The Foot is More Noble Than the Shoe

Jesus:  Did I ever tell you that I used to read feet?

Jeffrey:  What?

Jesus:  Some people read palms, tea leaves?  I read feet.  (Jeffrey shakes his head)  No, look! (Jesus grabs Jeffrey's shoe.)  Aha, it says rejoice!

(Everybody crowds around Jeffrey to look at his shoe.)

Jeffrey:  It says "Keds".

For those unfamiliar with the above quote, it comes from my favourite musical of all time, Godspell.  All told, I've done the show three separate times, and each was special to me for different reasons.  I've always loved the part about reading feet (although the brand "Keds" is often replaced by "Reebok" - much funnier, but they weren't popular until after the show was written), but it wasn't until this past weekend that I realized why.

The show Godspell is essentially a modern take on the Book of Matthew, and if I'm not mistaken - and please forgive me because it's been over four years since I last did the show - the lesson that Jesus was going for in the scene is along the lines of "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven."  (Matthew 5:12)  The humour, of course, is found in Jeffrey's insistence on being so literal.  Shoes don't talk!  And, if they "say" anything, it's what's written in plain English on the shoe "Keds".

I always thought that this little joke was very cute and funny, but the power behind Godspell is that it can be watched and played on so many different levels.  Nowhere was this more apparent to me than this weekend.  Guildwood Village in Scarborough was host to an arts festival on Sunday.  Since the Husband had recently done the Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) at the Scarborough Village Theatre, they were asked to do a portion of play to help promote the theatre group.  Since it's rare that either of us are performing at a time that doesn't interfere with either naps or bedtime, we decided to go en famille so that our three-year-old would get a chance to see his daddy act.

After a rather difficult time finding parking, a mysterious ice cream mishap (how does it get on the top of a hat?), and an interminable steel drum song (I'm sorry, but no steel drum song need ever be that long), the Husband finally came onstage.  And hey - they actually do have a stage in the park!  It's a copy of a open-air Greek stage with columns and carvings.  It's quite lovely, actually. 

I'd seen the show before, so I was more interested in my son's expression as he watched his father act.  It was a sort of bemused confusion, as if he was trying to work out why he was up there talking, but not talking to him.  Every time his dad left the stage, the boy asked me where he was going.  When his dad came back on stage wearing a skirt and curly red-haired wig (to play Juliet, of course), he said:

"Where's daddy?"

I blinked, and said "He's right there.  That's daddy wearing the skirt and red wig."  And what did my son say?

"Where's daddy?"

And that's when I finally got it.  He couldn't make the connection that the person with red hair and a skirt could possibly be his daddy.  (Yeah, yeah, we're both kinda slow on the uptake - wanna make something of it??)

You know, I spend so much time with this little person, and he's grown by leaps and bounds both mentally and physically that I forget from time to time that he is still just a little guy.  And while kids are masters of creativity, it takes a long time for them to distinguish fantasy from reality.  For all their vast quantities of imagination, they are quite literal.  As far as my son was concerned, the person with a skirt and long hair was a girl.  Plain and simple.

We play this funny little game sometimes when we're sitting having a snack.  My son will say "Do you want to talk about animals?" and I or my husband will say "Yes, what animal do you want to talk about?".  My son will choose an animal like, say, an elephant.  And we'll say something along the lines of, "Well, an elephant is really, really tiny and goes squeak! squeak! squeak!".  My son will erupt in giggles and say "No!  That's not an elephant!  That's a mouse!"  This conversation can go on for a while.

I may have known it in theory, but it took being at the performance on Sunday for me to really get it.  Our family needs to get out to these types of things as often as we can.  We need to make a point of showing our kids that the world is not just what they can see, but also what they can imagine.  We need to show them that the possibities are endless for those who have eyes to see.  If we achieve that, no reward would be greater.

Comments

[kittenpie]

Exactly why books like Cock-a-Moo-Moo are so popular. Kids LOVE showing off their knowledge, too, when the silly grownups are getting it all wrong!

It's so amazing when their imaginations start to take over. This weekend we were in the opposite position, where she was "painting" with a screwdriver, and countered our assertion that it was for driving screws with the "fact" that it was a magic screwdriver, and when she pushed a button on the back, paint sprayed out of the end. Awesome.

[Painted Maypole]

lovely

and you know I love it when you talk theatre. ;)

i will be singing "you are the light of the world..." for the rest of the day now.

[kgirl]

no one can match the imagination of a 3-year old. It is truly awesome.

[Woman in a window]

My son doesn't get that Scooby-doo isn't a real dog. Of course he knows the NEW Scooby-doo is generated by a computer, but the old one, you know, the one before computers, well, he must be real, right? (enough commas for you?)

[Don Mills Diva]

We never stop learning from our kids, do we? I find it fascinating how they constantly force us to consider how humans think and process things...

[Mad]

I was going to say something similar to KP. Books like My Cat is the Silliest Cat in the World, crack Miss M up.

She also struggles with making the same breakthroughs at the theatre. "Why is actor Spinney being so mean"...

I like the way you've framed this post, btw.