On the stage
WHAT is the ideal age to start taking your child to the theatre? At what stage are they able to start focusing and stop being disruptive to other patrons? And what type of live entertainment content is appropriate for tots and tweens?
Theatre advocacy groups continually preach the gospel of “take a child to the theatre”, but the associated questions of age, maturity level and subject matter tend to take a back seat.
This crossed my mind while I was at Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre the other night and spotted a notice on the doors of the main theatre, where the magnificent local production of the musical, Sunset Boulevard, wraps up its run this weekend before moving to the Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town’s Camps Bay from October 28.
Besides clarifying that the fags smoked in the show are herbal cigarettes, the notice cautions audiences that no “babes in arms” are permitted in the theatre because the production features extremely loud gunshots. This warning may have been prompted after a local theatre personality innocently brought her small granddaughter to the musical’s opening night — and the little girl was totally freaked out by the fake gunfire.
I have to put up my hand and admit to being guilty of the same indiscretion. I prefer to call it naivety rather than stupidity.
While attending the Aardklop National Arts Festival in Potchefstroom a few weeks ago, my husband and I managed to score prized tickets to a performance of theatre innovator Nicola Hanekom’s site-specific production, Land van Skedels (Land of Skulls), a stirring imagining of life in the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer War.
The only snag: we could only get tickets for the same performance, as the others were sold out. Not having a babysitter for our seven-month-old daughter, we thought it would be a bright idea to bring her along and introduce her to the wonderful world of theatre. It was, after all, an outdoor performance in a remote forest clearing, we reasoned — and one of us could always steal away to the outskirts of the site and soothe her if she started niggling.
Good idea in principle, but rubbish in practice. It started off well enough, but as soon as the inevitable simulated cracks of artillery and cannon fire (hello — this play is about a war, so what did we expect?) started erupting, so did the shrieks of infantile distress. Bad mom, bad dad, bad idea. Exit left, tail between legs.
It’s comforting to know we aren’t alone in being clueless. At the Arts and Culture Trust’s recent performing arts scholarships competition at the University of Johannesburg, there was a toddler in the audience who was allowed to jabber nineteen to the dozen through the participants’ performances.
I can only hope that the poor matrics vying for the university grants couldn’t hear the babbling babe — cute though it was, it could easily have shredded those frayed teenage nerves even further.
And at Dirty Dancing at the Teatro last year — a musical featuring raunchy dancing, steamy scenes, and dialogue about abortions and losing one’s virginity — I was mortified to see not one, but several kiddies in the audience, brought along by their nostalgia-junkie parents. Call me square, but a sexy show like that isn’t for wee bairns.
Placing age restrictions on shows is one thing, but enforcing them is another altogether. It’s up to the parents to take charge, although one shudders to think that they probably show the same disregard for what their children consume when it comes to TV, film and video games. Sometimes, censorship is a good thing.
Jill Girard who, with Keith Smith, stages delightful plays for little people at the Peoples Theatre at the Joburg Theatre complex, reckons it’s fine to start bringing moppets to the theatre from about 18 months old. But she’s talking about kiddies’ shows, where there’s usually a lot of talking, audience involvement and cheerful mayhem — certainly not musicals aimed at adults.
It’s noble to want to familiarise your offspring with the theatre, so they don’t see it as alien or intimidating. But exercise caution, for Pete’s sake. Just like chucking your kid into a swimming pool before they can swim could scare them off the water for life, exposing them to a potentially traumatic or disturbing theatre experience could put a damper on their future appreciation of live entertainment.