Act One. Scene One: A step creaks. Children huddle in fear.
Oh, please let it be grandmother coming up, and not someone/something evil!
Adults in the audience of Russian playwright Evgeny Schwartz’ theatrical version of “The Snow Queen” would have experienced the children’s terror viscerally.
In Russia, “fear is everywhere” in 1938, when Schwarz wrote “The Snow Queen,” said Yury Urnov, who is directing Schwartz’ play at the Wilma from Nov. 11 through Nov. 23.
Russia was in the “midst of Stalin’s repressions. One of the darkest years,” said Urnov, who was born in Moscow. “Who is coming up our steps? Are they coming for me? For my neighbor? People were being taken away and never came back.”
The youngsters in the audience, still innocent, might have a different response to the opening scene in Schwartz’ play based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale.
Yes, they see the frightened children and hear that ominous sound on the stairs. Maybe they are a little scared, or even a little thrilled, but knowing fairy tales and still unafraid of life, the young theatergoers expect a happy ending.
That dichotomy – with all its allusions to what we are experiencing now in this country – is exactly what Wilma is aiming for with “The Snow Queen,” its first production planned to appeal to both the youngest of children (the Disney hit “Frozen” is based on this tale) and adults, including parents and grandparents.
Wilma has a reputation, Urnov said, for producing works that tend to be edgy, and maybe not the most inviting for children.
But last year, Wilma rented its space to a traveling company, TheaterWorksUSA, which brought the hit Broadway musical “Dog Man: The Musical” to the theater. From their offices overlooking the lobby, Wilma’s leadership team saw an unusual sight – its lobby bustling with excited kids.
“We saw the kids and we said, `We want that,’ ” said Urnov, who is one of Wilma’s three co-artistic directors.
But what they didn’t want, he said, was the stereotypical kid-friendly show where parents take their children to the theater, and basically sit through, or maybe endure, 90 minutes of something intended for the young audience.
“We want the parents and the kids to go together, and both get something out of it,” even if what each person sees in the play is different, Urnov said. “That’s the target. That’s the hope.”
Another hope, of course, is building audiences for the future – not that there’s anything wrong with dedicated audiences of baby boomers buying theater tickets. But both the children and their parents represent younger generations of potential patrons.
“Theater is an eternally dying institution,” Urnov said. “We keep surviving – only when the younger generations are going to the theater, working in the theater, and being interested in the theater. A big part of that is tradition. A lot of it is habit – and a lot of that habit is formed when you are pretty little,” seeing plays as a child.
Urnov remembers seeing his first theater production at the age of 4.
It’s not necessary to bring a child to the show, even though both children and adults will appreciate extravagant sets and costumes designed to evoke the many places the heroine, Gerda, played by Bi Jean Ngo, travels in her journey to save her close friend, almost a brother, from the cold world of the Snow Queen.
The adults in the audience – with or without children – will recognize the Snow Queen and her emissary, the Councilor, Urnov said. They’ll see “a lot of capitalism and how power and money are intertwined and how money serves the evil.
“There is a lot of sensitivity in this interpretation,” Urnov said. “It has something that becomes recognizable in how people feel and behave in a totalitarian state.”
For the children, “it’s the story of a little girl who goes on an odyssey, who travels the world to save her brother. In the center is a small, small, scared but strong little girl, fighting with her fear.
“Her journey is hard, scary, and fun, and sometimes seductive,” Urnov said. “It’s a scary world and an interesting world – funny and wonderful and silly. And she keeps going and going to where she needs to be to defreeze the heart of her brother.”
FYI
“The Snow Queen,” Nov. 11-23, Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-546-7824. Shows for student groups are available at 10 a.m. on some days during the run. Chats and talkbacks after some shows.
The post Fear, fairy tales and Frozen vibes: Wilma’s “Snow Queen” aims for all ages appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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