By Joan Lancourt

“Library Lion,” wonderfully staged by Adam Theater, marks the arrival of a new and welcome addition to the Boston theater scene.

Library Lion by Eli Bijaoui. Music by Yoni Rechter. Based on the English translation by M. Rodgers and A. Berris, Directed by Ran Bechor. Staged by Adam Theater at the Boston Public Library, Main Branch, McKim Building, 700 Boylston Street, Boston through September.

A scene from Library Lion featuring the title beast. Photo: Nile Scott Studio

There’s a new kid on the block and he’s got remarkably expressive blue eyes, a golden mane of hair, four paws, and a long tail that’s great for dusting off books. He’s a larger-than-life-sized puppet, and he’s very definitely the star of the children’s play Library Lion, which is being staged by Adam Theater, an equally new and welcome addition to the Boston theater scene.

Children’s theater has long been viewed as a kind of stepchild of professional theater. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, settlement houses used plays for children as a means of helping immigrant children assimilate. Acting in a play helped them learn English and also gave them a place to go while their parents were working long hours in a factory. The experience also helped create a sense of community. Until the mid-’30s, theater for children that featured professional actors was a rarity. One of the first professional performing arts companies dedicated to performances for children was Junior Programs, Inc., a national touring troupe that, from 1936 to 1943, introduced four million kids to live theater, opera, and ballet. Today, while the number is still insufficient given the need, Theater for Young Audiences/USA reports that there are 136 professional children’s theaters across the country. Since 1981 in Boston, the Wheelock Family Theatre has staged productions with professional intergenerational casts. But a single professional theater dedicated to productions designed specifically for the developmental needs and interests of children, in a region the size of the Greater Boston area, is hardly sufficient. If Library Lion is any indication of Adam Theater’s professionalism, the company will be a welcome addition to the theatrical offerings for Boston’s children.

Adam Theater’s program for Library Lion emphasizes the “unique, once in a lifetime experience” presented by live performance. But, according to Karin Sharav Zalkind, the company’s executive director, the goal is to make live theater a regular part of a child’s everyday life. The group intends to use the theatrical medium to introduce children to the “dilemmas, heroes, obstacles, and friends” they encounter in their own lives. For Zalkind, theater encourages children to develop empathy by strengthening their sense of identification with a diverse range of characters. Adam Theater sees the theater arts as a means of helping children explore and make sense of the “layered and complex” questions related to “ethics, morality, justice, and freedom.”

With Library Lion, they begin that valuable journey. The play, adapted by the Israeli playwright Eli Bijaoui from the children’s book of the same name by Michelle Knudsen, calls for the friendly and well-meaning lion to grapple with the purpose of “obeying the rules” –– in the case of the library, “no shouting, no food, and no running.”

The stage action lasts roughly an hour, and the scene is quickly set. Young Kevin and Michelle have an assignment: to find some “fables” –– pronounced “fab” as in “fabulous,” and “les” as in “less is more.” Their youthful exuberance exasperates the librarian, Mr. McBee, who not only corrects their pronunciation, but repeatedly has to remind them of “the rules.” For him, the library is a serious place, a vault of knowledge. “But where’s the fun?” Kevin and Michelle ask. The kids respond: “There’s nothing here but books!” We’re soon introduced to Miss Merriweather, the head librarian. Her vision of library fun is visualized through a mini-interlude of stagecraft: long lengths of undulating blue silk signify the oceans of the world and the actors sail around the oceans holding aloft multiple books ingeniously mounted on sticks so that they (the books) open and close like an umbrella. Books allow your mind fly to around the globe — without leaving your chair! Soon, story time is announced, and to everyone’s surprise, in ambles the star of the show, the Library Lion, a three-puppeteer puppet created by the Jim Henson Little Creature Shop.

Even for this adult reviewer, the lion puppet quickly became something magical: with the tilt of his head, his wide-open, half-lidded or closed eyes, a dip of the puppeteer’s knee, the lift of a paw or the flick of its tail, this amiable king-of-beasts conveyed happiness, pleasure, sadness, disappointment, distress, warmth, anxiety, and a host of other emotions. The three puppeteers worked together seamlessly; one soon forgot they were there. According to Miss Merriweather, as long as the lion wasn’t breaking any rules, he was welcome to stay. In one delightful scene, after Library Lion had become an accepted part of the library’s day-to-day routine, Miss Merriweather asks the lion to lick envelopes addressed to people with overdue books. “Stick out your tongue,” she says, and a long red tongue flops out of the side of his mouth. “Not like that!” –– and she demonstrates, sticking her own tongue straight out. Immediately, the lion follows suit, and she runs the envelope over his tongue. Pretty slick puppeteer work, if you ask me!

The plot unfolds, dramatizing how the lion is accepted by everyone — except Mr. McBee. Grudgingly, he agrees that “the majority rules,” but grumbles that “the leopard will not change its spots.” Eventually, the lion does, indeed, break the rules, and he is banished by Mr. McBee. But it is discovered that there was a very good reason for the rule breaking, and McBee concedes (in a song) that “even adults can make mistakes,” admitting that “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” He confesses to judging the lion because he was “different,” and “didn’t speak our language” — but if the kids and adults worked together, surely they could find the banished lion and bring him back. Of course, everything works out in the end; the 30 or so fourth and fifth graders attending applauded loudly, clearly pleased.

A scene from Adam Theater’s Library Lion. Photo: Nile Scott Studio

Everything about the production was polished: the live music (cello, keyboard, and a mix of flute, clarinet, and sax), song, and dance sequences were expertly integrated into the plot; the props were all cleverly conceived; the acting and direction was of highest quality; and the plot provided the requisite moral lesson about the nature and purpose of rules. Here are the members of the first-rate cast: Robert Saoud, Janis Hudson, Jayden Declet, and Ken Crossman; Channing Rion (storyteller), and Abigail Baird, Amy Liou, and Tatara Biwen Tang (puppeteers).

The final moments touched, ever so lightly, on the much more challenging issue of how to react to those different from ourselves. That made me wonder how, in the future, Adam Theater will address such complex and troubling issues as the overt racism and xenophobia that are currently ripping our social order apart. Childhood is a time when core values are being formed; behaviors that tap into those attitudes are being learned, practiced, and integrated into everyday behavior. The performing arts can be a powerful medium for social change, particularly given how entertainment can be used to encourage empathy as a way to make sense of the world around us, especially in light of the injustices that currently loom so large. Live theater is also a communal experience; there is a responsibility on the part of theater for young audiences to partner with the schools and the community to craft ongoing, pre-and post-performance structured opportunities in which their young audiences are supported as they explore these difficult issues in constructive ways. That’s the challenge — to Adam Theater, to the Greater Boston theater community, and to the performing arts as a whole.

These initial performances at the BPL are available only to groups of students from various Boston public schools. In January, Adam Theater will offer a series of performances open to the public of Library Lion at the Huntington’s Calderwood Theater. A gift of a ticket would be a fine way for any child to start the new year.

Joan Lancourt, PhD, is the author of More Than Entertainment: Democracy and the Performing Arts: A History of Junior Programs, Inc., Pioneers of Theater for Young Audiences. The book, a carefully detailed documentation of Junior Programs’ seven years of successful productions for children and their legacy and lessons for today’s TYA theaters and practitioners, will be published in October/November 2024.