From Marching to Play: How Maria Revived the Heart of Captain von Trapp

"To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child's soul like a magic cloak." Homo Ludens

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In The Sounds of Music, when Fraulein Maria arrives at the von Trapp house and speaks with the housekeeper, Frau Schmidt, about the children, Frau Schmidt says:

“The von Trapp children don’t play; they march.”

Captain von Trapp, who had lost his wife, lost his ability to play. He was running away from himself. Grief turned him into a detache…