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Children's Theatre

Photo: Jan Rüsz, Gruppe 38

By Anne Middelboe Christensen

The success of Danish children’s theatre is a story of proximity and presence - and pride. It is cute. It pursues love, and it struggles against injustice. But it also bites, if you get too close to it....
Danish children’s theatre might seem to be an “ugly duckling”, like the beloved fairytale character by Hans Christian Andersen. Ugly and neglected, because art for children rarely receives the same respect and prestige as art for adults.

• Activities abroad
• Bright brood
• Proud presence
• Spectator shush
• Pig pouts
• Age anger
• Parent plot
• Symbolic swimming
• Puppet power
• Mermaid mission

Activities abroad
After a rough start in the 1960s, children’s theatre groups in Denmark have gone through tough times, on seemingly endless tours with little recognition and just as little money.  They have visited one school after the other in a long struggle to gain respect for their art.
Today, the success of the Danish children’s theatre is a fact. In truth, it has far exceeded Danish theatre for adults – at least, if you look at its international success: Danish children’s theatres tour all over the world now. Each year, 200-300 performances are given abroad – either in English, with minimal translations, or with introductions in native languages. Fortunately, children’s theatre is not too much into text....

Bright brood
Denmark is a small country of only five million people.  Yet, it has more than 100 children’s theatre groups, creating and performing solely for children: Live theatre, puppet theatre, storytelling theatre, dance theatre....  The productions are designed to tour smaller or larger venues – from kindergartens to class rooms, to libraries and actual stages.
At the annual Children’s Theatre Festival in Denmark, more than 400 different children’s performances are mounted over the space of a week. Free for everybody to enjoy.

Proud presence
Intimacy seems to be the important thing for Danish children’s theatre. Physical closeness to children sitting around the stage, most often on pillows or benches – all with a perfect view and almost within the reach of the performers. And also mental closeness, so that the performers can gauge the response of their young audience and immediately adjust to it.
Often, you see performers depart from their rehearsed lines to enter into a dialogue with a child, commenting on what is happening. Or you see performers give approving looks to children.
The National Ensemble for Children’s Theatre, Corona-La-Balance, presents a musical dance drama about the harmony of the universe, especially created for 1 ½-4 year olds, Sun Dance and Moon Play (Soldans og månespil). Here, the little ones hang onto the rail of the cloth boat that is the venue of this performance. They comment on the steps of the dancing goddess in front of them, and she looks at them and smiles, before she continues dancing.

Spectator shush
Attention is crucial. The presence of the actor has to feel real to the child – as a wonderful contrast to film and television and to computer games. The excitement of a moment of fiction and magic should make the child happy but also proud, having theatre created especially for him or her – right here, right now.
Basically, any theatre performance should make the child feel respected as a spectator. No shushing here.

Pig pouts
Proximity also makes it possible for the performances to conjure up strong emotions, whether feelings of joy or sadness, anger or fear. However, small venues are able to make children feel safe, often sitting nest-close to their parents – or, at least, teachers or best friends.
When Teater Refleksion from Aarhus performs their table-tiny production of Goodbye, Mr. Muffin (Farvel, hr. Muffin), neither the 5-9 year olds nor the grown-ups can help crying, as the small stuffed guinea pig sits in the old rocking chair for the very last time.

Age anger
Seriousness is another key word. Danish children’s theatre seems to take its audience seriously in quite a different way from most traditional theatre.  Often, “family performances” are productions that are suited neither for 4-year olds nor 14-year olds – but, perhaps, for 8-10 year olds and their grandparents....
Most Danish children’s theatres offer performances for defined age groups. They tend to be very strict about age limits. Don’t bring your 6-year old to a performance for the 2-4 year olds – your child will not be admitted.
At The Little Theatre in Copenhagen, productions of Little Teddy... (Pyh, si’r den lille bamse) with their everyday stories will only work, if the little ones aren’t distracted by bored older children. Problems, such as not being able to fall asleep, are better received by 3-year olds and Little Teddy all on their own.

Parents plot
Other theatres aim at creating performances that can challenge children and their parents equally. The theatre Gruppe 38 in Aarhus deliberately tries to create two layers of symbolism in their works. Accordingly, You Must Be an Angel, Hans Christian (Du må være en engel, Hans Christian) is performed as a celebration party around a huge table, laid out in honour of the fairytale writer. Here, different characters from the fairy tales come alive through hundreds of unexpected props. The point is that children are often quicker at spotting the connections between the Andersen characters than the grown-ups!
However, this sort of communication usually only works in performances created for children older than 6.
 
Symbolic swimming
Danish theatre in general is obsessed with stage design and costumes, not just verbal input, to stimulate all the senses. This goes for children’s theatre as well, which often creates worlds of colours and shapes, from the most accurate details to the purest abstractions. As in film, images often take over from the spoken lines.
Some choose realism with a touch of video magic, such as a girl’s bedroom with its favourite pillows and its video butterfly hearts in Det lille Turneteater’s production of Dorthe’s Heart (Dorthes hjerte) for 3-6 year olds. Others go for symbolic aesthetics, as in Vores Teater’s existential changing-room story Locker! (Skab!).  Here, 5-10 year olds and grown-ups are confronted with memories of the swimming-hall...

Puppet power
Naturally, puppet theatre has a special ability to create miniature worlds. Often, the puppet makers seem to favour the grotesque in combination with the refined, as in the mini-bird world of The Nightingale (Nattergalen) with the never-tired maid with mild eyes for the 5-10 year olds by Dukketeatret Svantevit. And it can be comical and obviously fake, like the oversized capoeira-dancer-inside-the-dog of The Tinder Box (Fyrtøjet) for 8-12 year olds at Det Danske Teater.

Mermaid mission
Predictably, every season of Danish childrens' theatre presents productions based on the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Hardly a season goes by without The Little Mermaid and scarcely a year without The Emperor’s New Clothes – and probably never, ever a year without The Ugly Duckling.
Perhaps, that is part of the secret – the secret of why the Danish children’s theatre has become a swan.

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Anne Middelboe Christensen. (MA) Dance- and theatre critic, external lecturer in cultural journalism, Copenhagen University.