Children, who love to play make-believe, have a natural inclination toward theatre. At a performance of a new production for young kids, Harold and Sophie, several budding critics give Christine Madden their assessment of the play

For children, all the world's a stage. They can infuse even the purchase of a tube of Smarties with melodrama, situational conflict, character development and beatific resolution - or bottomless despair, if the purchase attempt fails. Make-believe and role-play are the essence of their play, and teach them about the world and how to be adults (those masters of disguise and deception).

One might then conclude that creating a dramatic production for young children would be a doddle. On the contrary: children are a demanding and discerning audience, guaranteed to cause a disturbance if they don't like what they see. And children "see" with all their senses, reacting extravagantly to whatever they like and dislike.

"If the children are engaged, you know all about it," says Irma Grothius, the author of Harold and Sophie, a play written for three to six-year-olds currently running at Draíocht Arts Centre in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin. "Adults sit there quietly, if they like it, they like it. But children watch avidly and talk to the characters. If they're not engaged, they talk to their neighbours and start to run around the room."

Produced under the auspices of the National Theatre's Outreach Programme, Harold and Sophie tells the story of two snails who live in a magical paradise at the bottom of a garden with their friend Mossy, a caterpillar. Sophie (Julie Sharkey) loves tending her flowers and blowing bubbles; Harold (Tadhg Murphy) bakes cakes for their picnic tea parties. Mossy (Síle Nic Chonaonaigh), who at the outset of the play is reading a book called "Metamorphosis", provides guidance - both for the snails and their audience.

This idyllic world is suddenly threatened by "the Big Noise" - readily identifiable to the young audience as fellow children, complete with doggie. When Harold and Sophie pull into their shells in fright, Mossy exhorts them to take heart and face up to the unknown thing that scares them, "because if you don't find out, you'll always be afraid of it". After investigating the "Big Noise", Harold and Sophie examine their findings - "Giants play with bubbles, too" - and not only lose their fear but come to know and like the Big Noise. To illustrate Harold and Sophie's development, Mossy at the end transforms into a butterfly and flutters away in freedom to explore the world.

Grothius has been working with young people for 10 years, and spent a year and a half writing Harold and Sophie. She hadn't much of a precedent to which she could refer. "There isn't a lot of theatre for under-fives," she says. "I had to get a good handle on how children look at the world" before putting pen to paper. After spending time with children and reviewing and documenting work done in Early-Start schools, she was able to put together an audience profile. Nevertheless, she says, "I was feeling around in the dark. I was terrified when it opened at the Baboró Festival for Children. I had no idea if it would work or not."

The Outreach people additionally developed the play as a four-day interactive production to take place in schools, with "dramatic" results. As part of the preparation, children would discuss, act out and draw the two snails, "so when they walked in, in full costume and makeup, the effect was amazing," recounts Emer McGowan, Education Officer with the Outreach programme. "Their mouths would gape open: they were there."

Harold and Sophie developed out of an Outreach pilot initiative to "explore links between child's make-believe play, structured dramatic play and formal theatre play," explains Sharon Murphy, director of Outreach. "We wanted to look at how the child entered the theatre experience as maker and watcher."

The play has just returned from its international première in the Piccolo Theatre in Milan as part of the International Childrens' Festival in December. It will also provide a starting point for a seminar on early learning and the arts, Transformations, to take place this weekend.

To prepare her senior infants class at Scoil Oilibhéir, Blanchardstown, for their visit to the theatre, teacher Grainne Ní Choirbín discussed the story with her pupils, bringing it into context by using the example of three newcomers to the class. "We personalised it with these three new kids," she explains, "asking them why they felt frightened, what fears they had of going into a new group and the importance of having friends there." The class also drew pictures of themselves going to see the performance, and wrote about going to the play.

The experience of watching this audience during the performance certainly rivalled the pleasure of the play itself. These children spoke to the characters, trying to attract their attention; they pointed, they stood up at tense moments, they shifted closer and closer to the edge of their seats. They licked their lips as Harold baked the cake and, when the finished cake was eaten, many of them chewed and sucked their fingers. They oh'd and ah'd at the butterfly. They laughed and shouted directions to Harold when he couldn't find Sophie, who was hiding from him, blowing bubbles and running away (at a snail's pace, of course).

After the play was over, Máire Nic Eachmharaigh (6), one of the children from Scoil Oilibhéir, said, "I liked when Mossy turned into a butterfly." If frightened, "I would put my shell over my head". An articulate young viewer named Andrew Mulready (6) - who was perhaps conscious of soon being quoted in The Irish Times - told this reporter: "I thought the play was excellent". His favourite part of Harold and Sophie was "the big doggie" - which, interestingly, was never physically present on stage - and admitted, if he was afraid, "I'd be like a snail myself". And their friend Chantelle Hanway (6) said, "I liked when they played in the garden that they were washing dishes." Does she wash dishes at home herself? "Yes," she revealed - but Máire, for the record, informed her friends that she didn't wash any dishes, because "my mummy has a dishwasher".

BECAUSE all this enthusiasm creates huge distractions for the actors, the expertise and concentration required of them is monumental. "It's so unfair," complains Jean O'Dwyer, the director of Harold and Sophie. "Their roles wouldn't be considered as 'high acting'. People think it's not as important, and it's so hard. If you don't take it seriously, you don't give your audience the respect they deserve."

In "taking it seriously", O'Dwyer researched her audience - their response time, their action time, their sense of comedy and what upsets them. She visited Early-Start classrooms and took great care in casting. The set, designed by Katherine Sanky, glows with primary colours and achieves a layered depth critical to the portrayal of the story. "And we had to learn how to play again," O'Dwyer adds. "We took part in their games, trying to remember what play was. And this is the essence of acting."

Near the end of the performance, soap bubbles float toward Harold and Sophie from behind the set. "Bubbles!" called out one child, and another breathed more reverently: "Magic!" This illustrates a crucial aspect of acting for children in this age group: adults make a distinction between play and "reality"; kids don't. "They really believe it," explains McGowan. "You see it when they're in there watching. They are absolutely there with Harold and Sophie. They are completely engaged with it. Their actions are completely honest. For example, at the end of one performance, there was some music, and one kid got up and danced. She was right there, with them."

This ability to participate so thoroughly without any sense of detachment makes theatre for children particularly rewarding - for everyone involved. "It's a magical world," enthuses Grothius. "And one of the things I'm happiest about is that the children engage with and respond to something so magical."

Transformations, a weekend seminar hosted by the Outreach/Education programme at the Abbey Theatre and Education and Community Programme at IMMA to explore early learning through the visual and theatre arts, will take place today and tomorrow. The goal of the seminar is to open dialogue among artists, theatre practitioners, producers and programmers, and to discuss how education programmes in cultural institutions can develop and address briefs of access and engagement of young children in the arts.

For more information about the seminar and the National Theatre's Outreach Programme, contact Sarah Jordan at outreach@abbeytheatre.ie