Adaptations for Children

Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him. (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2.1)

When Titania defies Oberon in a pivotal moment of A Midsummer Night's Dream, she denies Oberon possession of a child borne by a now dead votaress of hers. The passage invokes not only children and their social and familial status but addresses childbirth, the bonds among women, midwivery, and the contested terrain that will set the stage for Titania's humilation by Oberon prior to their eventual reconcilation.

The word child occurs over 200 times in Shakespeare's writings and children and youth play an important role in the plays, both as characters (Romeo and Juliet) and as am active part of the stagecraft of Shakespearean theatre. Child acting companies during the sixteenth century enjoyed an "extraordinary popularity" that "had its beginning in the centres of choral and ecclesiastic service" in England (see "The Child Actors" by David Drew-Smythe). Later, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, adaptations of Shakespeare for children were produced that entailed reinforcing domestic, moral values, the most enduring example of which were Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare (1807) and Henrietta Maria Bowdler's The Family Shakespeare (1807). Increasingly, the relevance of teaching Shakespeare to children in various ways is becoming evident, both as a means of improving literacy skills and as a way of historicizing the English language and its history (see for instance The Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare For Kids site, which provides learning activities for children and families).

The CASP Database currently lists 25 adaptations of Shakespeare for children and young audiences. What do these tell us about the cultural role of Shakespeare in the lives of young Canadians, and the market for Shakespeare geared towards children (but paid for by adults)? Here are some photos from two of those productions, the first, Josephine Barrington's 1937 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet as a fairy tale and the second, Louis B. Hobson's adaptation for children of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

 

Shakespeare's Fairy Tale Romeo and Juliet (1937), Josephine Barrington

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Lois Burdett's Shakespeare Can Be Fun! Series

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A Midsummer Night's Dream (2002), Louis B. Hobson

 

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Link to Database