fields of educational drama, theatre, drama therapy, and various related topics. Through the sponsorship of The New York Times Foundation Scholl Arts Rescue Initiative and City Lights Youth Theatre, a creative process was designed around the idea of Standing Tall. The adults in the program confronted the question: In what way would drama aid in dealing with the fear and the anger the children had experienced? The play was designed in episodes. The first presented Osama Bin Laden; the idea was to demystify the man. Then came a piece about heroes. They were the simple people in the streets, the firemen, and the policemen. The scenes were very life like and true to the way the children originally told their stories. Thirty-one children were on the stage for approximately forty minutes, relating, singing, and presenting their experiences. An adult teacher was on the stage with them, acting along in his role as narrator. I thought it was wonderful that an adult took part on stage, as the play dealt with frightening reality and was full of recent hard memories. An adult on stage was a kind of support.

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After the play ended, Robert Landy thanked the teacher and the children. He named every single child by name, which I thought was a warm tribute. Each child received a rose from the teacher and there was a spirit of goodness, a friendly atmosphere in the air. Landy explained that the performance was not the important thing - the significance lay in the process the children underwent. Later, Landy began to talk to the children and in that conversation, after the play, I suddenly understood something that I had felt while observing the performance but could not express earlier. In the discussion the children were lively and natural. They were emotional and appealing. They spoke from their hearts; whereas in the play they had merely uttered the words that were written for them in the script. On stage they were like “miniature adults” who had to justify the adults’ expectations for a good performance, they were acting like “machines”. However, during the discussion they were lucid, speaking clearly and coherently. To the question: “How you could learn such a long monologue by heart?” came the simple and honest answer: “I had to: it was homework”. To the question: “How did you agree to play Osama Bin Laden?” the answer was: “I did not want to, but I was convinced by the teacher who promised me another good part as well.” Slowly, through the course of the discussion, I realized that the event of a school play failed to achieve the joyfulness expected in being involved in a creative process. It is one thing to work with children with the help of art, in this case with theatre for therapeutic purposes, and it is something else to work on a performance as a school play intended to be performed before audiences from outside the school. The children did not “play” their roles; they merely recited the words that were modified for them. Like “chameleons”, to use one of Foshay’s metaphors, they were able to change roles, attitudes, and mood as they were trained to do. The fact that the play was recorded by a TV crew gave the performance predominance over the process, and it is perhaps only one more attribute of the adults’ will, to show publicly the result of the hard work. Landy himself asserted that the process that these children underwent was the important thing. It should have remained so, behind the curtain, far from the public eye. When a school play is made for therapeutic purposes it should remain in the private yard of the children rather than be placed in the public eye, forcing children to activate “machine” like behavior or “chameleon” maneuvers. Through the process they could gain a basic understanding how theatre operates. Desirable aims were also addressed by the very fact that they could play with the conventions of “as if,” being Osama Bin Laden, the fact that they could play the terrorists and not only the victims, and that a thorough catharsis could be achieved under the guidance of an expert psycho-dramatist such as Landy. The desired goals here did not demand public performance. The performance open to the public (other than parents

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and school friends) requires other qualities that should be separated from the therapy of the theatrical work that was designed to alleviate the emotional stress of 9/11.

THE PROBLEMATIC STATUS OF SCHOOL PERFORMANCES Some specific concerns regarding school performances have been discussed. There are also more broad, general concerns. We should ask ourselves: Are school performances a proper way to achieve cultural identification or, conversely, are they the cause for cultural estrangement? Further more, in what ways school performances can cultivate the love for theatre and the development of mutual relation between theatre and education? The laboratory for research in drama/ theatre education of Haifa University conducted an analysis of 52 questionnaires completed by teachers from eight schools (elementary, junior and senior high schools) in various cities in Israel. The analysis indicates that most of the teachers (84.6%) participated in one stage or another of the preparation of a school play. A large majority of them (78.8%) declared that there was no need for authorization from the principal regarding the contents of the performances. Moreover, the performance itself needed no authorization for the pattern of celebration. This implies that the teachers who organize are usually free to carry out their plans as they desire. The criteria guiding the teachers include: personal taste, common sense, previous personal experience, intuition, ideas from experienced teachers, and school tradition. Apparently, the majority of teachers (80.7%) received no training to prepare a school play. Some teachers (44.2%) claimed that it was wrong to include all the teachers in such an undertaking as preparing an important event should not fall into inexperienced hands. Furthermore, some may have harbored hostile feelings in regard to the project, which was not in their field of expertise. These teachers claimed they did not enjoy working on performances, but since these were a requirement of the school they accepted the responsibility against their wishes. Interestingly, other teachers (32.6%) claimed that the same conditions applied to them, but since they ultimately had no choice they accepted the fact that every teacher was obligated to prepare a performance or ceremony at one time or another even though s/he was not fully qualified to do so. In their view, participation on the teacher’s part was an integral element in the process of establishing the culture of the school. Teachers regard the issue of sharing equally with other teachers in the burden of carrying out the production of a school play as more important

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than achieving artistic and aesthetic quality in the performance. According to the majority, enjoyment is a function directly connected to process of participation in preparing the event and is perceived as a perquisite for cultivating culture in school. Typically (92.3%) there is no financial or other reward for a teacher responsible for the school play. The Ministry of Education and the school management consider preparing such performances to be an expected part of a teacher’s responsibility. Even though this is to the dismay of many, teachers consent to what is demanded from them and apply themselves as best they can to preparing the play. Teachers are aware that they can find a reservoir of plans for ceremonies and scripts for school plays done in the past. However, most teachers choose to create a plan of their own rather than rely on one produced earlier, suggesting that in spite of the difficulties they perceive their task as a challenge. Many of the teachers (53.8%) stated that the pupils who would participate in an event are chosen according to strict criteria: acting skills, dancing ability, and singing talent, self-assurance and the ability to feel comfortable performing in front of an audience, the ability to express oneself well and use good diction, good vocal ability, and demonstrate a serious attitude toward the role received. Only a small number of teachers (8.2%) made it clear that the choice of pupils who would participate depended on the desire for weaker pupils to take part as well, allowing them a chance to publicly identify with the school events and by so doing receive necessary and fitting recognition from other pupils and teachers. Most teachers (96.15%) remarked that the artistic-aesthetic experience was at the core of the performance and was largely responsible for preserving the memory of the event in the future. However, as previously stated, some teachers were concerned about the possible damage to the artistic-aesthetic component by offering roles to weaker pupils in order to help them attain a more positive status in the culture of the school. The content and symbolism of the event are expressed in decorations in the classroom, hallway, and other areas of the school building. Additional decorations that usually appear and are vital in elementary schools include: posters, accessories depicting a festive atmosphere, pupils’ arts and craftwork, and special bulletin boards. In junior high school these decorations are not as predominant, and they virtually disappear in senior high school. However, it is interesting to note that there is no decline in the attitude toward the school play, especially if the play is connected to pupils in the drama program. School plays receive special status and the pupils acting in them are paid more attention, similar to those participating in the school’s sports team. The role of the school performance in school life is highly appreciated, whereas the status of the arts in schools’ curricula is marginal.

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Theatre as an art discipline is still peripheral to the core academic curriculum, yet, as Bresler, Wasser, & Hertzog (1997) claim: “the major moments at which the entire school comes together as a whole (including such instances as holiday programmes, presentations of ‘other culture’, sport or for recognition of academic honours, and assemblies on drug awareness), often feature performances of the arts” (p.88). School performance as a meaningful aspect of “the actual” of school life should be explored not only via the lenses of cultural life at schools but also via the personal experiences of students. The survey research mentioned above found contrasts between the teachers and their pupils in terms of perceptions of and interests in the school play. Whereas the teachers and the alumni view the school play as being the cornerstone of the cultural fabric of the school, today’s pupils, especially the younger ones, tend to emphasize only the personal experience of being involved in the school play and how it impacts their social image. According to the teachers, the symbols of each event and ceremony have a unifying effect and safeguard the culture of the school, which is a means for identifying with the past and paves the way for desired participation in the future. When clarifying complex questions such as the relationship between ideological considerations, pedagogical and aesthetic value, the place of the pupil in a school play, and how to choose texts, the teachers expressed confusion and stress. Evidently, a teacher desires to do what is required of him/her and even more so “desires to get it over with”. Thus, a teacher will not invest serious thought in providing answers to such questions. The process of organizing an event is limited by constraints that simultaneously can spoil the preparation process and ruin the pleasure of the event. The rehearsals are time-consuming and are held during regular school hours. This arrangement causes pupils to “miss” lessons. Teachers who are not included in the preparations are annoyed by the fact that their lessons are “ruined” because the pupils are taken out of class for rehearsals and lessons are subsequently cancelled. The process of preparing for a school play occurs amidst continual struggle and pressure, and often more severe incidents occur between the teachers and pupils and others involved. Video film taken during this research testifies to the fact that there are numerous incidents of considerable anger and reprimands of the pupil’s behavior resulting in punishment. In addition, the lack of financial support from school management exacerbates the many existing problems. It is extremely difficult to acquire various accessories, props, proper lighting, and audio equipment due to the lack of a reasonable budget. Technical and logistical constraints are an added problem. Most schools do not have an auditorium and as a result the gymnasium or schoolyard becomes the location for the play; such places are

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usually unsuitable. Problems regarding professional amplification systems, proper stage arrangements, and suitable seating are additional difficulties that require the kind of sizeable budget that typically is not available. Teachers claim that the tradition of an annual celebration results in recurring problems. The teacher is forced into “a war of demands” to obtain minimal success for the play, resulting in physical and mental exhaustion. Out of frustration the teacher eventually declares never to take part in a play in the future, even though s/he recognizes its worth. Organized schools enable their teachers to prepare properly during the summer holiday when they have the proper amount of time to choose a show and to delegate tasks. This allows for advanced planning when choosing the production staff, including the arts and crafts teacher and the music teacher. However, even this plan has its faults. Many problems that arise are due to a lack of clear guidelines aiding the inexperienced teachers. A teacher who receives a certain task may not come from the theatre world and may have no related professional knowledge. Early preparations can alleviate the above mentioned problems; unfortunately they cannot eradicate them.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE The meaning of the school festivity, ceremony, or play was not contingent upon the content of any performance but rather on the finished product as an experience of success or failure. Several phrases often recurred, such as: “I liked the play very much because the pupils did not make mistakes and they danced and sang nicely”; “The pupils did not know how to sing and you could hear only their teacher singing and we all laughed at the mess”; “It was a ceremony my class produced and I didn’t like it because everyone read from notes instead of memorizing their lines”; “I don’t like participating because I hate audiences. Everyone looks at me and if I make a mistake they laugh and I don’t like reading from notes. And if I don’t participate then I feel uncomfortable being left out.” Thus, pupils perceive such events, especially the play, as an outlet for social and personal expression that provides rhythm, color, and tone to the routine of school life. However, older traditions hardly play a part in the pupil’s consciousness when compared to the “new traditions” created by producing a play. Everything is channeled into a personal perspective with almost no relationship to the tradition. The act of participating in the play was their focus; not the meaning of celebrating the holiday in itself. In other words, participating in a soccer game or basketball game could be the equivalent to a school play. The attempt to create “invited tradition” (Hobsbawm, 1983) via active and aggressive school policy harbored the opposite result. Rather

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than identifying with the past, students become more estranged from the heritage. Things that you see as alumnus you don’t see as a pupil It was possible to identify four typical reactions of the alumni that were distinct from those of the pupils: The Evader - “I didn’t like school, I don’t really remember the ceremonies and plays, and I might have cut school at those times. The shows never interested me.” The Enthusiast - “The Feast of Weeks” ceremony, actually, has always impressed me ever since I was a small child. There were always beautiful decorations. The wheat fields, when Ruth gathered the sheaves, and sang and then Boaz came to her. It was so exciting”; “I loved Chanukah so much. I would always volunteer to help and the celebration was always successful and Hannah’s monologue always thrilled me.” The Ideologist - “Ceremonies symbolize rites of passage in life and it is imperative to celebrate them. Even today, when I participate in a military graduation ceremony or Memorial Day service I recall the ceremonies from my school days.” And, “Ceremonies and holidays are extremely important and each individual absorbs something from them.” The Infuriated - “I carry so many negative memories from holidays and ceremonies in school that I don’t even want to recall them.” “I didn’t like performing but I had a nice voice and always had to give in and read some passage from the Bible. Until this very day, I get a stomachache if I think of those days. Today, when I think of it, I really and truly consider it as a form of abuse.” “I don’t remember the content or even what they forced us to do or what we chose to do. I just remember unknown adults everywhere and it was rather frightening.” In spite of the various attitudes of the graduates, it can be said that the majority of memories reveal certain deep personal experiences, some positive some negative, regarding the social aspects concerning a play. In particular, memories that lasted included: which pupil received the leading part and why; who danced with whom; who acted, who wrote the play, and which teachers made sure that they had no responsibilities or which received a “bonus” in lessons. The alumni perceived the act of participating in a play to be important on both a social and personal level. They were able to provide many suggestions as to how to change the quality of the performances and the atmosphere: “It is important for the pupils to be able to plan and produce a show on their own. They must be active partners. It is important that they do not feel forced on to the stage. Furthermore, it is important that pupils genuinely want to perform on stage, reciting, dancing, and singing.” “It is important that the pupils write scripts.” Memories of the events function on ”

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the level of a personal memory rather than one related to cultural collective symbols. As one graduate stated: “The excitement furnished all the functions. We never related to the content.” The more dominant memories were of a personal nature: “The leading roles were always given to the outstanding pupils and that made me angry”. A different but more tolerant response to the same incident is explained as follows: “Naturally, the involved, active, and outstanding pupils were usually chosen” or “If the entire class didn’t participate then the pupils who read well were chosen. Those who were talented were chosen and of course those were the same pupils who were popular and did what they wanted.” “The good pupils were usually chosen. What did the weaker ones do? Nothing. They had very small parts that were delivered in chorus.” These memories correspond to the response from the questionnaires given to teachers about their criteria when choosing pupils to participate in performances. One former pupil stated: “Celebrating the entire event in school should be significant for the pupils and leave them with the memory of a beautiful experience.” Another response was: “The holiday should instill principles and not punishments.” We learned that the practice of punishment was engrained in the preparation process. The teacher must cope with numerous pupils in a short period while under enormous pressure. More than once, teachers find themselves yelling and punishing pupils in order to “get it over with.” Ex-pupils had hoped for “the play to generate interest and challenge rather than obligation laced with sanctions.” This frustrating predicament is at the foundation of their memories. Nevertheless, emerging from some internal consciousness regarding the significance of observing holidays and symbols as being the cornerstone of an individual’s cultural identity, they expressed the need to continue to find ways of doing the performances properly. According to them, “invited tradition” should be of a kind that creates identity with social values and not one that generates estrangement. It became clear that on the overt statement level the attitude toward ceremonies and holidays is guided by the significance of cultural principles, preserving traditional values, and expressions of patriotism and unity. Everyone is convinced that celebrations are necessary. In practice, however, the main emphasis is on organization, budget constraints, and solving problems of casting. Thus, there is tension between the ‘necessity’ to maintain the tradition of holidays and ceremonies and to endow them with value, and the ‘active efforts’ that focus upon the organization and performance alone. The emphasis is usually on shows that are produced with the sole intention of making an impression. The lack of identification with traditional festival content, the numerous constraints that limit the school, and the lack of professionalism of the teachers in charge are what cause the

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diminished meaning and value of festivals as a cultural positive experience. All too often, festive events are celebrated at schools in a way that increases the sense of cultural estrangement. Ceremonies and holidays are a central part of human culture, developed over generations, infusing religious and historical experience: in their essence they present the focus for a heightened cultural identification and are an expression of unity and belonging. However, at this stage of my understanding I have come to the conclusion that celebrating at schools is many times not “essence” but becomes a decorative “frill”.

THE JOYFULNESS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A SCHOOL PLAY In the 1950s, Leah Goldberg (1952) described her experience watching an end-of-year school play. She wrote about the children, ten years of age, who participated in a school play. They spoke the text clearly, joyfully, and were overcome with laughter and enjoyment at each joke. Friends of their age in the audience joined in the laughter, which did not disturb the show but rather added to it. Goldberg spoke with the pupils after the show. They were excited and happy as they described their delight. Laughter was still in the air hours after the show had ended. This, Leah Goldberg maintains, could not happen if professional actors performed. She also claimed that the familiarity of the pupils with the collective effort created a festive atmosphere that could not have been achieved if the show had been performed by professionals. Leah Goldberg’s opinion directs attention to the point that pupils enjoy taking an active part in performances and the boundary between acting and real-life is one that pupils, at times, do not always choose to notice. The pupils performed “Cinderella.” In fact, they wrote the script according to the fairytale, painted the scenery, designed the costumes, directed, and acted. The performance ended with Cinderella’s wedding reception: a banquet that included a long table filled with a variety of food. Some pupils who played the role of mice, a cat, and a dog (characters in the fairytale) sat under the table during the feast and some children who played the human roles sat around the table and gave the animals goodies to eat under the table. In this manner, the boundaries between acting and life fused, and life continued to be a game that no pupil wanted to stop playing. Another example of how the school play is rooted in the culture of school and how it is a joyful experience is taken from kibbutz schools in Israel. Nancy Peled (1995) reported on her experiences as a kibbutz member and a

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school play director: “On my kibbutz, and this is true for all the kibbutzim, according to guidelines set down when the schools were established, it is school tradition that both Grade six and Grade twelfth present graduation plays as going-way “gifts” to their respective schools. This tradition is selfperpetuating. Every child from the first grade onwards knows that at the end of the sixth grade his class will present a play to the entire school, staff and students, as well as to parents and relatives, and the same applies to the high school students. There is a great deal of prestige associated with these productions, particularly the twelfth grade production which has, on occasion, presented amateur theatre of a very high caliber. However, only the pupils of Grade six or the Grade twelve class will participate in these productions, and efforts will be made to find a role, on or offstage, for every member of the class, including children with special needs so they too may be part of the group” (ibid., p. 4). This experience emerges from the kibbutz school ideology according to which every child will take part and no child will be ‘left behind’; it is a significantly different framework from that with “open auditions” for the entire pupil population. A great deal of tact and respect is necessary for the pupil who is performing, for the pupil who contributes to the overall success of the play, as well as those pupils who are observers only (Schonmann, 1996). Tact and respect are elements that are always necessary when working with pupils; however, in school plays this is even more so as there is always the fear of losing the spontaneity and pleasure in performing due to feeling threatened by appearing on stage. In his foreword to Courtney’s book, The School Play (1966), Wilson Knight claimed that with the revival of the theatre in the late nineteenth century the tradition of the school play was reborn and has continued to the present day (ibid., p. ix). Although the phrase “the present day” then referred to the 1960s, we can claim without a doubt that the phenomenon of the school play has continued to remain relevant throughout the world. Courtney thought that a school play’s primary purpose was not to serve the audience; the primary purpose was the development of the personalities engaged (ibid., p. vii). Walking the fine line between the needs of the pupils and the demands of the theatre is very difficult. There is no unique nature to a school play and, as seen from the examples above, they may vary greatly according to the approach of a particular school, the context in which the children live, whether or not theatre is included in the school curriculum and, basically, whether there is among the teachers a colleague who is “obsessed with theatre”. The notion that drama is an inherent part of the school curriculum emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s from the English tradition (Way, 1967; Slade, 1954/1973) and spread widely to the U.S., Canada, Australia,

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and many other countries. In this context, the school play has a positive place in working with the pupils. Under these conditions, everyone benefits: the children, the culture and prestige of the school, the teachers and the parents can also enjoy a sense of satisfaction. It is in this context that a clear point has to be made: drama studied in classrooms is different from drama intended for a school play. It is not only the process versus product that it is at stake, but as Barnfield noted (1968): “No child should be forced to appear in a school production…the school play production, which should be looked upon as theatre, must come from the genuine, free interest of teacher and student alike. It should be a natural development of enthusiasm” (p. 198). We can clearly see the warning signs in the experiences described in this chapter. There are, of yet, no clear rules of conduct on how to approach the school play in a manner beneficial to the children and the culture of the school. Advantages claimed for the school play include the following: “Interdisciplinary co-operation”; “Contact with parents and other children” (Seely, p. 103); or: “Demonstrating the creative life of the school”; “The school play can intrigue every part of the school life as no one other activity can” (Courtney, p. 1 and 5), or: “Heightens the group’s sense of responsibility and all that entails, both individually and collectively” (ibid.). For example, a student who had not learned his lines by the requested date created problems during rehearsals for those who had. This afforded them a sense of the demands of “real life”, which is appropriate for pupils in the transition between adolescence and adulthood” (Peled, 1995, p. 5). All these and similar assertions are essential in creating the foundation for the theatrical experience of the school play. Yet it is not enough to stress the social and the pedagogical dimensions. In order for the school play to be a crucial component in the cultural life of the school and in exposing children to the theatre as an art form, it should find ways to create what Bresler (2002) calls “child art” within “school art.” In the next section I will further explore these types of art and how the school play fits within them.

A SCHOOL PLAY AS A FORM OF SCHOOL ART Bresler (2002) examined arts in schools and came to define school art as a hybrid genre. She asserts that school art differs significantly from art found in what she calls “non-school locations that provide different circumstances and conditions for the production and appreciation of art. Thus, school art is a blend of educational and artistic expectations, where the agenda of schools and their expectations seems to be dominant” (p. 182). What I found most interesting in her work is the theoretical differentiation between four art

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types in school culture: child craft, child art, fine art and art for children. Bresler concludes, “All types ended up emphasizing socialization into following directions and routinized processes and products, rather than leading towards moments of insight and intensification. With a few exceptions, none of the school art types exemplified creativity, ownership and caring” (p. 182). According to Bresler’s definitions, a form of art that fits mainly within the type of “child art” places children “in the role of the artist, emphasizing children’s engagement, exploration and personal meaning-making, assuming their inner wisdom and natural curiosity (ibid., pp. 181-182). Although Bresler meant only in the context of visual art, her perception can help in making logical implications to a school play. The main idea developed in this chapter goes hand in hand with her findings. We can conclude that in order to develop the artistic phenomenon of the school play as having a central role in the culture of the schools and in enhancing the children’s ability to enjoy theatre performances out of school, it is necessary to empower the school arts with intellectual and creative ways of working while increasing the students ownership of their work and supplying them with adequate time to develop real processes. In this respect, drama/theatre education can play a central role. When drama-theatre educators meet they engage in extensive discussion, usually exchanging experiences and successful strategies. Quite some time may pass before they realize that their concepts of drama education differ considerably. These range from completely spontaneous activities, i.e., improvisational exercises, to very carefully planned work, i.e., staging written scripts. In clarifying what is meant by the term “drama/theatre education” we need to further differentiate between education for theatre and education through theatre. Education for theatre refers to the theatrical medium as an art form. As a purpose in itself, it functions as “master”. Education through theatre refers mainly to theatre as a means to achieve educational objectives, such as improving learning skills, social skills and one’s self-image. In this respect, it functions as “servant”, helping individuals to improve in areas that are external to the artistic-aesthetic medium (Schonmann, 2000). The current debate of learning through the arts as opposed to learning art forms for their own sake is a particularly contentious one for drama/theatre education. I agree with Best (1996) who claims that it is difficult to understand why it is assumed that we have to choose between them. As clearly demonstrated in the case of schools’ plays, the options are essentially complementary. Three main interrelated orientations in the field of drama/theatre education will

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bring us to the core understanding of drama-life connections: the artisticaesthetic, the pedagogical-educational, and the sociological-cultural. The Artistic-Aesthetic In this respect, theatre is an art form that addresses the senses and awareness of the individual. It has a language of its own. Participating in drama/theatre is learning to use this language, and achieving new modes of communication. “We know more than we can tell”, Polanyi says, and leads us to question how can we tell when experience is dramatic and when it is not. Therein lies the challenge of dramatic art. In theatre we seek to communicate what we know but cannot say, namely deep structures of knowledge. One of these is the aesthetic mode of knowing, which as Eisner (1985) explains is “Motivated by our own need to give order to our world. To form is to confer order. To confer aesthetic order upon our world is to make that world hang together to fit, to feel right, to put things in balance, to create harmony” (p. 29). This aesthetic stand should be at the core of our work with children in schools. It is the gate through which the children would be able to gain access and appreciation to art outside schools, in this case the art of theatre for young people. The Pedagogical-Educational Which forms of theatre can be suitably taught within the classroom? What constitutes an appropriate pedagogy to teach students about theatre in a practical way? To answer questions such as these raised by Cooper (1996), it is necessary to create a pedagogical environment that is safe and controlled, enabling students to develop an identity with characters and situations. In a climate free of fear and embarrassment, students must be allowed to develop their self-identity, strengthen their self-image, build their self-confidence, and share their emotions. The Sociological-Cultural: Is this drama, social studies, or something else? This is a frequently asked question in drama/theatre when we are faced with social and political controversies. The answer is to be found in the assumption that drama is a social art form. Drama/theatre, by its very nature, demands meaning-making for individuals and for society. The most salient issues related to the sociological-cultural orientation are topics such as: Education for Life in a Multicultural Society, Involvement in Current Political Events, Gender Issues and Value-Based Education.

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The concepts in the field of theatre education are diverse, unconventional, and tend to be ambiguous; therefore they may be potentially threatening to those who want to integrate drama/theatre into the school curriculum. But once it is recognized that theatre as an art form holds a valid cultural position in society, it can add richness and diversity to the school environment rather than being viewed as a potentially threatening element. The school play as a form of school art should incorporate the three dimensions presented above.

EPILOGUE There is no need to generalize the type of productions seen in schools. Rather, there is a need to recognize that the various options are good opportunities for increasing knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon of perception, involvement, and participation for young people in an art form. Producing a school play exposes pupils to production elements and serves as a vehicle for appreciation of other aspects of theatre as well. The terms that we use in the area of children’s theatre drama education include among others: children’s drama, creative drama, process drama, applied drama, children’s theatre, puppet theatre, recreational theatre, playmaking, story dramatization, educational dramatics, dramatherapy, developmental theatre, theatre for peace. All may be found in the literature of the field. The term theatre arts is an umbrella term that covers entities such as: imagination, technical ability, conveying verbal content, body movements, stage lighting and stage music. The school play is a term for working within these different styles in drama education and it is based on the theatre arts. Bresler et al (1997) argue that the lack of explicit and implicit guidance on how to “see” theatre “contributes to the student’s difficulties in gleaning meaning from the performance” (p. 102). There is an understanding that in being involved in a school would be able to learn the interplay between form and content, the child would play production the child be attuned to theatrical conventions and their essence, and the child would appreciate what makes a “good” audience and what makes a “good” theatre, the value of applause, and other sorts of appreciation. The school play, when it rises above “frill” and mere “showing off” and gets to the essence of artistic experience, could bring pleasure to children’s life and enable them to participate in building the culture of their schools. I have no illusions and do not believe that we will easily succeed in transforming the tears of

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Shakespeare’s unhappy schoolboy who has been crying on his way to school now for some four hundred years, into tears of joy. However, I do wish that, rather than avoiding our own sensitivity and responsibility, we would embark on a journey toward understanding the meaning of the tears. As a wise man said to his young grandchild: “Remember that the soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.” Our schools should search for that rainbow.

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Chapter #9 POLITICS AND AESTHETICS IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN ISRAEL A Concise View

PROLOGUE Theatre as a Medium for children and young people: Images and Observations has emerged from my interest in the theatre education world in general and the theatre for young people (TYP) in particular. The drive behind the work is the Israeli arena, which served as my intriguing power for the journey into the dual territory of educational and theatrical settings. I believe that readers will be interested in a concise view of what is happening in the theatre for young people in Israel today and how its politics and aesthetics can be explained against the background of a general understanding that has emerged during the writing of this book. This last chapter of the book aims to revisit the major ideas that were already developed in the various chapters of the book, but this time there is a focus on one local case in order to highlight issues and shed colorful light on some of the questions that I have been struggling with. Furthermore, bringing out what is unique to TYP in Israel is an opportunity to look into the question of politics and aesthetics in the context of the relationship between centralistic educational system and the theatrical options for young people.

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SETTING THE SCENE Looking at the figures, we learn that Israel in the year 2005 has a body of 1.3 million Jewish and Arab school-children from kindergarten to high school. About half of these children are exposed to two or three theatrical plays each year, with the financial support of The Basket of Culture, operating nation-wide (as will be explained later). The other half has not yet been exposed to such experiences, primarily due to teachers’ and principals’ lack of awareness, or their preference to use school budgets for other educational initiatives such as computers, biology or communication labs. For a country with six and a half million inhabitants, both Jewish and Arab, Israel is significantly ahead of many other states around the world in encouraging their youngest pupils to be theatre-goers. The country is home to seven repertoire Theatres for adults. Some plays from their repertoire are appropriate for adolescents, unfortunately, they seldom take the opportunity to produce Youth and Children’s plays. There is only one National Theatre for Children and Youth; it was established in 1970. Alongside this, however, dozens of theatre companies have sprung up over the past three decades, with hundreds of productions, some enjoying limited state support. For over a decade, as many as twenty new productions compete each month for the right to perform on the stages of youth and children’s theatres in Israel. When the selection process, overseen by a professional state repertoire committee, draws to a close, some 90 to 100 new productions, considered suitable, are presented to audiences each season. Given such an abundance of productions and large audiences, would it be accurate to say that Theatre for Young People in Israel is booming? Can we take pride in children’s theatre plays as cultural and spiritual events? Are there interesting themes, ample complexity, aesthetics and poetry? Is Israel’s theatre for a young people a valued theatre? Within the growing number of these productions, there certainly are some of poor quality; there are, however, also some of exceptional quality. A characteristic feature of the Israeli children’s theatre is the wide gap between the many productions, which makes the activities of the Ministry of Education’s repertoire committee most crucial. At the core of this discussion are various topics of importance which center on questions pertaining to the role of the Ministry of Education in promoting or inhibiting development in the field and questions of constructing a meaningful repertoire. I conclude with an open stand toward what it takes to be a valued theatre for young people.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION’S POLITICS Unique to the Israeli Ministry of Education’s ways of distributing culture is an institution called Sal Tarbut (The Basket of Culture) whose task is to promote quality culture within the framework of the country’s schools and towns. Hundreds of thousands of performances, representing each of the seven arts, are presented in the schools through this institution. Another cultural establishment is Omanut La’Am (Art for the People). While its goal is also to promote quality culture, its function is to focus on the youngsters’ activities after school hours. These two bodies carry out the policies of the Ministry of Education. Public theatres, as well as commercial private theatres interested in financial support, have to apply to the committees of Art for the People or The Basket of Culture and prove the artistic quality of the show for which they have requested financial aid. The Basket of Culture operates large-scale plans to advance educational programs for watching a play. The programs are activated in the formal educational system from Kindergartens through Elementary, Middle and High School. The policy of The Basket of Culture is to choose the best shows from all that is produced by the various theatre companies. Creating a top quality repertoire from which schools can choose what is best for their pupils is a very difficult task. The process of choosing a play is not a technical one as Baker, the head of The Basket of Culture claims (2004), but it is a complex professional process which involves enormous responsibility. The policy of the ministry of education is to distinguish those who are in charge of the educational plans from those who serve on the repertoire committee; they are all professionals in their field. The repertoire committee consists of volunteers; they are not paid and they are not bound to any formal institution but to their own conscience and their professional expertise. All the members chosen to serve on the repertoire committee are expert in theatre either as academics or as actors or directors or playwrights. Each can serve only three years. Again, the aim of the committee is to set high standards of theatre for young people; to ensure that each performance will provide an artistic and aesthetic experience to the pupil and that the chosen play will be suitable for that particular age group. The responsibility of the committee is to ensure that children and youth will be exposed only to quality productions. Being the academic counselor for the committee for the last five years I can report that this policy is accepted with mixed feelings by the producers and the artists who, on one hand, want to have free access to all schools without the mediating of The Basket of Culture and on the other hand don’t want to allow an open access to schools for all those in the field that are not professionals and that work only on commercial basis. Moreover, since the

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ministry of education subsidies the high quality shows, they want to have clear criteria for what it takes to define high standards for TYP. Here lies the great paradox in the situation. As I showed in Chapter Six: Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical Performance, attempts were made through the history of theatre and efforts are still going on to clarify the meaning of maintaining “high standards” in TYP. What criteria can we use to evaluate children’s theatre? There are no clear-cut answers, but continuing debate, penetrating questions, and efforts to deal with this difficult issue. The committee’s interest is to develop the ongoing dialogue about quality art and ways to peruse it in order to keep developing the conscious of the public and the educators toward high quality theatre. Whereas the interest of the various artists and producers is to have clear cut answers so that they will be able (they think) to calculate the play in accordance with fixed criteria and thus increase their chances to get fair share of the public money provided by the ministry of education; i.e., The Basket of Culture. The Ministry of Education’s sponsorship of Israeli theatres for young people signifies a valuable opportunity to inculcate the culture of theatre into the life of youngster in a meaningful way. The open battle that is waged by the producers against the Ministry of Education is constant. Some producers tend to see the ministry of education as censor. Their view is that the repertoire committee supervises the theatrical performances that reach the schools, thereby limiting the freedom of artistic expression (Rehavi-Nikolayevsky, 2002/2003). Children’s theatre in Israel is indeed influenced by the Ministry of Education policy and, in this sense, its artistic freedom is checked when it comes under the supervision of public committee. At the same time, it is imperative to understand that wherever public money is invested, control and regulation are vital. Education, as I perceive it, is a deliberate and intended process as opposed to an incidental one. It cannot be open to anyone wishing to partake in it, and must definitely not be subject to the opinions of those with mere financial incentives. I argue that it is risky to leave the gates wide open to the “money seekers”. It is imperative to establish more theatres that operate under proper management and with professional actors who are committed to the art of children’s theatre. Similarly, I argue that the Ministry of Education must ensure that those appointed to the repertoire committee, and the teachers who are involved in booking theatre plays for the schools, are well educated and regularly informed on issues of theatre for young people. In this regard one has to realize that in those countries throughout the world where Ministries of Education and Culture or the local administration do not make it their business to subsidize theatrical productions, young theatre-going audiences are minimal. Aesthetic artistic education is first and foremost a form of

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education whose inclusion within the domain of schools entails a built-in requirement for guidance and financial support mechanisms.

THE QUESTION OF BUILDING REPERTOIRE What are the themes appropriate for theatre for young people? Is it, as Bruner claims, that we can teach any topic to any child at any age, depending only on how we present it? Or should we accept Piaget’s idea of chronological development, which maintains that some topics are more ageappropriate than others and one should proceed according to child’s development? What are the issues relevant for children? Such questions, already discussed in the first two chapters of this book, puzzle the Israeli theatre. As explained, children’s theatre is not based on a tradition of plays that have stood the test of generations. Children’s theatre does not have a Shakespeare. Plays written specially for children in Israel are relatively few when compared to the number written for adults. This field is also small when compared to the Israeli children’s literature or poetry, fields that have been flourishing since the beginning of the twentieth century. An intensive effort to stimulate the writing of children’s plays is made every year for the International Festival of Children’s Theatre (detailed in Chapter Six). Competition and public attention engendered by the festival organizers encourage the writing process to some extent. Thus, during the last ten years the field is indeed growing and original playwriting has increased. However, so far only a very few plays have managed to become classics. A trend of adapting children’s poems, short stories or television programs for the stage is increasing, a phenomenon that is well-known as TYP in other countries and different Western cultures. Many children and parents are eager to watch such plays, many of which are not included in The Basket of Culture but are offered on the commercial market and the public have free access to watch them. The shortage of plays written specifically for children, particularly top quality plays, is a problem of children’s theatre worldwide. It is not exclusive to the Israeli arena. The children’s theatre which developed in the last century in Germany and England and later in Spain, Czechoslovakia and Russia had no success in generating a corresponding wave of playwriting for young audiences and was unsuccessful in carving itself a prominent niche in the cultural landscape of these European states (Swortzell, 1990). In USA the same problem characterized the theatre for young people, especially if it is compared to the general playwritings for adults. To a large extent, we can claim that theatre for young people in Israel has had the same experience.

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The historical study of the development of children’s theatre throughout the world (Swortzell, 1990) reveals that in the Western world the guiding principle was that the literature of the theatre should deal with the optimistic aspects of life, while touching only vaguely on issues of pain and suffering. It was only in the late 1960s and 1970s that theatres started to deal with children’s problems or, rather, difficulties encountered by children, such as their fears, their parents’ divorce, and adoption - all from a child’s point of view. Plays of this genre are often written using realistic theatrical language. In Israel this trend became visible only in the 1990s and even then on a very limited scale.

MAIN GENRES IN THE ISRALI THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES Circumstances influencing the creation of art usually include social, cultural, historical and personal circumstances. That is the widespread notion of how themes and ideas construct the cultural life of a certain society. Israel is a tense and sensitive society in which drama is an immanent and unavoidable component. It is a society in which war is a constant possibility. Yet when looking at the TYP repertoire in Israel, one does not find traces of this tension. Moreover, Israeli society has always been characterized by its multi–ethnicity and the theatre involves artists from all walks of Israeli society, Jews and Arabs as well as Russian and Ethiopian immigrants. One could expect that in context such as this the theatre would deal with problems of acceptance and tolerance among diverse cultural groups. Or the theatre would deal with Jewish and Arab encounters on a personal and on national level; i.e., stories that the young people will be able to perceive. But almost none of the major conflicts that characterize the Israeli society have been found in the children’s theatre repertoire or in the repertoire of theatre for young audiences. There are only a few, sporadic attempts to reflect some problems of the Ethiopian or the Russian newcomers. In whole, theatre for young people in Israel is not a political theatre in any sense. In fact the themes and the issues too often present simple views of life. The tense and the complex life we live in Israel provides no footpath for the theatre for young audiences. It is as if the playwrights are afraid to approach such sensitive themes through theatre. Sometimes it is worse: it is as if the producers are making financial calculations thinking that the Ministry of Education would not let controversial issues enter the school building. The poor repertoire needs to be reexamined and encouraged to include plays that raise questions and present life from a variety of points of view. Theatre for young

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audiences as a universal cultural phenomenon should no longer be dismissed as an entertaining or didactic event. Instead of those of political orientation, fantasy plays have an important role in the development of children’s theatre. Children are inspired by fairytales in which conflicts are based not on the nature of the characters, but rather on archetypical themes of the growth, development and modeling of relationships between humans, animals and creatures of the imagination. These are plays in which the magical air of the happenings on stage enchants the audience. The more children are able to recognize and identify with the creatures in the play, the stronger the magic. The genre of the fantasy opens wide scope to the various creators to develop interesting new approaches to deal with imagination and to construct new metaphors. As opposed to fantasy theatre, the realistic theatre uses magic in a different way. It brings into play a kind of realistic convention that enables the children to communicate almost immediately and directly with their own familiar conflicts, on which the play’s characters are based. The realistic genre is well developed and the themes are simple: daily experiences of friendship and causally family affairs. An examination of the various TYP reveals that producers tend to transform both the fantasy plays and the realistic plays into didactical plays. They apparently prefer didactic plays because it allows them to “play safe” when such productions are being considered by teachers and parents. In doing so, they contribute to the identification of the theatre for young people as an “industrial didactic” theatre. In their struggle to survive, the theatre companies are still, many times, set to please the teachers and the parents at the expense of artistic quality. This trend becomes glaringly evident with the phenomenon of “invited” productions. Each year the Ministry of Education selects a theme and suggests it to the educational system; these themes have been topics to encourage “Tolerance,” “Road Safety,” “Ways of Using the Hebrew Language”. Didactic plays are created to fit the chosen theme of the year. Usually these plays lack artistic and aesthetic qualities because they are produced with the sheer intention to please the teacher’s didactical purposes in teaching the chosen theme and they were made fast and cheap. The Basket of Culture fights against this tendency of most of the commercial companies. The demand for this type of theatre was created by the teachers who wanted to ease the pressure they have each year to teach another topic they don’t know how to cope with. In a sense, the theatre performances in the service of the declared annual topic “made the work” for the teachers. Yet this was at the expense of quality, which the repertoire committee could rarely allow. Children’s theatre in Israel still has a long way to go until it manages to break free of its didactical bonds. It is a theatre operating during school

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hours as well as in community centers in the afternoon. It is theatre that also operates outside the purview of the Ministry of Education, when parents accompany their children to a play, partaking in the theatrical experience. In this context parents have a special role.

THE ROLE OF PARENTS IN CHILDREN’S THEATRE As parents and the educational system show growing interest in theatre for young people, we see a decline in teenagers’ interest in theater. This is an interesting fact that characterized the Israeli arena nowadays. Producers of children’s theatre are aware of the fact that an adult usually accompanies young children and they bear in mind that this situation tends to change as the age of the audience rises and they no longer require such “escorts”. The main role of the parent is to mediate between the child and the stage when needed. The adult can help the child to benefit from the theatrical experience. In fact s/he enables it to happen. In Chapter Four I discussed the importance of mediating and I touched upon issues of overt behaviors such as crying and laughing as well as on catharsis and its central role in bringing pleasure and enjoyment to the young audience. Now I would like to draw the readers’ attention to one negative side of the role some parents fill. The practice of eating in the theatre can be frequently observed at performances in Israel to which parents accompany their children. In order to keep the youngsters from losing interest in the performance, in the absence of appropriate artistic solutions, the parents entice their children to remain attentive with the aid of candy and junk food. The theatre becomes a “snack-bar”; one hears demands of “Mom, buy me...” resounding everywhere before the performance begins. The child enters the hall with a crunchy bag of chips or sucking on a lollipop, newly purchased at an exorbitant price. I wonder whether this trend is common all over the world. Adult theatre, struggling for its survival, introduced new genres in the 1980s, incorporating snacks into the theatrical experience. Tony and Tina’s Wedding is one example of a play in which the audience is invited to partake in an Italian wedding ceremony followed by a dinner party. I refer to the adult theatre in this respect since we do not have such examples in the TYA and yet it is relevant to my main claim. I argue not against the phenomenon itself, as long as the eating is an integral part of the aesthetic landscape of the production. In children’s theatre, the culture of food and shopping is not an intrinsic part of the production, but rather a superfluous addition that aims at focusing the attention of the young audience to the irrelevant additive. We should not let the taste of the sweets dominate the taste of the show.

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Theatrical discourse has long been engaged in trying to discover what captures the children’s attention in a play. Should the story be easily comprehensible to the child, seamlessly integrating familiar realities, so that they are able to identify the conflict easily, together with ways to solve it? Or maybe it is the missing link that keeps the young audience fascinated as they try, like adults, to decipher the images presented before them. What is indeed the right pace for a particular production? What is the desired sequence? Should we follow Piaget’s way, or should we take Bruner’s? Choosing one way or another, we have to realize that the key to understanding the children’s attention to the play will never be discovered through candy, which “buys quiet time,” but rather through the aesthetic experience that they are undergoing. Aesthetic understanding is a distinct category of understanding that incorporates intellectual, sensory, and emotional involvement in and responses to the arts. My complaint, therefore, is aimed at those parents who plant the seeds of bad taste in their children’s mouths so early.

AESTHETICS AND CRITICISM Theater for young audiences worldwide is made up of a wide spectrum of themes and genres such as folktales, fairytales, current social problems, adventure stories, historical themes, and biographical dramas. The genre may be comic or tragic; the form may be of a dance theatre or mime, musical or any other theatrical form. As long as the theme is clear and adapted to generate aesthetic pleasure, both emotional and conceptual, for the young audience the multi threads are to be encouraged. Theatre for young people in Israel did not develop as an autonomous aesthetic entity, but rather as a pale shadow of the repertoire theatre for adult audiences. It did not undergo the evolutionary processes of a struggling art form, but instead cast its eyes on (and still does) the financial potential of children. Many of the producers are most interested in low-cost profitreaping productions. The most cynical expression of such productions are the “instant shows” produced for the Jewish holiday seasons, particularly for Hanukah, Purim and Passover, when it is a tradition to take the children to the theatre. Saying all this and maybe even despite of the above there are endless new experiences each season to provide opportunities for young people to enjoy high quality theatre. Some theatrical companies see the opportunity in the medium and they are trying to find new ways of expressing dramatic meaning (e.g., improvisation, story theatre, dance drama, mask, mime, puppetry, audiovisual); sometimes this may involve the integration of a

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variety of media and a combination of the arts. Theatre for young people in Israel is a vibrant cultural phenomenon, and because it is reaching hundreds of thousands of youngsters each year it has to be in a constant search for improving. The sets of most children’s theatres in Israel can be easily transported from one place to another, and most productions take into consideration the play’s mobility, swift transitions, easy changes of scene, use of equipment for music, the lighting and the set. The plays go to the children at preschool and school levels. They are staged in gymnasia or other halls, which are not necessarily suitable for the show. The quality of mobility brings to mind the Russian Komsomol Theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, which made a deliberate choice to stage its plays in this portable fashion in order to heighten the audience’s political consciousness. The Russian theatre was perceived as a form of propaganda for the regime. It was a political theatre in the most obvious sense of the word. The Israeli children’s theatre possesses the Komsomol paradigm of mobility. Fortunately, it is not the ideological stand of the “Zhdanovism” that accompanies it; it is based upon the idea of “portable theatre” as a means to reach as many young people as possible. Lacking appropriate halls and considering the difficulties of mobility, the great potential of children’s theatre often remains untapped. It is many times without real power in establishing aesthetic preferences. Productions that are not burdened by the challenges of mobility are those in which one finds the most interesting and innovative developments in terms of exploiting the space, setting the stage, as well as designing the set, the lighting and the sound effects. There is impressive development regarding the quality of the performance in theatres that can perform in a theatre hall. Constructive criticism of the effectiveness of the play or the appropriateness of the choices made by the creator or performer should not only done by the Basket of Culture but also by the pupils themselves. They should be encouraged to approach dramatic presentations thoughtfully. At times, they should learn to withhold their judgments until they have enough information to respond in an informed manner. They should learn to go beyond their initial reactions in order to come to an understanding of what they have seen and how it was done.

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EPILOGUE What should be Valued in Theatre for Young People? Theatre for young people in Israel is in a constant search to find appropriate design elements such as levels, colures, space, texture, and other elements affecting the physical representation of drama. This involves drama elements such as focus, tension and contrast, symbol, form, and balance. It is a constant search for new and distinct ways to use theatrical conventions. Theatre is an art form that exists only in the dimension of time. It is momentary and disappears the moment the curtain drops. It exists with the darkening of the hall and it evaporates when the lights are turned on. Thus, one can preserve the theatrical experience only through reminiscences of the event. In this sense, when watching a play the child is not creating an imaginary world which takes the place of the real world, rather the child is watching reality which is created in front of his eyes, right now on the stage. The child as a spectator needs to be mature enough to understand the as if situation as a part of the theatrical language. This line of thought was developed throughout the chapters of the book and was presented as part of my theoretical stand. I repeat this here towards the end of the book because of its importance as well to frame the following understanding of what makes good theatre for young people. The perception of Theatre for Young People as a unique form of art, with its own set of rules and conceptions, should be constantly cultivated. It is not merely a hybrid between theatre and education, but rather a complex and indivisible entity (as presented in the conceptual framework in Chapter Two). Theatre for Young People must be conducted in accordance with and between the courses of theatre and education. Yet, at the same time, it should create from them both a substantive, artistic entity, in which theatre and education are wholly united from within. Education is not the external shell of an artistic core, nor should the art of theatre become in any way purely instrumental. The key to creating a system of forms, organized in a meaningful way for children, is not a series of questions relating to the connection between the play’s content (the educational aspect) and its form (the theatrical aspect) but, rather, questions relating to the connection between form and meaning. As discussed in the previous chapters, the child has to understand the symbolic nature of the theatrical performance. Children’s theatre should be open to all means of enhancing the perception of theatre as an aesthetic experience an opportunity to raise one’s social and cultural conscience thus developing awareness of the art form they are sharing.

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Several surveys conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Education show that Israel is a society where one can find one of the highest percentage of native theatre–goers. This remarkable finding becomes even more significant if we take into consideration the fact that, throughout its history, Jewish culture rejected the theatre on religious grounds. Only in the late 1960s did the theatre become a prominent cultural phenomenon in Israeli society. Theatre for young people began to flourish in the early 1970s with the establishment of the Public Theatre for Children and Youth. Theatre for young people in Israel has come a long way, and is alive and kicking. Yet it has to continue struggling for “adequacy” that provides some of the ingredients essential for a full and balanced life. Mark Twain said that he is convinced that the children’s theatre is one of the very great inventions of the twentieth century. I think this is true.

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Subject Index Actor-audience encounter 12 Adolescence 26, 187, 206 Adult’s literature 36 Adult’s theatre 5, 16, 27, 42, 56, 59 Aesthetic appreciation 66, 115, 123, 138, 146 Aesthetic distance 5, 7, 51, 54, 65–67, 76–77, 88–90, 103, 106–109, 111–112, 114, 116–117, 134–135, 137, 148 Aesthetic enjoyment 66 Aesthetic experience 15, 44, 52, 104, 106, 108, 119, 124, 134–136, 157, 180, 195, 201, 203 Aesthetic judgments 122 Aesthetic of audience response 65 Aesthetic order 43, 189 Age groups 5, 22 Alternative reality 137 An experience 5, 29–31, 33, 73, 135, 172, 182 Anticipation 55, 147, 150, 153 Applaud 56–59, 62, 104, 150–151 Applause 6, 56–60, 76, 92, 105, 149–150, 154–155, 158, 190 Appreciation 3, 58–59, 66, 108, 115, 123, 136, 138–139, 146, 155–156, 170, 187, 189–190 Arguments 1–5, 11, 144 Art form 13, 18, 32, 39, 41–42, 48, 54, 90, 119, 165, 187–190, 201, 203 Artificial experience 104 Artistic criticism 124 Artistic forms 27, 42, 129, 136 Artistry 15, 59 Arts for children 35 As if 5, 14, 22–23, 25, 40, 42, 47, 65–66, 76–77, 83, 97, 103–104, 106, 125, 151, 174, 178, 198, 203 As You Like It 175 Assessment 119, 124–126, 134, 172

ASSITEJ 4, 17, 162, 212 Audience 1, 3, 5–7, 9–10, 12–19, 22–23, 26–27, 31–32, 38, 40–41, 44, 51–56, 58–67, 77, 82, 84–89, 91–92, 97, 99–102, 104–105, 108, 110, 112, 114, 117, 119, 126, 130–139, 144–156, 159–165, 170, 180, 185–186, 190, 199, 200–201, 205–206, 208–210, 213–215 Audiences 3–5, 7–8, 12–14, 16–18, 20, 31–32, 36, 38, 41–42, 44, 47, 52–59, 61, 63–64, 69, 74, 76, 82, 90, 100, 104, 114–115, 121, 125, 128–129, 137, 143–144, 147, 156, 159, 161, 164, 169, 178, 182, 194, 196–199, 201, 209–211 Audience’s perspective 110 Bible 96–99, 101, 183, 211–213 Boundaries 5, 9–10, 24, 45, 105, 109, 185 Captive audience 5–6, 19, 51, 60–61 Catharsis 6, 12, 69–73, 76, 78–79, 81–87, 114, 120, 169, 172, 178, 200, 205, 211, 213 Character 25, 36, 47, 61, 69, 81, 84, 88, 93, 101, 105, 122, 130, 134–135, 147, 152, 175, 209 Child art 187–188 Child as spectator 1, 53, 66, 92, 106–107, 110–111, 117 Childhood 5, 7, 21, 24–25, 29, 35–36, 38, 41–42, 44–49, 60, 67, 84, 106–107, 109, 114, 117, 205–206, 210, 212–213 Children at risk 6, 73, 79, 82 Children’s behaviors 108 Children’s culture 5, 20–22, 29, 45–47, 164, 206, 209–210, 212 Children’s fiction 5, 20, 212

217

218 Children’s involvement 51, 114 Children’s judgment 127 Children’s literature 5, 20, 36, 38–41, 197, 213 Children’s theatre 1–3, 5–13, 15–23, 26–27, 29, 31–36, 38, 40–41, 43, 44, 46, 54–57, 59–61, 69, 74, 81, 85–87, 89, 117, 119–121, 124, 126–127, 129–134, 136–139, 147–148, 153, 155, 159, 161–162, 164–166, 190, 194, 196–200, 202–204, 207–208, 211, 214–215 Christmas pantomime 31 Christmas performances 31–32 Clarification 32, 36, 69, 72, 76, 78, 82–83, 158 Cognitive development 24, 135 Cognitive elements 86 Collective catharsis 69, 81–82 Commercial effort 29 Communication 5–6, 14, 31, 34, 42–44, 51–55, 60–61, 64, 89, 91–92, 110, 114, 163–164, 189, 194 Communicative factor 86 Communicative quality 7, 138 Conceptual framework 5, 31, 41–42, 86, 203 Constraints 6, 36, 42, 91, 181, 184 Constructing an image 6, 92 Constructing meaning 27, 139 Consumers 5, 41, 46, 53 Control 5, 26–27, 39, 45, 57, 71, 85, 103, 107–108, 111, 115, 117, 147, 165, 169, 174–175, 196 Conventional concepts 27 Conventions 6, 27, 38, 87–92, 94–95, 100–102, 104, 106, 110, 112, 117, 121, 132, 134, 145, 148, 169, 171–172, 178, 190, 203, 212 Creation of the world and other business 97 Criteria 7, 56, 86, 115, 119–122, 124, 127, 133, 136–137, 179–180, 184, 196 Critical thinking 1, 4, 100, 176

Subject Index Criticism 7–8, 11–12, 22, 53, 119, 124, 133, 139, 143–144, 169, 201–202, 208 Crying 6, 72, 80–81, 114, 116, 191, 200, 210 Cultural and artistic experience 5, 29 Cultural identification 8, 179, 185 Culture of school 171–172, 185, 209, 213 Dark auditorium 90 Definition 10, 14, 16, 23, 70, 81–82, 86, 111, 122, 129, 133, 164, 171, 176 Detachment 112 Developmental theories 24 Dialogue 2, 8, 12, 37–38, 40, 55, 97, 99, 101, 156, 196 Didactic approach 19, 161 Didactic theatre 3, 199 Disappearance of childhood 5, 44–46, 212 Double circles of audiences 42, 44 Drama education 4, 107, 188, 190, 206–207, 213 Dramatic act 103, 109–110 Dramatic experience 85, 103, 104 Dramatic game 109 Dramatic situations 110 Ecologies of performance 6, 56, 58, 63 Economic dimension 41 Educational materials 7, 164–165 Educational program 29 Emotional crises 70 Emotional life 6, 7 Emotional truth 85 En masse 7, 145–146, 148, 159, 161–164, 167 Enjoyment 3, 66, 86, 113, 120, 138, 169, 176, 180, 185, 200, 215 Entertainment 38, 137, 138 Estrangement 8, 135, 179, 184–185 Evaluation 7, 139, 141–143, 207 Expert versus novice judgments 7, 126

Subject Index

219

Fictional worlds 7, 89, 101, 106, 114, 213 Forgotten language 7, 124–126, 208 Fourth wall 55

Obligation to the young audiences 7, 100 Optimal experience 101, 207 Othello 87, 93, 104, 135

Game/play activity 109 Genres 8, 17, 43, 81–82, 90, 198, 200–201 Good play 120–122, 126, 129, 143, 164 Greek theatre 104, 166

Pedagogical value 138 Peter and Wendy 7, 21, 156–157 Peter Pan 1, 5, 20–21, 93, 156, 205, 211, 212 Physical arrangement of the space 146 Pink Floyd 175 Playing games 23, 123 Playwright 10, 38–39, 58, 63–64, 74, 84–85, 155 Politics 8, 56, 193, 195 Poor production 120, 138 Private and public behavior 69 Private catharsis 69, 82 Professional companies 34 Public versus private situation 40

Hamlet 105, 130 Hansel and Gretel 93 Homogenous/heterogeneous audience 6 Identification 8, 18, 77, 84, 179, 184–185, 199 Image of God 6, 94–100 Imitate 11, 53, 56, 59 Improvised theatre 147 Index for the evaluation of theatre performances 7, 139, 141 Intrinsic process 84 Intuition 124, 126, 133, 179 Kitsch 7, 129–130, 133 Knock, Knock, Knock, Anybody Home? 159 Language of the medium 90 Laughing 6, 69, 72, 80–81, 95, 98–99, 114–116, 200 Life and theatre 7, 101 Medea 1, 94, 103–105 Mediated learning 79, 208, 210 Mediating 6, 79, 195, 200 Mental development 111 Mental images 93, 95–96, 100–102, 104, 106 Metaphoric view 8, 172, 176 Mimesis 11 Moral values 6, 87 Movement 3, 34–35, 48, 110, 122 Nature of art 30, 122, 143, 211 Non-educational education 5, 31, 42 Novice judgments 7, 126

Raw materials 139 Real world 40, 47, 97, 101, 107, 115, 117, 203, 213 Reception 5–6, 51, 54, 57, 59, 60, 62, 64, 66–67, 70, 73, 185, 206 Reciprocal relationship 95 Red Riding Hood 93 Repertoire 8, 194–199, 201, 205 Resource guides 165 Reynard the Fox 85 Rhetoric of theatre 5, 18, 211 Romeo and Juliet 72, 121 School art 8, 187–188, 190, 206 School culture 159, 170–171, 188, 207 School days 154, 161, 183 School event 7, 145, 169 School performances 8, 171–172, 176, 179 School play 169–172, 177– 182, 185–188, 190 Semiotic languages 40 Sense of meaningfulness 122 Sign system 6, 27, 44, 87, 90, 110, 121, 205

220 Situation of viewing a play 112 Snow White 81, 93 Social games 109–110 Soliloquy 88–89 Spect-actor 54 High standards 7, 120, 138–139, 195–196 Symbolic language 40, 125, 133, 137 Taboos 49, 95 The Blue Bird 1, 89 Theatre for a young audience 10, 15, 23, 101 Theatre for adults 4, 7, 9–13, 16–17, 23–24, 27, 38, 41, 64, 120 Theatre for infants 10, 15, 23, 25, 55, 63–64 Theatre for the family 10, 15, 24

Subject Index Theatre in Education 13, 166, 206–207, 211 Theatrical companies 15, 201 Theatrical conventions 6, 88–89, 91, 94–95, 100, 112, 145, 172, 190, 203, 212 Theatrical pleasure 101 Thrill 71–72, 90, 103, 114 Tom Sawyer 36–40 Truth on stage 102 Women of Wonder 7, 149, 152 Waiting for Godot 64, 103 Walkers in the Dark 95, 97–98 West Side Story 121 Willing suspension of disbelief 14, 89 Youth theatre 16, 17, 26, 34, 109, 177, 204, 206, 210–213

Name Index Abdulla, A. K. 70, 73, 86 Almagor, G. 162, 163 Aries, P. 35 Aristotle 11, 25, 30, 52, 66, 71, 112, 136, 173 Artaud, A. 19, 135 Aston, E. 110 Baker, B. 195 Barash, M. 107 Barba, E. 13, 52 Barnfield, B. G. 187 Barrie, J.’M. 20, 21, 156 Barthes, R. 43 Beckerman, B. 65 Beckett, S. 64, 103 Belfiore, E. S. 70 Ben-Chaim, D. 65–67 Bennett, S. 54, 56, 102, 112 Ben-Peretz, M. 81, 87 Bentley, E. 65 Bernhardt, S. 122 Best, D. 188 Boal, A. 5, 11–13, 54, 58 Bolton, G. 111 Booth, D. 4 Bourdieu, P. 166 Boyce, S. N. 73, 89, 110, 114 Brecht, B. 52, 54, 112, 135–137 Bresler, L. 117, 181, 187, 188, 190 Brook, P. 12, 52, 136 Bruner, J. 197, 201 Bullough, E. 66, 67, 112, 115 Burns, E. 88 Burton, B. 106 Calvert, K. 21, 48 Carroll, L. 20 Casebier, A. 66 Coleridge, S. T. 89 Cooper, R. 189

Corey, O. 4, 56, 60, 63, 84 Corsaro, W. A. 23 Courtney, R. 4, 110, 112, 171, 186, 187 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 101, 106 Davis, J.’H. 4, 9, 31, 56 Deal, T. E. 170 Demmery, S. 5, 15, 146 Dewey, J. 30, 31, 124 Dickie, G. 66 Diderot, D. 101, 102 Eisner, E. W. 67, 73, 108, 117, 119, 133, 134, 170, 176, 189 England, A. 16, 31, 33–34, 153, 155, 197 Euripides 1, 94 Evans, M. J. 4, 9, 31, 56 Fergusson, F. 111 Feuerstein, R. 79 Fingerhut, A. 5, 13, 14 Fisch, R. 37 Foshay, A. W. 173–175, 178 French, V. 25, 26, 58 Freud, S. 72, 82 Fromm, E. 124–126 Frye, N. 81, 84 Furman, L. 65, 66 Geertz, C. 170 Genlis, S. 31, 32 Goffman, E. 82, 107 Goldberg, L. 4, 5, 89, 147, 148, 185 Goldberg, M. 9, 10, 16, 17, 26, 31–34, 56, 73, 83–85, 137, 138, 148 Goodman, N. 37 Gordon, D. 176 Grady, S. 106, 131 Grahame, K. L. 138

221

Name Index

222 Greene, M. 100, 104, 105, 167, 176 Gronemeyer, A. 10, 12, 21, 31, 33, 35 Grotowski, J. 5, 11, 12, 19, 52, 53, 135 Hamilton, E. 83 Harre, R. 82, 107 Harris, A. 4 Haseman, B. 130 Heckman, P. E. 170 Hertzog, N. 181 Highet, G. 176 Hobgood, M. B. 111 Hobsbawm, E. L. 182 Holland, N. 34, 64, 65 Homan, S. 58 Huizinga, J. 23, 107 Hume, D. 123, 125 Jackson, A. 13, 166 Jackson, P. W. 30, 170, 172 Jenkins, H. 20–22, 46, 47 Jennings, C. 4 Johnson, M. 172–174 Kase-Polisini, J. 4 Kershaw, B. 56–60 Kincheloe, J.’L. 45 Kirkpatrick, L. A. 94 Klein, J. 9, 65, 106, 144 Kline, S 47, 48 Knight, W. G. 186 Kowzan, T. 140, 143 Kozulin, A. 79 Kreitler, S. 120 Kris, E. 70 Kulka, J. 91, 93, 129 Lain-Entralgo, P. 70 Lakoff, G. 172–174 Landy, R. J. 94, 177, 178 Levin, H. 95, 97–99, 140 Levy, J. 9, 19, 21, 60, 144, 166 Levy, S. 101 Lieberman, A. 170 Lorand, R. 30, 139

Lorenz, C. 3, 9, 18, 19, 24, 106, 143, 144 Lutley, P. 5, 15, 55 Lyman, S. 1, 5, 82 Mackinlay, J. S. 33 Maeterlinck, M. 89 Martin, J. 159–161 Mason, T. 84 McCaslin, N. 3–5, 9, 16–18, 31–33, 56, 144 McLaren, P. 170 McMillan, H. J. 108 Mead, M. 82 Miles, J. 94, 95 Miller, A. 97 Miller, L. 170 Moreno, Z. T. 72 Neelands, J. 5, 13–14, 106 Noddings, N. 100 Nussbaum, M. 70, 72, 73 Olivier, L. 105, 111 Ommanney, K. A. 169 O’Toole, J. 82, 130 Pavis, P. 136, 140 Peled, N. 185, 187 Peller, L. E. 23 Perkins, D. 93, 170 Peterson, K. D. 170 Piaget, J. 11, 24, 25, 135, 197, 201 Plato 25, 29, 30, 46, 65, 107, 122 Polanyi, M. 104, 189 Postman, N. 26, 44–46 Rand, Y. 79 Rap, U. 87 Rehavi-Nikolayevsky, H. 196 Rose, S. J. 20, 21 Rousseau, J.’J. 31, 47 Rozik, E. 88, 91, 173 Saldana, J. 65, 106, 144 Sarason, S. B. 170, 172

Name Index Sauter, W. 53 Savona, G. 110 Saz, N. 33 Schechner, R. 136 Scheff, T. J. 70–73, 80–81, 86, 114 Schonmann, S. 65, 81, 87, 106, 111, 173, 186, 188 Scott, W. R. 82 Seely, J. 187 Selden, S. 62, 121 Sergiovanni, T. J. 171 Shakespeare 34, 42, 80, 175, 176, 191, 197 Shavit, Z. 36 Shaw, G. B. 59 Shoham, C. 139 Sikes, J. 4 Slade, P. 4, 15, 55, 186 Smith, G. D. 108, 176 Stanislavsky, K. 9, 10, 112, 138 Styan, J. L. 43, 59, 60, 65 Swortzell, L. 4, 9, 31–33, 149, 152, 197, 198 Swortzell, N. 149 Szanto, G. H. 18

223 Terrence, E. 170 Tomkins, S. 80 Turner, V. 170 Twain, M. 36–38, 204 Ubersfeld, A. 106 Vaughn, J.’A. 70, 72, 112 Verriour, P. 135 Waechter, F. K. 10 Waksler, F. C. 43 Walkerdine, V. 47 Walsh, D. J. 24 Ward, W. 4, 31, 32, 56, 61, 63, 81, 83 Wasser, J.’D. 181 Watzlawick, P. 37 Way, B. 4, 186 Weakland, J. 37 Wheeler, S. 109 Winnicott, D. W. 23 Winston, J. 73, 83, 84 Wood, D. 4, 9, 153, 155 Yurka, B. 64, 121, 122

Landscapes: The Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 1. D. Atkinson: Art in Education. Identity and Practice. 2002 ISBN Hb 1-4020-1084-2; Pb 1-4020-1085-0 2. M. Xanthoudaki, L. Tickle and V. Sekules (eds.): Researching Visual Arts Education in Museums and Galleries. An International Reader. 2003 ISBN Hb 1-4020-1636-0; Pb 1-4020-1637-9 3. L. Bresler (ed.): Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds. Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. 2004 ISBN Hb 1-4020-2021-X; Pb 1-4020-2022-8 4. S. Schonmann: Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People. Images and Observations. 2006 ISBN Hb 1-4020-4438-0; Pb 1-4020-4439-9

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