Hans Brinker
and the Silver Skates shows how
young people can cope with making hard choices and standing up to their peers
and their parents. It is also a very egalitarian play in which boys and girls
are treated as equals in their abilities to persevere and to succeed.
 |
| Lauren Hirte as Gretel, Ciji Prosser as Heidi, Steven A. Wright as Carl, Matteo Scammell as Peter, and Brian Ratcliffe as Hans. Photo by Mark Garvin. |
I remember Hans Brinker; or, the
Silver Skates from my childhood. The book held a special place in my
library, not because I liked the story, but because the book itself had a
special cover that differentiated it from most of the other books I owned.
While I could tell you the story of almost all the other books I read from that
time, I really didn’t remember more about Hans Brinker than that it had
to do with a race along the canals in Holland.
The production of Hans Brinker
and the Silver Skates at the Arden Children’s Theatre brings the story to
life in a enchanting way that makes me think I had never fully appreciated the
original. The ice-blue scenery with windmill blades rotating in the background and
a floor that serves as an ice rink (Scenic Designer David P Gordon) makes us
feel the cold of the Dutch Canals in winter. The cast members, in period
costumes (Rosemarie E. McKelvey), glide across the specially-treated stage on
“skates” (shoes with felt and rubber soles) so effortlessly that we believe we
are watching them skate on ice.
 |
Lauren Hirte as Gretel.
Photo by Mark Garvin.
|
Set in Holland, the story is about
Hans Brinker (Brian Ratcliffe) and his sister Gretel (Lauren Hirte) who have
grown up in poverty because their father Raff (Ed Swidey) fell off a
scaffolding while trying to repair the dykes during a storm ten years earlier.
Since that time he has been “a living man with the mind of a dead man,” who
needs to be taken care of by his wife Dame Brinker (Rachel Camp). Now, there is
a to be race on the canals with the prize of a pair of silver skates. Hans and
Gretel would like to participate, but they only have wooden skates, carved by
Hans, to wear on the ice. They don’t stand a chance against the rich kids who
regard them as “rag pickers.”
However, Heidi van Gleck (Ciji
Prosser) and her friend Peter von Holp (Matteo Scammell) are moved by their
story and try to help them by giving them old skates in return for Hans’ carved
necklaces. After some persuasion by Hans, grumpy Doctor Boekman (Steven A
Wright) agrees to operate on their father as much for his ego as a matter of
charity.
Laura Eason, who also writes for the
Netflix show House of Cards, has created a gentle drama that is held
together by the tension of wondering how things will turn out for our two young
heroes. Will their father be cured? Will they find the family’s missing money?
Who gave their father a precious watch? Will they be able to participate in the
race? Who will win?
Most of all, she has written a story
in which the girls and the boys are equally cruel and brave. When Raff Brinker
becomes deranged, Gretel distracts him with food. When Hans despairs, Gretel
pushes him on. When the rich kids taunt Peter and Heidi, they stand by their
new friends. The most conventional characters are the faithful Dame Brinker,
and the spoiled Katerina Voss (both played by Camp), but Dame Brinker has kept
the family together for years by working when she could, and Katarina may be
spoiled, but she is also competing in the race.
I watched the production with more
than 200 school children in grades two to five and their enthusiasm was hard to
resist. Despite the length of the show—almost two hours with intermission—they
paid attention and cheered Hans and Gretel on in their races at the end.
Whether they absorbed the lessons
about life and hope that are a part of children’s theater is harder to tell.
The play talks a lot about keeping hope alive when things get tough, and Gretel
even says, “Hope is a good in itself,” which is a nice lesson when stories have
happy endings. It may be harder to sustain when challenges can’t all be
overcome.
The lesson about standing up for
what you believe had an interesting component when it touched upon standing up
to one’s parent and those in authority as well as mean kids who are taunting
you. It would be interesting to sit on discussions around these topics and see
what the students have to say.
In any case, it’s an enjoyable show
that plays well whether you’re a kids or a grown-up, and concludes with a Dutch
holiday tradition of putting out wooden shoes filled with decorations for
Sinterklaas instead of hanging stockings
on the mantel as we do in this country.
Hans Brinker and The Silver Skates, By Laura Eason, adapted from the novel Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland by Mary Mapes Dodge (1865). Whit MacLaughlin directed. Presented by Arden Children’s Theatre, through January 31, 2016 at the Arden Theatre Company, 40 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106. (215) 922-1122 or http://www.ardentheatre.org
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