We took Chance and his brother to see "A Christmas Carol" this past week. It was a play put on in a local theater, in a theater-in-the-round. I went last year and ended up sitting right on the floor of the theater and thought Chance would enjoy sitting there too. I thought it would help him pay attention and put him in the middle of the action.
Chance's brother and I read the book a few weeks ago, but I thought the book's language might be a bit much at this stage for Chance. Of course the play used the same style old language that was in the book, but we were prepared for that. We told Chance the general story before attending the play, and then took a notebook and pen to the play. We knew that there would be many words that Chance might not know, and we didn't want him to feel lost in the story. We also didn't want to disturb the people around us if Chance had lots of questions.
It worked out quite well. Chance could write down any of his questions and we could write down brief descriptions of what was happening in the story if we thought Chance was struggling or if the vocabulary or accents of the actors got complicated.
Chance really enjoyed the play and laughed out loud when he got the humor of some scenes. Scrooge turned to the crowd and made comments a few times, and the 2nd ghost was quite the jokester.
Since we were on the front row, the graveyard scene where a "fog" was spread across the floor fascinated Chance. Suddenly, we found our feet engulfed in a cloudy fog. Chance reached down and touched it, trying to feel it and sitting in awe trying to figure out where it was coming from.
I know that Chance did not catch all of the dialogue in the play and the vocabulary challenged him, but he really enjoyed it. We would like to expose Chance to more plays etc. The story of " A Christmas Carol" is one of those general knowledge topics that society at large is going to know about. Chance needs to be familiar with these things too.
He wanted to know as we walked out of the play when we would be attending another play. So I think it was a hit.
No comments:
Post a Comment