Beatrix Potter

Long ago and far away, fantasy was frowned upon. Refined children read moral tales and scorned frivolous stories. The young mind was nourished with such things as Spiritual Milk Drawn Out of the Breasts of Both Testaments.

But fantasy kept cropping up in spite of well-bred disapproval. Sanctioned reading of the lives of saints offered exaggerated accounts of martyrs' deaths that rival present-day science fiction and horror stories. Then in the 19th century fairy stories began to be socially acceptable--for children. Older people still only enjoyed them vicariously.

Beatrix Potter grew up in the midst of such attitudes. Children were treated as miniature adults in her stifling Victorian home. Isolated on the third floor of a London mansion, she was taught to read from the early novels of Sir Walter Scott. It is not surprising that she filled her sterile existence with fantasy. She drew animals which she knew from vacations in the country, giving them clothes, names, and finally words. Though discouraged from such frivolity by her parents, Beatrix wrote and illustrated 21 animals-fairy tales in 20 years. When she married at 47, Beatrix Potter abandoned her fanciful world of writing and painting for a farm where she bred sheep for be last thirty years of her life.

In her day Beatrix was phenomenally successful; Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and the Flopsy Bunnies are her most famous characters. And though popular success for a writer of Children's fantasies is not unusual, intelligent appreciation by adults is.

Yet many older people are strangely attracted to children's literature in spite of (or for) the fact that it does not often perform cerebral and verbal scrobatics. The Annotated Alice (in Wonderland) is an admittedly fascinating example of the adult urge to examine and the understand fantasy. But does such squinting really bring anyone closer to seeing what Lewis Carroll was up to? Or did he expect us simply to accept the imaginative irrationality of his books?

Now from England comes another interpretation of a work for children: the movie "Peter Rabbit and Tales of Beatrix Potter." Instead of dissecting the stories of Beatrix Potter with words, choreographer Frederick Ashton and the Royal Ballet delve into them using the more eloquent medium of the dance. Five of Beatrix Potter's better known tales are recreated through mime and ballet, with the spirit and watercolor beauty of her books intact.

The audience takes it all seriously. The children in the theatre gasp when a cat appears amidst a group of mice, but here cat and mouse end up chatting over tea instead of bopping each other in the best of the Mighty Mouse tradition. And I think many kids are puzzled when there is not a battle.

Unquestionably the older people in the audience appreciated clothed animals cavorting in the countryside more than the children did. Those over 30 are likely to be much more familiar with Beatrix Potter's small books than anyone younger. One afternoon a large group of white-haired ladies clapped and cheered at the movie's end (presumably for the movie, not its end).

And then there were the performers themselves. If you pause to think for a moment during the movie, you realize that these are grown, supposedly staid Britishers masquerading as animals in bulky hooves and fur. At first rational thought it seems ludicrous; at least you wonder why they are doing this. But it is apparent that the dancers are having fun: they love the dance, and even as much as that they love the characters they are portraying.

The delightfulness of the tales begins to wear off after about an hour--the days when most of us could fully empathize with animals are past...and maybe yet to come. Still, one leaves with the feeling that the daily diet of earlier generations of children was not all pap.