Trev, Owen and I have been going to see shows at the Zagreb Puppet Theater (Zagrebacko Kazaliste Lutaka). We’ve seen “Jezeva kucica” i “Tigric” in previous weeks. This Sunday we went to see Senoa’s “Postolar i vrag“. This play is based on a poem called “Cobbler and the Devil” by a famous writer who I tend to describe as Croatian Charles Dickens. The poem tells of an honest cobbler who has children he can’t afford to feed. He works hard but there is not enough money to buy food. He calls devil to help him and the devil makes the usual whatever-you-need-in-exchange-for-your-soul deal. In an unrelated incident a bit later the cobbler gets some extra magic powers from god and uses it to beat the living daylights out of the Devil thus freeing his soul.

As the language used was pretty arcane I don’t know how much of it Trev and Owen understood. After the show Trev asked me if it was bad that they were beating up the red guy because beating someone up is always bad. I mumbled something and then I said that the devil was going to kill the cobbler otherwise. Trev looked relieved and said that he really liked the fight scenes, that this was his favourite play so far and that he would like it on CD.

I am still somewhat unhappy with my response, I like to give the kids my opinion and some food for thought but this play stumped me. My initial reaction was that the devil made a fair deal and violence seemed unfair. Upon further thought, this is not a Faustian story in that the cobbler’s choice was not made out of boredom or vanity, if he did not sell his soul, his children would have starved to death. In this case, the cobbler was right to break his end of the bargain. Does this justify violence as answer to unfairness in life? Is it our moral duty to trick and beat up the devils we encounter? What should I tell my kids?!?

I’ll try and see if I can find the poem at the library and read it to Trev and then maybe we can discuss it. Does he even care? Parenting is hard, or maybe I am just over thinking it.