"The Cat in the Boots" has never been a children's story.
Finally someone understood that
Meditech's new children's show presents a clever and surprising satire on the unfairness of the economic system in which we live.
The wink made behind the back of the French aristocracy of the 18th century also works great in Israel of 2022. Along the way there is another potential star on stage, who happens to be dressed like a cat
Living Room Fellow
08/06/2022
Wednesday, 08 June 2022, 08:53
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Forget about the cute cat whistling.
The reality is much darker (Photo: imdb)
The year is 1853. Social networks and likes have not yet been invented, and the word "story" refers to something much simpler.
In those days a great and well-publicized struggle began between the acclaimed British writer Charles Dickens and George Crockshank, who was formerly the illustrator of some of his books.
The debate began when Crookschank claimed to have invented the plot of the Oliver Twist story, but degenerated into a heated political debate between liberalism and conservatism in children’s literature.
Dickens published an article in which he attacked Crookshank for starting to publish "corrected" versions of well-known folk tales, accompanied by a didactic and preachy morality against drinking alcohol and gambling.
According to Dickens, Crookschank's versions of children's stories are in fact fake.
Crookschank, an alcoholic in rehab, claimed he was merely trying to protect children from the horror of drunkenness, and the misery that accompanies it.
A few years later Crookschank will write his version of the children's fairy tale "The Cat in Boots", and will discover that no matter how much he tries (and he tried, including turning the cat into a human at the end of the story), it is impossible to "fake" a positive moral to this story.
In the British Museum in London is the original manuscript, containing a note by the author, who simply did not understand which parent would let his children read the original story: "As it seems, the tale is a success story of a crook. A tutoring lesson that teaches how to lie! Awards and a variety of national benefits. "
Indeed, "The Cat in the Boots" is a somewhat bizarre story within the world of children's fairy tales.
A story about a boy who has not inherited, and instead of going to work he uses a cunning cat to fraudulently obtain the hand of a princess and her treasures.
In 1922, Walt Disney, the merry pre-Mickey Mouse, produced a short cartoon version of the story set in the early 20th century. If you do not remember this movie, it's because it's not good. And it's not good because it misses the point : "The Cat in the Boots" has never been a children's story.
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The sources for the story can be dated to the fifth century BC.
The ancient writings of the Indian Panchentantra have already written a story about a cat, who tries to make a fortune in the court of a rich king.
The stories, which made their way to Europe in the sixth century, took on a more Western character, and were adapted for children.
From the ancient book also emerged the familiar versions of "The Princess and the Pea" and "The Goldfish," among others.
The version we know today of "The Cat in the Boots" was first published in 1695 as part of the mother-goose stories of the French writer Charles Peru.
It is worth dwelling on this version, which almost all of us grew up on, to understand how it is precisely she, who was not the first to become famous on the old continent, is the one who has captured the hearts of children for centuries.
Peru simply realized that his target audience was not really the children, but his arrogant friends from the French aristocracy.
Prof. Zohar Shavit explained in her book "An Introduction to the Poetics of Children's Literature" that Peru's genius was, among other things, his reference to two avoidants at the same time - children and adults.
Shavit describes the manipulations that Peru makes in the texts, while winking behind the back of the "official recipient" - that is, the children.
"There is no doubt that the ironic tone and satirical pattern appealed to the upper-class adult recipient, and not to the children and the lower-class," Shavit concludes.
In the future, children will be able to tell that they saw Guy Demidov when he was doing children's plays (Photo: Kfir Bolotin)
The new version of "The Cat in the Boots" at the Meditech Theater in Holon tries to maintain the same ambivalence within the limits of showing children.
Playwright Ido Riklin and director Rafi Niv manage to preserve the same ironic tone that shocked some Puritan readers in 18th-century Europe, while at the same time being forced to adapt the dark and immoral tale to an audience of children.
Quite surprisingly, they succeed, without changing too much from the familiar story.
In fact, the esteemed, seemingly inconceivable creators whose name was attached to a children’s show seem to have managed to bring out the true spirit of the story: a satire on the upper class, its emptiness and superficiality, and the unfairness deeply rooted in our economic system.
The play is successful first and foremost because the children of 21st century Israel are probably more intellectually developed than the adults of the 18th century.
True, children do not read Shakespeare's sonatas and few, if any, have read Dante's Divine Comedy - and yet, it's hard to believe that the children of the Instagram and ticktock generation need parental mediation to understand that no cat is going to arrange their lives.
This is also probably why the matters of succession that drive the wheels of the plot in the original story have been cut from the new local version.
Nevertheless, the word "inheritance" has great economic significance in today's Israeli reality.
Instead, Riklin adds a layer of absurdity that surrounds the human characters, emphasizing the poor miller and the spoiled princess.
The female cast is imperfect, and that is precisely what makes the new adaptation feminist (Photo: Kfir Bolotin)
The treatment of the princess is the most original in the new adaptation, and it is also the one that makes the play so successful, beyond all expectations.
Actress Sharon Cohen Raz brings to the role a character that simply did not exist in any of the original versions of the story.
The indifferent princess was always enthusiastic about the glittery clothes the cat arranged in the prince's boots, as one would expect from a fairy-tale princess.
The new version features a princess undergoing a change from beeches (which even the youngest children in the audience could understand is a natural response to loneliness) to a love for an abandoned bitch she decided to adopt, to falling in love with a prince because he displays good character traits, not just because he is elegantly dressed.
The female cast with Bar Ackerman is not "perfect" because he is not supposed to be like that, but that's what brings so much humanity to the stage.
In a sense, it's even a feminist twist.
The main role of the cat stars Guy Demidov, the regent of the royal couple of the Gesher Theater, who occupies the stage with impressive charisma and natural feline movements.
In a world run by charlatans and crooks, Demidov has a wide range of inspiration to bring to the furry crook figure - but he remains true to the cat's natural benefits.
Bastard, but not selfish.
We can, but have no choice.
Demidov incorporates anthropomorphic techniques into the role, but he seems to have managed to capture the children's imagination even without a cat's outfit.
Demidov's future looks pretty promising (regardless of family pedigree), and it seems like a lot of kids can be proud of the future they once saw him, in the beginning, when he was still starring in children's shows.
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Children's plays
