Gábor Bóta

SURPRISES WITH HAPPINESS HORMONES

When János Novák, the director of Kolibri Theatre talked to me about playing for tiny little children between 0-3 years of age, I was impressed that Novák, as always, was so enthusiastic and had a pet subject again. But basically I regarded the whole thing as amiable nonsense. I was thinking for example of Sergei Obrazcov, the late world famous puppeteer and puppet theatre director, who did not even allow a youngster of under-five into his theatre. He said that art was a serious thing, its reception and elaboration had to be learned and the smallest were incapable of doing that. When they see something that they are not capable of understanding, it only causes confusion and fright in their souls. I, myself have often seen parents forced to escape children’s performances with their children in their arms, because the kid just cried and cried, no matter how they tried to coddle them, love them and hush them, they could not be comforted. The audience had also cast more and more disapproving looks at the unwanted noise source thus the mother or father was forced to retire overcome with shame, together with the child who had thus gained a quite embarrassing theatre experience. When I was on the jury of the 3^rd Hungarian Children’s Theatre gathering this spring, this scene occurred several times. And although the parents were warned in advance that the production was not for the smallest, they believed there would be no problem. Then there was, which was embarrassing to everyone.

But I also remember examples to the contrary, mostly outdoor productions or circus shows. When the performance is held on a meadow, a hillside, a grassland or even in a children’s sand pit and the children do not have to sit in rows of seats behaving well the tears come less frequently. They can lie on their backs or stomachs, sit cross-legged, go closer or farther away from the performance. They can turn on and off as their organism and nervous system dictates. Also, in the circus there is something different happening almost every second, there is no plot that would need special amount of concentration. The music, the movement, the lights, the colorful clothes and props, the elements of atmosphere get a hold of the young ones’ attention. It is not by chance that a circus show is usually the first encounter with performance arts. Often only the first part of the program can captivate the child, a pretzel and balloon is compulsory in the intermission and then you have to take a swift leave, so that in half a year or in a year the whole program can be followed through. Which may be tried with a three year old kid as well. It’s not by chance that the immortal journalist, György Bálint called the circus the bath of humanity. It is a rare democratic art form that basically does not demand any preparation. You can find small children as well as old professors of aesthetics of refined taste among the audience.

It is something like that what good children’s performances should be able to do. Their duration of course automatically adjusts to the naturally shorter attention span of the little ones. They often force the playing time downwards even for the over-three audience already conquered for theatre, thus it is about an hour or even less. For the babies sometimes even twenty minutes is enough. And I can see on the video footage, that it’s possible to achieve in a closed space what is possible outdoors. The children can express their attraction, their choices, or they can make the players feel if they are repelled by what is happening on stage. They can toddle closer or step out of its ring of attraction. And they may even drag their parents with them. It is beautiful how an adult can cheer up seeing a child smile, or just the opposite, how the good humor of the relative can spread to the little one sitting on his lap, or how the feet and arms adapt to the tempo of the music by their rhythmic motion. In this theatre touch is important. In some situations even the players may be touched, but the physical closeness of parents, grandparents, babysitters help the children to feel at home in the - for them - unknown location. And actually, I think this is the point. The little ones venture into the unknown. For them theatre is an adventure. The awful curiosity with which they enter the space of the acting is incredible. As they run ahead or are taken aback. They don’t really know what it is they are going to take part in, but they are very much waiting for something, with ever growing excitement. They sense something of what an intensified experience theatre must be like. Maybe they were also told that they will experience something good and they are expecting that good thing. The expectation, the preparation for the experience is usually there on the faces. And it is beautiful. It is apparent that the players are also inspired by this. I think this expectation is important. It teaches them that the actors are also preparing, that a part of the audience is only just arriving, that they have to focus themselves on what is about to happen. The imagined lowered curtain is there, if you will. And no matter it isn’t there, a boundary is created between players and their public. You also have to learn that this boundary can sometimes be stepped across, at other times, however, it cannot. The parents do feel this. Sometimes they let the children go, at other times they pull them back. This is one of the things in which theatre differs from a pedagogical activity for children. The little ones have to learn that it is not always what they are doing that is interesting. And it can be even more interesting if somebody is up to something they don’t know. This can be observed. You can cheer them on so they succeed in what they’re up to. Then, maybe, you can try whether you are capable of doing something that others can do so well. But first you have to learn to see, to concentrate on someone else. To pay attention to music, motion, sentences. To experience and adopt the mood of not only the closest relatives but of other people, too. It is interesting to observe that an audience of children is usually more homogeneous than one of adults. They mostly worry, laugh or get out of control at the same time. But with the smallest it is not like this. One of them bursts out crying while the other one is laughing. There is one who is sitting absolutely still in his chair while another one is moving his feet and arms around. We can seldom talk of a homogeneous audience. A personal temperament appears even more with this age-group. But if the little audience members sense just as much that going to the theatre is good, that you can get excited over it, you can be anxious or be sad and that all this is a really varied and extremely exciting thing, then the experiment is really worth it.

Which in many respects is no experiment either, even though often the excitement is still on the players’ faces: oh my god, how will this turn out, what’ve I got myself into! And naturally, the question is what can be transmitted of their art to so little children? What do they understand? Isn’t there need for exaggerated reduction and simplification, will all this amount to a feeling of satisfaction? For sure, there is need for incredible conciseness. And it is also evident that one has to build from the basics, has to question every never-failing element that one considers a certainty. And this can also help in the renewal for performances for an adult audience. Simple, still significant elements have to be used. And a great deal of repetition that helps processing all what was heard and seen.

A particular system can be made up of repetitions. Henrik Kemény, the great elder of market-place puppeteering said that when on his trips abroad he left out the parts of the text that had little action connected to them and substituted them by repetitions, the audience understood the production, all over the worlds. For children repetition is a source of joy, they want to see a motion, hear a fairy tale over and over again, to recall what has caused joy to them before over and over again. What they already knows means security. And when they feel secure, that is in comfort, they discover newer and newer things in the motions repeated. Their sight grows more perfect. They pay more attention. And they may become more responsive to something they see for the first time.

And those who play have to question the most basic things. The children, for example are receptive when the simple colorful shapes start moving and become a doll, a dog, a cat. The players also try what will become what. Actually, the same thing is happening – of course in a more naive and simpler form – as when one of the world-tour productions of the State Puppet Theatre was produced from Beckett’s Act without words. Here a small figure moved by bunraku technique had to put cubes of small and large sizes on the other in different ways. He had to realize that the cubes should not be put on each other by their angles and that the bigger ones should not be put on the small ones. He had to try everything, so by the end, when he thought he could manage, nothing would turn out right, in accordance with Beckett’s world view.

Whereas in the children’s production everything turns out fine, naturally. It is beautiful that two small girls from the audience soon start dancing although there is no dance scene on just then. It’s just that they’re so overtaken by what they watch that they cannot contain themselves in their happiness. Another little girl is happy because she got a flower from the players. She is pottering about, toddling around with it near the players. We have a child who climbs on stage and stands there looking about, his back to his peers. The players often have a magnetic effect, and flooding the performance area at the end of the performance is sheer joy for the kids. Imagine if the dancers would not retain themselves and would start to swirl around wildly. Obviously many little audience members would be scared, while it may be even harder to restrain others from running on stage.

It is interesting that all performance arts from folk dancing to contemporary dance and puppet theatre can have a variation for the smallest. How it should be done exactly is only at a trial stage in this country. But the players apparently have already got the hang of it. These productions are full of pampering love and zeal. And we can also feel that nobody wants to give less art because s/he is playing for one or two-year-olds. These short performances also call for a faster, condensed understanding of the world and art has no other task in the case of adults either. We have nice characters, funny ones, loveable ones and less pleasant ones. You can be a little afraid or desperate as a result of the play but mostly the atmosphere is of bursting joy, happiness, and “hey, isn’t it good to be alive!”. The players, their tiny audience members and their parents are having fun together.

For the tiny ones theatre is a novelty, and for the artists the novelty is in playing for such young audience. And this novelty does have some magic. The audience and the players can surprise one another. And during their surprises happiness hormones are released. More and more happiness hormones get active. These performances have an atmosphere, a flavor and relish, even when they sometimes appear a little shy or awkward. But I stress that they are loveable. Heartwarming. That warmth is the warmth of the womb, if you will. And the youngsters feel that. They sense it with their fine instinct that if they had to come out of the protected cover, if the umbilical cord which was their security had to be cut, then at least they have this theatre-like something that actually may help their orientation in the world.

Gábor Bóta