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Production History

Go, Dog. Go!

Hansel and Gretel

A Year With
Frog and Toad

Brooklyn Bridge

Splash Hatch on the E Going Down

The Monkey King

The Hobbit

CTC Family Guide

Family Guide: Hansel and Gretel
A detailed description of the play, including things to do and think about, for parents to share with their families.

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Summary
This is a delightful and delicious version of the original Grimm's brothers tale. The retelling is inspired by the plays of an Italian playwright, Dario Fo, and the tradition of Commedia Del'Arte. The music is both earthy and ethereal, drawn from the folk music of Napoli. The language is lyrical, luscious and lovely. This is a fable, and so the tale exists in a world where life and death play happily together, and we can laugh out loud one moment and be struck to the heart in the next.

A Synopsis of the Story
Gretel is dreaming. A fairy queen offers her a birthday gift with promises that sound like food to Gretel's ears. It is bread she finally chooses. Gretel awakes, and it is her own mother that cannot stand to hear her crying for bread. Their family is very hungry, you see. The loving mother tries everything to distract her children from their grumbling stomachs, but it is impossible. They would eat their shoes - except they have no shoes. Hansel wonders if the king is eating his shoes, and imagines that if he, Hansel, were king he'd make his shoes of sausages and sauerkraut! Mother and the children sing a song hailing the Stomach King. Their laughter and love for one another chases away the seriousness of the truth: they are starving.

Father comes home with a surprise! Food? No. Wood. It will warm them, and to smell it will help them imagine food cooking, but Father has gathered the wood to sell, not burn. They will warm themselves by running, but they are getting too weak to run, and their father relents. He sends the children to get water to heat on the fire.

While the children are outside two gentlemen arrive. At first they seem a mirage, one the color of sausage, the other of omelettes, but they are real and looking for a place to sit and eat. They are pompous and quite lost – but even helpless they need to be taken care of. The children invite them in. These gentlemen inhabit a world of poetry and plenty. To them the children are beggars. The house is dirty, the violin the mother plays is scratchy, and the whole situation is offensive. The family watches as the men gorge themselves, wasteful, complaining, and unwilling to share even scraps. Hansel tricks them, and as they chase him, the other three gobble the crumbs left behind. Gretel kindly saves one for Hansel.

Mother is going mad with hunger. She loves her children and their unrelieved hunger is destroying her. She sings that the children are her food, once sweet, now rancid, and she must spit them out. She begs the father to take them away.

Father takes the children into the forest. Mother gives them the last piece of bread. The children playfully sing a song about crumbs as they dance and leave a trail to follow home - only to have it eaten by birds. Father sings the children to sleep and leaves. He can barely believe what he is doing, "I have taken my children to the forest," he says, "Me, not a Cyclops...not an ogre. Me." But there is no turning back.

Gretel dreams of cake, but when she bites it, it wakes up. Her "cake" was Hansel! Suddenly, a white bird appears and leads them to a splendid place: a house with curtains of sausage links and a door of candy. The stairs are stacks of honey jars. Chickens stand in the flower boxes. The house is so beautiful it's frightening. Someone will cut off their hands if they touch it, their tongues if they eat it! Yet how can they resist? They dip a finger in cream and are lost. If the gates to heaven are covered in cherries, then that is where they are. If it is the fires of Hades that have baked the cake, then down they go. They must eat.

The house belongs to a witch, mostly blind, odd and quirky - and very hungry for a feast of little boy. By morning the children are trapped: Hansel is to be fattened for the slaughter, and Gretel will serve her. The witch sings about how she loves to cook and eat, of how she used to trick her master when she herself was a maid.

Gretel lives on bones and crusts while she bakes bread and chickens for Hansel. They trick the witch into thinking Hansel stays thin, by substituting a chicken bone for his finger when the witch tests for plumpness. The witch can't understand why Hansel doesn't fatten up, and she tries to tempt Gretel into telling her his secret. If only Gretel will tell, she can eat a lovely apple! The girl's stomach begs her to say yes, but Gretel will not betray her brother. Instead, she begins to look for a way out.

The witch can't wait to cook Hansel, but as she dances in anticipation Gretel asks her to test the fiery oven. The witch leans in, and Gretel pushes hard, toppling the witch into the flames. The children are free! They celebrate and discover a cache of pearls and gems. They load their pockets with glee! They can go home and buy food, and pillows, and wheat to plant - not only for themselves but for all the land.

When they get home, however, they find their mother's grave and their father very weak. At first he believes they are a dream, but when he realizes his children are real and safe, he is amazed and grateful. Once again they are a family.

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