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Review: Hansel and Gretel at Scottish Rite Children's Theatre [Theatre]
Storytelling for children, especially very young children, can be tricky. Effective stories require conflict, but adversarial relationships can lead to situations that can be difficult for a small child to process. Historically, fairy tales approached this problem by telling kids to just deal with it, and any number of Grimm tales that feature evil wolves and witches have left their scars on children exposed too early, while capturing the imaginations of countless more.
The Scottish Rite Children’s Theatre production of Hansel and Gretel threatens to neither scar nor inspire a child—in fact, it’s almost a misnomer to call it Hansel and Gretel. While it does feature a pair of characters by those names, the heart of the story is more or less stripped from the production.
Whereas the core of the classic fairy tale is a lesson about greed and respecting the property of others, Scottish Rite's version focuses mostly on a decision-making exercise for the little ones—"stop, breathe, and think" is a mantra repeated throughout the play—and ignores the moral of the traditional version. What remains of the traditional Hansel and Gretel story, aside from the titular characters and some breadcrumbs, is a gingerbread house owned by a witch.
In this production, however, the witch is non-threatening, and after Hansel and Gretel apologetically eat her gingerbread house, she pouts about some witchy by-laws that would force her to cast a spell on them. The whole affair is wrapped up neatly, thanks to some clever lawyering from the witch's talking goose, and Hansel and Gretel never run the risk of suffering any consequences.
All of which is to say that the production is kind of contrary to the point of Hansel and Gretel. Any given parent's mileage on this may vary; the original Grimm tales are frequently horrifying, and their appropriateness for children has long been debated. For the age group for whom the Scottish Rite’s Hansel and Gretel is intended, a very friendly version in which the witch is roughly as threatening as Elmo may be the safest route to take.
The question this brings up, then, is why Scottish Rite chose to perform Hansel and Gretel instead of an original work. The show is engaging and interactive, with cute puppetry, and can charm parents who watch the enthusiasm with which their children participate in the interactive parts. Since it's so effective at the things it does well, one almost has to wonder why the Scottish Rite felt the need to tie the spring show to a fairytale they seemed to think was inappropriate for their audience. Whatever the answer, parents could do worse than bringing the kids to Hansel and Gretel—just as long as they're not hoping to introduce them to a genuine fairy tale.
Hansel and Gretel runs at the Scottish Rite Theatre through May 31. Photo courtesy Scottish Rite Children's Theatre.
