Once upon a time…
Fritz Brun gives life to Andersen’s tales
By ADAM TANOUS
Express Staff Writer
The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen not only inform the human
experience, but they provide a collective mythology with which children and adults can
connect. Nearly 200 years after Andersen’s birth, the tales resonate through our
culture.
On July 20th at The Community School theater, local dramatist
and educator, Fritz Brun, will give breath to the beloved work of Andersen. It will be the
second performance of Brun’s summer series produced in collaboration with Joe
Kennedy, director of The Community School summer school program.
Brun will perform three tales: "What Daddy Does is Always
Right," "The Princess on the Pea," and "The Nightingale." The
performance begins at 4:30 p.m. and lasts one hour.
Brun’s production is very much theater. He uses different voices and
movement patterns, speedy costume changes, and well-chosen props to create a wide variety
of characters and places before one's eyes. The settings are magically transformed from
Denmark to China; the characters Brun assumes range from king to witch to stork to
butterfly. Using simply a period chair and a screen decorated with the kinds of paper cuts
Andersen himself used, Brun creates a fantastic world.
Andersen’s own life was somewhat of a fairy tale itself. Born in 1805
to a cobbler and an uneducated washerwoman, Andersen began life with more than a few
disadvantages. His mother was a superstitious alcoholic, his grandfather insane. When
Andersen was 11, his father died of an illness he contracted as a soldier in the
Napoleonic Wars (1812-14).
The boy was forced to go to work shortly thereafter. After apprenticing to
a weaver and tailor, he eventually found work in a tobacco factory. Moving to Copenhagen
at the age of 14, Andersen had a first taste of the theater when he attempted to get a
foothold at the Royal Theater. Though his dramatic career never really took off here, he
did fall into the good graces of a couple of benefactors. They arranged for Andersen to go
to school: first at Elsinore Grammar School and eventually at Copenhagen University.
In 1835, Andersen published a small book titled "Fairy Tales Told for
Children." The book went largely unnoticed by the critics, but the populus loved it.
Before long, "Fairy Tales" was sold out. Andersen was deeply encouraged by this
news. He subsequently wrote more and more fairy tales. By the time of his death at age 70,
he had written 156 of the tales most of the world now knows. Even at the time of his last
tale, Andersen had been translated into more than 100 languages.
Brun, a fellow countryman of Andersen’s, is the theater department
chairperson at The Community School. He holds a degree in Russian from Copenhagen
University and a Ph.D. in drama from Stanford University. Brun began his professional
acting career in Denmark, appearing in Ionesco’s "The Chairs," a production
seen and commended by the author. He has also acted at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.
Since coming to the Wood River Valley, Brun has taught at The Community
School, lectured on Isak Dinesen at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, and told
Andersen’s tales to many children.
In an interview, Brun was asked about the long-running popularity of
Andersen’s work, now almost 166 years old. Brun said, "There is something very
appealing about something old but relevant. The age of it gives it a depth." He
referred to one of Andersen’s key tales, "The Nigthingale," in which a
bejeweled, mechanical nightingale takes on metaphorical significance. Brun added, "Of
course, the story is more topical now than it was when Andersen was alive. We live in an
age of gadgets. Essentially, Andersen was saying in the tale that nothing can replace
human contact."
Brun likens the tales to "vitamins for the soul." But he added,
"you wouldn’t tell the stories unless they were told in a funny and lovely
way."
Many of the stories, Brun said, have a deep resonance because they came so
directly out of Andersen’s experience. Having spent much of his childhood in poverty,
Andersen had a well-founded penchant for telling the story of "the outsider," a
narrative quite relevant to modern social dynamics.
Another aspect of Andersen’s work that many may not know is that he
was an innovator in the use of language. Brun said, "Andersen was the first to write
in spoken language, the way Mark Twain did. He influenced many other creative talents such
as August Strindberg."
Brun, who translated Andersen’s tales himself, said he has tried to
subtly bridge the gap between 1835 Denmark and America in the year 2000. While he tries to
create the illusion of something old, Brun said that with the careful choice of words he
hopes to make the tales more accessible to his young American audiences. For the most part
he sticks closely to Andersen’s work.
Some tales, Brun said, do invite some improvisation. "The
Nightingale", for instance, includes a long discussion with the audience. As Brun put
it, "You never know what the children in the audience are going to say or do."
In addition to the performance on the 20th, Brun will perform
on August 3rd.
Tickets are $5 and available at the door.
