“Good afternoon, young ladies,” said a beaming elderly woman wearing the red tunic of a Kennedy Center ticket taker. “Hope you enjoy the program!” Three little girls smiled back at her and dashed eagerly through the door into the Family Theatre, where productions “for young audiences” are held.
What fun! Here we were, two mothers and some daughters, out for a Sunday matinee musical based on a “beloved children’s story” from Japan in which a tree-climbing frog “learns an unforgettable lesson about nature’s grand design and the cycle of life.”
Across the theater, children wiggled happily in their seats as the lights went down and a troupe of actor-amphibians came out singing in an energetic way about pond life. “It’s great!” they were warbling — or something along those lines — when suddenly someone on stage yelled: “No, it sucks!”
My friend and I glanced at each other in surprise. It seemed a coarse choice of words for this crowd. Alas, “sucks” was but the beginning, for we and the dozens of young children around us were in for an unexpectedly foul-mouthed afternoon.
The story of Boonah the tree-climbing frog is apparently well- known to children in Japan, and, like the country’s famous cherry blossom celebrations, it plays to a cultural fascination with the brevity of existence. Boonah is unsatisfied with mundane pond life. He yearns for excitement, and so, rudely repudiating his family and friends, he climbs away to the top of a high tree.
He soon realizes he’s trapped in a ghastly spot. A huge kite hawk uses the treetop as a pantry where he drops bloodied and dying prey before snatching them up again to devour in his nest. Thus Boonah is witness to the terror and anguish of various doomed creatures, and gains a new appreciation for ordinary life.
This might seem unusually grisly material for young people’s theater, but that’s fine; that’s a theatrical cultural exchange. What was unnerving, and eventually outraging, was the vulgarity of the language. “You bitch!” a wounded shrike screamed at a sparrow that had maneuvered the kite hawk into eating him first. I glanced at my daughter, who looked back with surprise. “What the hell?” shouted a second character. “That bastard!” yelled another, and, “Damn, damn, damn, damn!”
Why, I kept asking myself between apprehensive looks at the children around me, do creative people persist in retreating to such tired, unimaginative words? The problem afflicts all our culture — not just musical Japanese imports — through books, television and films. Lenny Bruce wore the freshness out of expletives decades ago. Using them is surely no longer the exercise of artistic license; it is artistic poverty.
Meanwhile, an injured snake was on stage, contemplating her fatal situation. “We’re in … ssssssome … sssssserioussss …
ssss–t!” she cried.
What was the Kennedy Center thinking? As we left, I noticed a sign advising patrons that strobe lights were used in the production. Epileptics, at least, were forewarned. But parents? Nothing. No indication that a weekend matinee “for families” would feature actors roaring oaths.
“The Kennedy Center allows the artistic creators of its productions to decide what language is appropriate,” a spokesman told me, and pointed out that just because a show is held in the Family Theatre, it’s no guide to its age-appropriateness. Apparently it’s not the practice to warn patrons of either profanity or nudity. The spokesman also reminded me that the frog show brochure had described the production as “for young adults and their families.”
Sorry, but that’s not good enough. “Families” is the key word: Either it’s suitable, or it’s not. So let me give you the warning that the Kennedy Center will not: Before you buy tickets for what sounds like an interesting matinee, you may want to inquire just how family-friendly it really is. Because by the time your happy children hand their tickets to the nice lady in the red jacket, it’ll be too late.
Examiner columnist Meghan Cox Gurdon is a former foreign correspondent and a regular contributor to the books pages of the Wall Street Journal. Her Examiner column appears on Thursdays.
