Little Women Revisited
Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 06:49AM
Little Women and Little Men by Louisa May Alcott were two of my favorite books as a child, the first to really pierce my young, dramatic heart with the full range of girlish emotions--gasping, hand-to-mouth, clutching Kleenexes, and sobbing.
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!," sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things and others to have nothing at all, added little Amy with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother and each other, " said Beth contentedly from her corner.
Yesterday my dear friend, Dorothy, treated me to the most wonderful day! We went to a matinee performance of the Broadway musical, Little Women, at the Marriott Theater in Lincolnshire. The performance transported me right back to my childhood as I winked away the shared tears of sadness and of joy of generations of little women, like me.
Theatre has always seemed like magic in the dark to me and it was especially so yesterday. The Marriott Theater is in the round, so the props are minimal; silently and invisibly ushered on and off in the dark. I have never seen a production in the round, so I was curious about what it would be like to see a play without backdrops. It seemed especially appropriate to me that so much magic could be created with so few props and, like the March girls, we lived in our imaginations during the production:
"Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?"
It WAS fun and for a few hours, this childhood book became true and we lived in it.
Reader Comments (5)
Little women! - I have my own tattered copy somewhere in the house to pass down to my own 'little women' someday soon.
If only they would come over and play it in a theatre here (ooops I meant theater!!).
Sounds like you had loads of fun!
That sounds like a wonderful day! I've never read it, can you believe that?
Oh, Kim! That was one of my favourite books as a child! I'll bet that was quite an enjoyable surprise.
One of my favorites as well! I first read my grandmother's copy curled up on the sofa in her home, and now her copy is mine!
How wonderful to see the theatrical version, something I would truly love!
One of my favorite books, too, when I was a girl.
Glad the day was fun!