TOM THUMB

One day a poor, childless couple allow an old beggar (secretly the magician Merlin) to take refreshment in their home. The couple longs for a son and would be content even if he was no bigger than a thumb.
Amused by this notion, Merlin casts a spell which results in the birth of the diminutive Tom Thumb. The tiny child is blessed by the fairy queen. After a long series of pranks and mess-ups, Tom arrives at King Arthurs court where he gains the admiration of the good and generous king. Tom Thumb is a traditional English fairy tale but can be found in many other countries. The best known English version is that of P. J. Stahl (born in Chartres in 1814, died in Monte Carlo in 1891) who was Balzac and Hugos editor. He rewrote "The Adventures of Tom Thumb" in 1844. Stahls originality consists in placing the classical story from the medieval background to the middle-class one. To calm down her grandchildren, a gentle grandmother tells them about the legend of Tom Thumb, insisting on pedagogical trends (?). Henry Fielding used Tom Thumb as the central figure of a play by that name, which he rewrote in 1731 as The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the History of Tom Thumb the Great. A farcical take on the legend, the play is filled with 18th-century political and literary satire and is intended as a parody of heroic tragedies. Tom Thumbs story was a source of inspiration for the Grimm brothers, Charles Perrault, the Latvian writer Anna Brigadere, the film director George Pal, who made an inspired film in 1958. At Tandarica Animation Theater the performance is lively, uses black light and laser techniques which create interesting visual images, and resorts to ingenious technical solutions, being a real pleasure for the audience.