In these times of social isolation, Children’s Theater has taken shelter in audiovisual media - and now...it’s endless links! The theater folks have adapted
so creatively to the cameras, lenses and ring lights that it thrills – even more to a veteran critic like me, who has lived to see, once again, these artists’ determination transformed into power in the face of a crisis of tragic proportions. The theater will never die. It is adapted, adjusted, connects to new languages –
but it never dies.

Miradas Digitais kindly invited me to recommend to you some of these pearls, true treasures of youth, taken from the vast Sesc São Paulo’s children’s digital menu. I will venture to recommend half a dozen attractions that will serve as a basis for you to get started in these virtual delights, with your whole family by
your side – and then go on to see all the others.

Did you know, for example, that such a complex tragedy by Shakespeare, such as Hamlet, can indeed become a children’s work, with clownish language?
That is what Cia. Vagalum Tum did in O Príncipe da Dinamarca (The Prince of Denmark). Little skulls strolling and singing in the cemetery will entertain the
whole family and, to top it off, introduce children to the imaginative universe of a playwright who, as they say, “invented the human being”. Another wonder that did very well in the video was Isso É Coisa de Criança! (This is kid stuff!) by Cia. Truks de Animação. It is an excellent chance for you to show children that in theater objects come to life and have other meanings. A shoe can be a fish, a kettle can make “imagination juice”, and a cardboard box becomes a rocket. The scenes are all stimulating for children’s boundless fantasy.

And speaking of imagining, Don Quixote, with CIA. UM, uses Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel as its plot to talk to children about the power of books
in shaping our identities, about reading as the driving force of our dreams, as inexhaustible sources of imaginative material. It is also a well-told story of friendship between a delirious old man and his faithful nurse. A perfect attraction for all ages.

A delicacy lesson, by two charming clowns. This is Cia. Pelo Cano’s O Jardim do Imperador (The Emperor’s Garden), about an inspiring tale: an old king
needs to choose the heir to his throne and decides to give a seed to each chil in the kingdom, warning that the successor will be the one who grows the most
beautiful flower after a year.

To close this list of good views, I recommend two incredible dramatizations by the same author, Marcelo Romagnoli: Terremota, with Cia. Bendita, about a
fanciful little girl who turns her living room into a beach on a rainy day, and O Menino Teresa, a success by Banda Mirim, about another high-spirited girl,
interested in discovering how boys live. Romagnoli takes two fun and light approaches to themes that are part of children’s curiosity.



Dib Carneiro Neto
journalist, playwright, children 's theater critic, and editor of Pecinha É a
Vovozinha! website/web journal.