Shush, Dear. You'll Scare the Children.

There's an interesting and inherent flaw in performing Beauty & the Beast for children that I feel I need to address:  In order to do Beauty & the Beast, you have to have a beast.  But it's a children's show.


So therein lies the problem: we're performing a kids show with a relatively frightening monster in it.  With such lines as "I think you're wrong; I think I will eat you!  Why else would I be feeding you so well?",  "You say you dreamt of me once?  Well now I'm about to become your nightmare!  I will have your life in return!", and "If you ask me again, I'll tear you limb from limb!", well, we have a few kids cowering in terror.

Because after all, we all know that at the beginning of the story the Beast is something of a brutish character, plus he just looks like a monster.  With that long snout and large teeth and massive claws, he strikes a rather imposing figure.  Even in our short version of the play with limited costuming, Jack can seem a little scary to the younger kids in that costume.  Yes, it's only a Halloween mask and black cloak, but we adults forget that for a child, that's all it takes.  I remember, as a toddler, running in terror from my father all because he put on a clown nose.  No matter how silly he is for most of the play, all it takes is the combination of that mask and one angry line, and that's it.  He's scary, and there'll be no living with him after this. 

You have to admit: he's a little creepy.

Part of the trouble is that the play and its writing is slightly more geared toward 1st-6th/7th graders.  Older than 7th grade, the kids don't seem to get into it as much, and younger than 1st grade, the kids' attention spans can't handle a 45 minute story (with the exception of some rather remarkable kindergarteners), and they are terrified of Jack as the Beast.  While some or maybe most of the kindergarteners can handle it, we are frequently brought to small schools with mostly preschoolers in the audience, ages starting as young as 3 years old, and the poor things burst into tears, some of them actually running away in fear.  It's a bit distressing.

It's an unfortunate dilemma, and Jack goes out of his way not to go overboard when we have particularly young audience.  Before introducing the audience, he'll make a quick announcement to the kids, showing them the mask he'll be wearing and making it seem silly.  More importantly, he reminds them that it's "all make believe" and that while the Beast might seem a little scary at first, he's actually just a big goof ball.  Sometimes this works.  Most times it does not.  This morning, just showing the kids the mask, I could hear one preschooler shouting, "I'm scared!", already on the verge of tears.

It doesn't stop there.  Jack will also seriously tone down his performance as the Beast, cutting a few of his more frightening lines (usually the "tear you limb from limb bit"—that one's a bit unnecessary in the given circumstances), and refraining from yelling or growling at us womenfolk.  Jenn and I, in turn, follow his lead, and hold back on our acting, diluting our fear and anxiousness, behaving less frightened in general.

Most of you won't realize how frustrating this is.  But you have to understand that this is our craft, and we are being, if not asked, then out of good conscience forced to hold back.  It sometimes gets to the point where we are barely acting at all, and we can't help wondering backstage why we are being asked to perform for these poor children who are positively alarmed by the action of the play.  Our struggle is that it feels wrong to be scaring the kids, but it also feels wrong not to be performing to the best of our ability.  After all, these schools paid for this performance.  And we start to wonder why one would even bring a 3-year-old to see Beauty & the Beast.

However, lately, this has gotten me thinking about certain things that frightened me as a child.  I will never forget seeing Pocahontas in theatres, the first film I remember seeing at a cinema, as a matter of fact.  In the opening scene, John Smith's ship is tossed at sea by a violent storm.  I remember covering my eyes, and for years, I would fast-forward through that scene on our VHS.  For a short time, I stopped watching Snow White because the scene where the evil queen tries to crush the dwarves with a boulder frightened me.  I can't even tell you how scared I was of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.  Oh.  And let's not even bring up The Brave Little Toaster and how absolutely disturbing I still think that movie is.

In fact, many Disney films in particular have very intimidating villains, even now.  The voodoo man in The Princess and the Frog comes to a rather distressing end that involves a hellmouth scene that I'm sure would have upset me as a toddler, and Mother Gothel in Tangled shows us a whole new side of evil: the passive aggressive monster.  It all makes me start to wonder why we market these movies toward younger children.  Or maybe the trouble is that parents forget that PG stands for Parental Guidance and doesn't mean that it's appropriate for children of any age.

But on the other hand, is it wrong for kids to see these films?  After all, there is evil in the world, even if it doesn't come in the form of dastardly sorcerers and treacherous witches.  And while it's good to remind children that they are safe and protected, it's also good to remind them that good will conquer bad, and one should always stand up and fight against evil: it's not a bad ambition to grow up with.  The Brothers Grimm, after all, filled their alleged children's fairy tales with horrors and gore, but there was a purpose.  Crudely, one might say the stories frightened children into good behavior, but I think there's a little more to it than that.  Certain subtleties have been lost in translation.  Cinderella's "ugly" stepsisters, for instance, in the original German, are actually very pretty.  Their behavior is described as ugly.  And the stepsisters are punished for their cruelty when ravens peck their eyes out.  While it's important to show that the good will be rewarded, it is arguably as important to show that evil does not go unpunished. 

…and now I've gone from talking about scared kids to ranting about German fairy tale translations.  I'm not actually quite sure how I got here.  But I guess my point is that maybe a little fear isn't entirely a bad thing.  Unfortunately, this probably still doesn't mean we should go full out with our performances, but perhaps we shouldn't feel quite as guilty about it.

I don't know.  One day I'll perform Shakespeare all the time and I won't have to hold back on my acting and everything will be perfect forever.

"There you go again, Dorothy.  Having expectations."