How to use this Page

My hometown of Winnipeg is in the throes of its annual Fringe Theatre Festival which has a great component called Kids Fringe.  Today I was lucky enough to get tickets for a great show called Four Wishes by Gunstwork Puppet Mask Theatre.  Four Wishes tells the story of four men of the Wabanaki Nations and the four wishes they are granted by Gluskabe, their protector.  Puppeteer Joseph Bruhac performed this story with his hand-made puppets in a charming and engaging fashion that completely captivated my daughter and I.  Bruhac hails from Colorado and tours his shows to schools and festivals, so if you ever get a chance to see this performance, I highly recommend it!

Our current issue of PaperTigers focuses on the Philippines and recently,while searching for literature events taking place there, I came across this news on OMF Literature’s website:

Sandosenang Sapatos (A Dozen Pairs of Shoes), a Palanca award-winning story that has reaped numerous accolades here and abroad and has touched the hearts of many, is now a musical staged by the Valenzuela City Center for Performing Arts (VCCPA) in cooperation with the Valenzuela City Government and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

Written by Luis Gatmaitan, M.D., Sandosenang Sapatos tells the story of Karina and Susie. They are the daughters of the town’s best shoemaker, but only Karina gets to wear the beautiful shoes their father makes. Susie can never wear shoes because she was born without feet—will her father, her family love her less? Susie is surprised by the discovery of her father’s incomparable love for her.  Sandosenang Sapatos celebrates the love and acceptance of a family in the face of adversity.

Artistic director Roeder Camañag says, “This is a story of hope grounded in reality. It’s something that will help fight the cynicism we see around us nowadays. It’s not a fairy tale; it’s fresh and relevant.”

Author Luis Gatmaitan is happy with the results. “It is a great honor for an author like me to see the story I’ve created come to life on stage, from the pages of a book to a musical.”

Click here to see photos from the play.

Luis  Gatmaitan, M.D. has authored and published more than 30 storybooks for children tackling relevant issues such as disability, senility, bereavement, coping with cancer, childhood diseases, and children’s rights in his stories. Inducted into the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2005, he has also been a recipient of the Catholic Mass Media Awards and the PBBY-Salanga Writers Prize.  In addition he  has chaired PBBY and KUTING. In 2005 IBBY named Sandosenang Sapatos an Outstanding Book for Young People with Disabilities.

Last week I volunteered to drive students in my son’s class to a local theatre to see Cinderellas. This wasn’t the regular run-of-the mill Cinderella play though, so instead of just dropping the kids off, I purchased a ticket for the show. Put on by ABC Let’s Act, this production presented the story of Cinderella as told in four different traditions: Walt Disney’s, the Chinese, the First Nations and the Korean versions. Did you know that there are over 300 versions of the story of Cinderella throughout the world?

The young cast did a wonderful job of telling the story of four Cinderellas from four different cultures and proved that Cinderella can indeed have brown eyes and black hair! It truly was a multicultural experience with aspects of traditional Chinese theatre, a Korean fan dance, Tae Kwon Do martial arts and the singing of a sacred First Nations song that has been passed down from generation to generation. Director Mandy Tulloch says she wanted to ensure that each version of Cinderella was shown in a manner that was true to its respective culture:

Advisors were consulted to make sure the play was as culturally responsible as possible. In the segment from China, we utilize the traditional method in Chinese theatre where the audience is asked for permission for the performance to take place. We also have the property men as well. For the First Nations piece, we were granted permission by the local elders for the performance to take place. They also blessed the show and worked with us on the music and mask making. In the Korean segment, which was written specifically for this show, you will see an authentic Korean Fan Dance performed by kids as well as award winning Tae Kwon Do artists.

Multicultural versions of Cinderella abound in children’s and young adult books too. To get a sense of what’s out there, check out our blog posts Globe-trotting Cinderella and Bound by Donna Jo Napoli and Books at Bedtime: Fairy Tales (2); and read this review of Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella, which forms part of our current focus on the Philippines…

Last night we all jumped in the car after school and raced to Leeds to go and watch the beautifully crafted staging of Little Leap Forward. Adapted from the book, by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, illustrated by Helen Cann and published by Barefoot Books, it tells the story of events from Yue’s own childhood set against Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China.

A powerful combination of masked actors, puppets and shadow-box/animation, not to mention an atmospheric score and cleverly versatile set, the story is told “only” through mime. We followed Little Leap Forward’s dawning awareness of the importance of freedom, both through the political events unfolding around him and through his love for a songbird captured for him by his best friend. No matter how much Little Leap Forward coaxes and bribes with seeds, the bird cannot sing from within the confines of a cage. A “scary” dream sequence that had Little Brother on the edge of his seat alerts Little Leap Forward to what he has to do and he sets the bird free.

I have to say that this particular performance will be looked back on by us - and probably by the cast - with very mixed feelings. There was a group of children in the audience from a local School for the Deaf, who were entranced - picking up enough of the vibrations of the music to get a feel for it, and able to particpate fully in the action on stage. Wonderful. However, the first three rows were taken up by a youth-group outing and it very soon became evident that the children did not know how to behave in a public, live performance. All the more credit to the production, then, that in the scene when Red Guards arrest Little Leap Forward’s mother (an event related in Guo Yue and Clare Farrow’s book for adults, Music, Food and Love), there was not a sound from the auditorium.

Afterwards, the four actors/puppeteers gave a short talk to these children (which we gate-crashed!) and again, they captivated their audience. I couldn’t help thinking what a pity it was that the children had obviously not had any sort of introduction to what they were going to see… I wonder how many would have liked to turn the clock back and engage with it more fully, once they’d had a chance to find out a bit more about it?

Little Leap Forward is on tour in England until 17 July - for further details, look here. In the meantime, watch this short video

and read the production blog. If you haven’t come across the book yet, watch this very moving introduction, narrated by Yue and featuring his magical flute-playing; and read our review, here on PaperTigers.

Little Leap Forward was definitely a production not to be missed: a big thank you to Nicky Fearn, Frances Merriman, Jonny Quick and Mark Whitaker, the faces behind the masks; and to Gemma Bonham of The Carriageworks, for an empathetic discussion afterwards.

* Photograph credit: Ian Tilton

(Steve Hickey)

Stories come alive for us in many ways and children’s theatre is one of them.  When I was a child, there was very little in the way of theatre for kids.  That has changed; today there are a number of theatres that cater exclusively to children.  To its credit, even my small city of Winnipeg has its own theatre for children — Manitoba Theatre for Young People –  that has put on outstanding productions for children of various ages.

When I went to London this spring, I was intent on giving my children theatre experiences to remember.  Of course, there is no city like London to see live theatre, and the children’s theatre there did not disappoint.  In particular, my husband and I wanted our children to see work by Shakespeare and luckily for us, the Unicorn Theatre was staging Twelfth Night at the time of our visit.  Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s more accessible plays for children.  I read a child-friendly version of the play to my daughter the night before our departure, and it was surprising what she remembered when she saw the production.  When the black-clad Olivia first appears onstage, strewing petals into the water, my daughter immediately piped up “She’s sad because her brother died.”

The Puppet Barge is a theatre on a canal boat moored in northwest London.  The theatre uses marionettes.  They had a production based on poems from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic — A Child’s Garden of Verse.  Using a delightful combination of marionettes, shadow puppets, and even a puppet show-within-a-show of Punch and Judy, the poems came alive through the performance.

What struck me about theatre in London was its multicultural hue.  Shakespeare is acted by players of every race and color, and the marionettes displayed on the Puppet Barge came from all over the world.  After all, to quote from Hamlet, the play’s the thing! And ‘play’ is certainly something children know all about!  Is there some place in your city where your children can see live theatre?  Do tell!