“There is live gunfire in the show.”

I recently finished two good books.  A neighbor loaned me the first: “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen.  It’s essentially all about history textbooks and the half-truths and distortions in them.  It’s an eye-opening and fairly easy read that’ll definitely make you wonder how much bogus stuff the adults in primary school taught you.

Then, Loewen cited to Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” which is a book I’ve wanted to read since Good Will Hunting: “That book will knock you on your ass.”  And it did.  I marked passages on almost every page.

“All the world is cheered by the sun.”

I mention these books because they’ve got ideas that some might consider dangerous, especially for children: Your teachers are lying to you.  Your heroes weren’t necessarily heroic.  Leaders don’t always make the right choices.  America is built on blood, war, and pain.  Your country doesn’t always do good.  Where there’s a winner, there’s often a loser.  Much of what is called progress may only be illusion.

“More bitterly could I expostulate.”

Children have to be shielded from all this, right?  They shouldn’t see violent movies.  They can’t know anything about sex.  No difficult issues.  No controversy.  It’s best to keep them safely tucked away in a harmless and fail-proof glass case.  No daughter of mine is going to know that boys exist until she’s twenty-one.

“Is there anybody she doesn’t kiss?”

I’m not sure this is the right way to go.  Kids generally like to be challenged.  They want to try hard things.  They want to learn about real stuff with real difficulties, real controversies, and real drama.  Nobody wants to be put in a situation they’re not ready for, but it seems to me that most kids look for opportunities make a difference, accomplish something real, and have an opportunity to succeed.  Even when kids get absorbed in video games, a big part of the fun is that the best ones offer an appropriate challenge.  Who wants to play games that are too easy?  I always wanted to win at the hardest possible level.

Which brings me to The Bards of Birmingham.  The goal of this unusual theatre group is to provide an opportunity and a challenge for young people to perform classical theatre – especially Shakespeare.  I was invited their recent performance of Richard III at the East Lake United Methodist Church (a preview performance, so I can’t give any audience attendance grade).  One thing that makes this group noteworthy is that most of the actors are younger than eighteen and, for this performance, ranged all the way down to six.  Also, it’s not just for white kids and it’s not just for black kids.

This group does Shakespeare – and not dumbed down or spoonfed.  It’s quite an accomplishment for a young group like this to get all the way through two-plus hours of a complex drama without any major hiccup.  But it seems like I’d be giving a belittling pat on the head to judge kids solely by their ability to “get through it.”  No one shoots for a participation award – especially not this group.  The Bards of Birmingham are characterized by nothing if not ambition.

“Dream on of bloody deeds and death.”

Not only does this group ask kids to do Shakespeare, but they chose Richard III, which is both violent and difficult.  Some adult troupes wouldn’t make this decision.  It’s more metal than pop; more Goatwhore than Bruno Mars.  In a nutshell, Richard III is the story of an ambitious person who will do anything – even murder – for personal gain.  My favorite parts of this performance were all the darkest – the bloody stabbing in the middle of the audience, a murderer threateningly dragging his knife along a metal framework, actors tossing around a decapitated head, and children discussing the murder of other children.

Are these difficult and complicated ideas for kids?  Yes.  Are they really any less difficult and complicated for adults?  Do adults fear that exposure to “dangerous” ideas will be too difficult for children?  Or is the fear – correctly named – that it might be too difficult for adults to discuss these ideas with children?  Is it that there’s no easy explanation?  I’m thirty-five, and no one has ever satisfactorily explained to me why people kill other people.

“And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”

But if kids aren’t exposed to the “dangerous” stuff, how can they ever learn how to deal with it?  Let’s be frank – the world can be a difficult and complicated place.  Let’s be doubly frank – kids are already forced to deal with violence and sex.  Seemingly earlier and earlier, it’s in our schools.  But exposure to violence, for example, in books and the arts doesn’t have to teach that it’s an acceptable option.  Quite the opposite.  A primary lesson from Richard III is that selfish and violent ambition can result in a wicked backlash:

“O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! . . . What do I fear?  Myself?  There’s none else by . . . Is there a murderer here?  No.  Yes, I am . . . O, no!  Alas, I rather hate myself for hateful deeds committed by myself!  I am a villain . . . Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree; All several sins, all used in each degree, throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty!  Guilty!  I shall despair.  There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul shall pity me.  Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself find in myself no pity to myself?”

Small children start with little emotional range.  And blank slates make bad actors.  But we all learn how to interact through observing others – including characters on the page, stage, and screen.  Teenagers don’t usually understand what it’s like for a mother to grieve for a child, for example, until they read about that mother and gain some empathy.  Or until they’re forced to act out the mother’s part on a stage.  Or until they’re in the audience watching another kid playing the mother’s part.  Or until it happens in their neighborhood.

In many ways, isn’t teaching kids this kind of empathy the most dangerous idea of all?  Once you really empathize with someone, it’s much more difficult to treat them poorly.  The worst “isms” just aren’t possible once you understand that “those people” are people.  (When I ask you to think of a group you dislike, who’s the first group you think of?)  I might argue that this empathy is the most important thing we can teach our kids.  A whole generation of powerful empathizers might change the world.

Not every kid will be able to perform with The Bards of Birmingham, but they should all go to a performance.  After the show, I asked the actors, “Why should kids see Shakespeare?”  From one of the youngest: “I can only think of one reason.  It’s amazing.”

Thanks to Laura Coulter and to everyone else with The Bards of Birmingham.  Also, I think this is my 200th blog piece – wow.