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How can someone possibly judge if a piece of entertainment created mainly for children is any good? Critics today seem to have agreed that the answer is a two-part checklist: it must keep the kids entertained, and it must keep their parents from wanting to find a tall ledge for which to jump off. Most family entertainment attempts to follow this rule by peppering a juvenile, condescending story for the kids with sexual innuendo and pop culture references for the adults.
This strategy, though, as shown time and time again by run-of-the mill Dreamworks movies, is a cop-out that denies both parents and their kids any sense of wonder or danger—the ingredients that lead to truly enjoying a family show. The crassness of this kind of entertainment was on my mind quite a bit as I watched the latest entry in the Walton Arts Center’s Broadway Series. Slava’s Snow Show knows that the secret to delighting kids is refusing to talk down to them. Like The Wizard of Oz or Fantasia, Slava’s Snow Show earned my respect by realizing that kids are infinitely smarter than they’re given credit. They understand the language of theater and narrative, and they don’t need to be babied through the whole show by having every character and emotion underlined for them.
Seated next to me was one of the kids the show is aimed at, a precocious 9 or 10 year old dressed in a dashing miniature tuxedo. His reaction to what transpired on stage was far more important than my own, and so I took note of his wide eyed wonder at the dialogue-less, narrative-less series of scenes that transpired in front of us.
While the cynic in me couldn’t shake the fact that what I was watching was essentially a glorified, $60-a-ticket clown/mime show with off-Broadway production values, that kid sitting next to me made me remember to turn off my critical eye and turn on my childlike wonder. After this perspective change, I found myself enjoying the slight, 90-minute “snow show,” complete with snow blowers flinging mounds of white confetti at the crowd during its climax.
What the audience was left with when the curtain dropped was just the perspective change that allowed me to enjoy the show in the first place. While I was never blown away by either its physical comedy or its stage-trick charm, its entire package of absurdity and silliness not only let the audience “leave their problems at the door:” it also helped make those problems, whenever they inevitably rear their ugly heads again, a little less scary.
I think the experience grew on me the more I thought about it. A good indication of its lasting impact came a few hours later, as I was doing some research for this review. When I opened the show’s program, something deep inside me—some part of me I don’t often pay attention to—was delighted to see a handful of that white confetti pour out from the booklet, sprinkling down onto my kitchen floor. When my roommate remarked on the resulting goofy smile that dominated my face, I knew that Slava’s Snow Show had achieved what it set out to do.
