From: Christopher Hudert <heyhoot-AT-mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:40:29 -0500
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Grimm's Reality...


On Jan 27, 2009, at 6:50 PM, Anne Schaefer wrote:

> And I'm envious that you enjoy such artistic freedom.  If I have to 
> tap dance around "But is it scary?" one more time, I think I might 
> snap :-)
>
> - Anne
>> In a message dated 1/27/2009 3:11:29 P.M. Central Standard Time,
>> puppetmaster-AT-puppetswithpizazz.com writes:
>>
>> Mark my  words: the more liberal the area, the greater your chance of 
>> getting hammered if there is anything scary or violent.  Nancy

You've plucked a chord here. I'll try to be brief and try to avoid 
slipping into a rant. It has to do with a measure of grim reality. (all 
pun intended)

   First, I'm mostly doing adaptations of classic tales, which are for 
the most part cautionary tales to some degree or another. Yes, there 
are some scary things in them. I don't take them out. I push those 
aspects for an older audience, and soft pedal them as much as I feel 
necessary for a younger audience. (One advantage of doing the voices, 
etc. live.) My target audience is K-5 and family.

   Second, I feel strongly that there needs to be an amount of healthy 
fear (see earlier posts re fear in the archive) or the show is weak. 
The more the audience feels for the good characters and dislikes the 
bad characters, the more they will care about the outcome of the story 
and the ultimate success or failure of the characters within it. I try 
to have some faults in the good and redeeming characteristics in the 
bad, and in the case of nature tales have characters do what they 
naturally do, but I don't think I could do a show for long if it didn't 
have some degree of threat to it. In Peter and the Wolf, the duck gets 
eaten. No hiding behind a log to come out later or any of that stuff. 
It's part of the point of the story. Be aware of the dangers in the 
world: a hungry wolf naturally eats small animals, a small boy in the 
woods is a small animal to a wolf and can be eaten as easily as a duck. 
If I did Little Red Riding Hood, I would want my wolf to be menacing so 
that the audience is scared for Red. I'd want them to have a fear of 
the wolf and a fear for Red's safety. The wolf would be two faced 
(maybe literally), showing a charming "good" side to Red, while the 
audience could clearly see the "bad" side. The threat would be obvious 
to them, but Red would be innocently oblivious.

   Finally, you can get away with loads of stuff if it is appropriate 
and germane to the story. Slapstick or violence, used gratuitously, 
adds little to nothing to a show. Used judiciously and appropriately 
both can add much to a show and be accepted by 98% of the audiences. 
(Frankly I don't care about the other 2%, because they're likely to 
find fault with something anyway as they live to be offended and 
nothing I do or don't do will change that.) In the above mentioned 
Little Red, it's likely my wolf would meet an appropriate, somewhat 
violent, end. Knowing me, it is also likely that end would be tempered 
a bit by some sort of comedy - wolf knocked out with a frying pan, by 
running into a door, or the like. The wolf's ultimate demise might be 
heavily hinted at (for the older audience members to understand) with a 
line to the effect of "The wolf got what was coming to him, and Red got 
a new fur lining for her riding hood." You might see Red in her new 
hood, but I'm not out to deliberately offend, so there would be no need 
to butcher the wolf on stage. (But for a Puppetry Slam or Pot Pourri 
there might be some stage blood squirted, just for the yucks.)

Christopher

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