Tough crowd

Children’s Fest tries to please the harshest critics

Educational is a loaded term. Good theatre tells its audience something new but is more than a bright candy shell around a message. As the Calgary International Children’s Festival gears up for 13 productions from across Canada and the world festival director Kate Newby is well aware of the need to engage some of theatre’s most critical audiences.

Young audiences may not physically walk out of the room when they can’t engage but they certainly check out says Newby. “It’s like their soul leaves their body. And as an artist you certainly feel that when it happens onstage.”

Good theatre then is theatre first but as it happens some examples are edifying. For more than 15 years Rick Miller’s pastiche of The Simpsons and MacBeth — MacHomer — has used Miller’s chameleon voice to inject a pop culture phenomenon into one of Shakespeare’s best-known works. With Marge playing Lady MacBeth to Homer’s doomed Scot and self-drawn cartoons projected in the background Miller’s production has a manic technological style that’s all theatre no classroom.

“I’m not using technology to be cool or to lure kids. I’m interested in it because it’s the kind of theatre that manipulates technology and creates these little miracles” he says. “There are so few things where our jaw drops or in moments of my play where the audience asks ‘Was that real?’ ‘Was that fake?’ You start to second guess yourself.”

MacHomer began its life as a 10-minute party sketch with no aspirations of education. Now however the show openly advertises its use as an educational tool. For Miller however the biggest question is whether the concept serves the Bard’s story.

“With Shakespeare there’s always the danger of over-conceptualizing” he says. “[You have to ask] does it serve to tell the story in a new and interesting way? Technology can be a dangerous tool multimedia can be a very negative thing.”

Instead Miller aims to focus on the flow of a production that’s more concerned with its audience than its subject matter. If the festival’s audiences are modern groundlings Miller is doing his Shakespearean best to be a populist.

“I never go too far into one of Homer’s monologues the point is to move on with the story” he says. “I’m not trying to tell the best MacBeth story ever but I am trying to use a clever conceit to bring in people who would never step into a theatre normally.”

Along with MacHomer the festival includes a notable pair of works geared toward teenaged audiences and embedded with learning opportunities. The Illiad created by Denmark’s Asterions Hus is an adaptation of the other Homer’s epic poem about the siege of Troy. Intended for ages 14 and up the show uses three actors to portray more than 30 characters. What took Homer 15693 lines of dactylic hexameter is covered in 70 minutes. Like MacHomer the production offers an accessible version of a story that’s usually relegated to curricula.

Cranked produced by B.C.’s Green Thumb Theatre and written by Michael P. Northey takes aim at crystal meth addiction through the lens of a fallen DJ’s recollections. With an age recommendation of 13 to adult the show has one of the festival’s most demanding audiences according to Newby.

“There’s no point I think in message-driven theatre that is condescending” she says. “Teens of all people shut off immediately. They completely shut down whereas young people or adults attempt to engage. It has to be strong to hold the teen audience and that’s probably the hardest audience to create for.”

The festival’s programming then from kindergarten entertainment like the musical Splash’n Boots to a discussion on drug addiction needs to leave room for its audience to love what they’re seeing and think about it for themselves. For Newby that’s a principle that speaks as much to education as it does to art.

“[The festival’s artists] create because they need to create” says Newby. “They have a strong idea of how young people relate to the world. Even if there is a message as there is clearly in Cranked its audiences aren’t being talked down to. And I think we need to do more of that in education letting students decide for themselves and reflect on theatre.”