Tea and a show

I took Calvin to see a stage production of Little Women today. We have a great local theater company that focuses on stage productions so that they can be enjoyed by children. We've been attending the children's shows for a couple of years now, but this was the first show we've seen that was aimed at older children, and Calvin loved it. It was almost an hour and a half of show and he loved every minute. In fact, his only disapointment was that it stopped there, because they only did the first half of the book.

During the actor talk-back followin the show, Calvin raised his hand with two questions, one about the props and the other about the time period of the costumes. He spoke loudly and clearly and I was pleased to find that he has none of my reservations about speaking up in a crowd. Then on our way home we talked endlessly about scenes and scenery, about sets, costumes, acting, lines, and all the people who are involved in stage production. And he asked if we could see another play next week. And a musical.

Then we came home and had tea while he wrote about it in his journal.

Once Upon a Time there was

Watching The Three Billy Goats Gruff today on stage, the troll asked the audience for their advice: should he let the littlest goat go? My son alone in the audience said "no!" When I asked him why not, he told me his concern that if the troll didn't eat the first food that came along, then he might not get another chance and so might not get enough to eat. But of course.

We had a great time at the play, but what I loved most was hearing his thought process. We didn't read a whole lot of fables or fairy tails when he was younger. It wasn't really an intentional omission, just that we had so many other wonderful things to read, but the more I think about it the more I dislike fairy tales anyhow. They seem beautiful at first glance, but they're awfully one dimensional. Gregory Maguire had the right idea when he took the traditional tales and turned them on their heads, showing the "other sides" of the stories in books like Wicked.

Calvin's thinking that the troll is also worth a life is a refreshing thought, one that bucks convention and has many elements in it from our recent discussions on evolution. All living things have to eat, and meat eaters are not evil, they're just hungry like the rest of us. Even better, like Maguire he had to willingly go against the tide to say "no" in an audience of "yeses" and to me that right there was worth the price of admission.