I saw "Beasts and Beauties" at Hampstead Theatre yesterday. A big disappointment. Why is children's & families' theatre shows nowadays so loud and crass and nervous all the time?
Our society (big or small) seems to be schizophrenic: we talk about "love" and "respect" for other human beings (ah, those late night media / arts shows - the chattering class, perhaps?) and then we get theatre without any real heart dished up and flung at our ears and eyes. Ouch! It hurts! And what is really worse: it is boring. Simply boring.
And it is a form of abuse that is not being recognised and acknowledged - especially when it is theatre for kids to attend. Okay, kids are not all angels BUT they are still more innocent than many adults and are certainly more "new" here on Earth; and we adults should be assisting them to remain innocent for as long as possible. Or am I being "old-fashioned" in not wanting to sex-up kids? Compare and contrast.
After all, we adults have all been children and know what it feels like. All human beings remain children their whole lives through; only some of us become parents. And not all of them (parents) manage to become adults. But that is another topic for another day.
How do we (individuals in society) get the good, left-liberal arts folk to mate and conjoin with the traditional values of the so-called right arts folk? Can we not take the BEST of both sides and make a proper Frankenstein? (Frank may have looked odd and like a monster but he was the one who was killed by the frightened "normal" people. He didn't do the killing. Admittedly, it has been a long time since I saw the film...)
I wonder which theatre companies would survive if they DID NOT get tax-payers' money handed out to them? Would the left-liberal arts folk ever really try out such a scheme? It's very scary. I know from bitter-sweet experience. Yet, as Stephen Sondheim wrote: "but I'm still here".