Reading Roundup: Stage-Struck Kids, Elizabethan & WWII

The masque scene (Act 4, scene 1) in a 1951 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest. This is about 10 years later than the production of The Tempest in Theatre Shoes, but, well, it’s the best I could do with a quick Google.

Do you ever have the experience of reading a mediocre book on a certain subject or theme, and then needing to follow it up by re-reading a better book on that same subject or theme?

For instance, a year ago I read a mediocre adventure novel about Egyptian mummies and then had to follow it up with a reread of a better one.

Or, more recently, I took a new-to-me kids’ book out of the Little Free Library because it was about Shakespeare, but found it pretty lackluster when I read it.

Fortunately, the Little Free Library then served up Noel Streatfeild’s Theatre Shoes, a childhood favorite and just what I needed at the moment: a better book about children at an interesting historical moment in London, learning about the magic of live theater.

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There is no denying that Gary Blackwood has done his research. The Shakespeare Stealer is full of information that will give children a sense of daily life in Elizabethan England and the way theater companies functioned in Shakespeare’s time. Sometimes the details are astoundingly vivid: when the narrator, 14-year-old orphan Widge, first sees the Globe Theatre, he thinks it “resembled an overgrown saltcellar.”

But the trouble, I think, is that Blackwood feels too beholden to his research to tell an interesting story. For instance, Blackwood portrays William Shakespeare as being in a melancholic state after the death of his son Hamnet and not very involved in the day-to-day business of the Globe. This is plausible, and means that Blackwood’s Shakespeare does not do anything that contradicts the historical record. The problem is that he doesn’t do much in this book at all. And if I’m reading a kids’ book about a boy who gets a job in Shakespeare’s theater company, I want some significant moments where the boy interacts with Shakespeare, dang it!

The book seems like it ought to convey the thrilling magic of theater, but Widge is such a passive and diffident protagonist that the thrills don’t register. He’s a country lad who has never seen a play before—and the first play he sees is Hamlet ! And three months or so later, he’s taking on the role of Ophelia in a command performance for Queen Elizabeth! But the narration in these scenes is pretty flat and generic, glossing over moments that could be emotional high points in the hands of another author.

It's sort of ironic, I guess, that this book has a pro-copyright and anti-plagiarism moral, because it’s the first book I’ve read in a long time that’s made me think “I wish this was in the public domain, because it’s a cool premise for a story but the execution really falls flat. Can I steal this idea and rewrite it?”

Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Noel Streatfeild’s Theatre Shoes, the characters live in a dilapidated town house in a bombed-out London square; they constantly worry about rations and clothes and money; they struggle with all of the insecurity, competitiveness, and jealousy that comes with trying to pursue a performing arts career.

And yet, Streatfield still makes it all seem like the most appealing thing in the world.

Theatre Shoes and Streatfeild’s other “Shoes” books played a big part in my childhood daydreams and mean that I still fantasize about living in a home where the walls are covered in framed playbills and the furniture is repurposed from theatrical productions that I starred in. The book is a perfect balance of nitty-gritty details about life in World War Two-era London and wish-fulfillment fantasy for stagestruck youngsters.

When I read this as a kid, I think I was most drawn to the practical details and the historical atmosphere; rereading as an adult, I have a new appreciation for Streatfeild’s skill at characterization. Streatfeild didn’t often write about boys, but I love her depiction of middle sibling Mark: he’s always wanted to be a naval officer like his father and claims to hate the performing arts, but then he can’t hide his excitement when his teachers ask him to pretend to be a bear or a bird. There’s also a lot of subtext about the children’s grandmother and how much of a difficult, temperamental diva she is, which didn’t register for me when I was a kid but intrigued me upon this rereading. Streatfield understands children really well but she also understands how to portray the adults in this story as real people rather than generic authority figures.