Anne Cirella-Urrutia Reading the French Theatre of the Absurd in Children's Theatre: The case of Mary Melwood's "The Tingalary Bird"       An avant-garde spirit in children's theatre bloomed in the 1960s with some children's playwrights who voluntarily adapted styles ranging from commedia dell'arte to Absurdist dialogue and allowed for the emergence of an aesthetic trend similar to the French Theatre of the Absurd. Just as adult forms of entertainment like the pantomime and the puppet theatre had been refashioned by earlier generations of playwrights, these children's playwrights borrowed intentionally adult theatrical styles and reshaped them into experimental plays for children. Their shared dedication to the field of children's theatre allowed for the existence of an avant-garde stylistic device yet with a firm eye towards a presentational style most children's theatre and avant garde drama prefer.       In tracing the adaptation of the farce into "Absurdist" masterpieces by some postwar children's theatre playwrights like the Briton Mary Melwood, this paper will account for one strand of the common history shared by postmodern children's theatre and the French Theatre of the Absurd. Nonetheless, when Absurdism crosses the boundaries from adult theatre to children's theatre, the child audience does not interpret the play's characteristic elements as adults do, and so a playwright must handle the farce differently for this audience. Return to Session IX BB Program