No dialogues, but a beautiful message

While most of us believe that plays and theatre are not meant for the tiny tots but only for sophisticated adults, the Israel theatre group Media Theque Theatre trashed our beliefs when Hagar Tishman performed A Butterfly Kiss, for toddlers at the India Habitat Centre on a bland Sunday evening.

Hagar Tishman, who is the only actor of the play, A Butterfly Kiss, carried the whole evening on her delicate shoulders along with director Elinor Alam Ben David when the overwhelmed children and their parents enjoyed her 45-minute performance right till the end.

The all women-show was a stunner and kept the audience glued to their seats.
The beauty of the play is that it has no dialogues...silent so to speak but it raises the sound decibal with energetic enactment of the narrative through use of hand gestures, props and relying heavily on music, video-art, animation and puppetry to keep the audience engaged.

The play was a first-time experience of theatre for the young audience, as children as old as two and three years clapped and laughed happily, some even rushing to the stage during the performance to follow the artiste who had come down to distribute tiny butterflies to them.

The interactive play used animations and music to draw the toddlers’ attention and help them understand the story. The effect was that the children were transported into a dream world of illusion, while the actor herself moved all around the auditorium to interact with them, engaging and encouraging them to participate.

The play tells the simple story of a girl who loves collecting butterflies- a quest which she can only complete with the help of the children in the audience, who were already hooked to the performance on stage. As the play unfolds, she dances with the children and lets them touch her butterflies too.

The performance tells the story of a young girl running after the butterflies she has collected. Before she lets them free again, she wants to get a last butterfly kiss.

At the close of the play, she calls children up on the stage and lights up little tiny bulbs with their help, which adds to the glory of the ambience. She also distributes  little paper butterfly kisses she has in her jar to the children and asks them to place one on their cheeks as well.