The introduction of James is simple; Ryan (narrator one) exclaim to the audience "Ryan: Can you believe that?", reinforce that the parents have been eaten and James is now an orphan. He enters from the Fire exit down stage right.
I bring on James from upstage left, from behind the curtain and introduce him as "Me:...our hero". James remains frozen.
Aunt Spiker and Sponge are brought on one after another (Becky and Sarah added their lines "Urgh! Kids!" and "I hate children!" of their own accord to quickly enforce their characters) from Fire Exit downstage right.
For this scene, we the narrators are addressing the audiance straight on. The stage is set for the rest of the scene with James slaving over cutting logs, and the two aunts lazing about. I exit behind the curtain upstage left
Apart from splitting the narrators monologue up for three narrators, we cut only "if he looked..." to "...of the sky". This bit seemed unnecessary and overly descriptive.
We decided on who would take each line quite early on, however their were still a few chops and changes even up till about a week before the show!
We struggled quite a lot with working out how the stage props would be on stage. Once the stage management crew had taped out the size of the stage and where the screens would be we realised how small an area we had to work with. This meant we had to move all our blocking forward, and realise the front row would be an arms width away from where we would be standing.
After realising this, us three narrators thought it was important to learn to speak in an unintimidating way of speaking. Being so close to children means we need to do this, and also be able to speak loudly enough that the kids at the back could hear... this was all very hard! I'm still not sure if I spoke loud enough at times.
I also decided to hold Ryan M hand as I bought him on stage to reinforce him as a child
Ongoing targets!
To bring James on and the right time by listening carefully for my cue
Get the puppet of Mrs Trotter off quickly by handing it to Thea (Stage Management)
To breathe carefully with my long bit of text as I have a tendency to breathe from my upper chest which makes me strain
As I play Mrs Trotter, I initially thought I'd be 'playing' her as a normal (if small) part, but I was soon informed I would be using a puppet! Panic! I've never done any sort of puppetry other than sock puppets as a toy when I was little.
However, soon I was more interested than worried. Puppetry as a skill could be very useful for an actor, and also brings another dimension to the visuals of the show. I then realized we had already done some puppetry work, or to use the correct term "found puppet" or object manipulation with Chris Davey in our Innovative Theatre class. We used props which had been lying around the studio, such as a walking stick and a giant plastic flower to create small scenarios such as talking at a bus stop. Chris emphasized that your expression and movements should be matched to the movements of the puppet and visa-versa. I found this quite hard to achieve, as manipulating the movements of a tricky puppet plus acting is hard!
I did some research into types of puppets, as at the time we weren't sure what type of puppet we could be using:
Costume puppets
Big Bird from Jim Hensons Sesame Street
Costume puppets are just a puppet that you wear. Most people think of this as a fursuit or mascot, to be worn by a human actor. These types of puppets allow the person inside, and often an animatronics operators on the outside, to create a visually interesting and unusual creature.
For instance, one of the most well-known costume puppets is Big Bird from Sesame Street.
Marionettes
Marionettes are perhaps the most easily recognised of all puppet.
Marionettes, simply put, are puppets which are controlled by strings. The strings are attached to a wooden control, either an ‘upright’, or a ‘horizontal’. An upright control looks kind of like a wooden cross, and a horizontal control is of a similar design, but lying flat. This can range from extremely simple controls, to very complex and hard to manipulate.
Rod puppets
A rod puppet can include a range of things, but generally speaking, it is inclusive of any puppet that uses rods as the sole mechanism for operation.
Rod puppets can of course be used in a variety of theatrical situations, including ‘white light’ theatre (where the puppeteers can be seen), outdoor events, ‘normal’ theatre performances, and so on. This is why rod puppets can be difficult to define, as they are extremely versatile, and don’t require a lot of previous puppetry experience in order to be performed well.
Shadow puppets
Shadow puppets are usually flat silhouettes, made out of a strong animal hide (traditionally speaking), cardboard or plastic (modern versions). These silhouettes can include animal, human and 'creaturistic' figures. The figures have rods attached to the parts that need to be moved, and joints made out of string or wire.
Some figures have rotating or removable rods, in order to facilitate better manipulation, and to allow the silhouette to face different directions. Figures can also be highly simple, with little to no moving parts; or they can include movable limbs, heads, and bodies.
The Trotters scene is tiny, literally one page! But a lot is happening, and quite a lot of implications. James becomes an orphan and two humans are eaten! For children, this needs to be humorous not scary (as much as possible anyway!). The use of puppets will distance the reality of the situation for the children.
We were first informed that we would be using Marionette type '3D' puppets that would represent Mr and Mrs Trotter. We would be facing forward and running away from the Rhino. How the Rhino would be represented wasn't fixed, but there were suggestions of a projection of the Rhino running behind us, or a puppet rhino head held by another actor.
Eventually we were given flat puppets a like mix of costume puppet (as they were attached to our bodies via a hook attached to a bodice) and rod puppet (the arms were hinged and had rods attached to them). The rhino was a simple Rhino shaped cutout with a movable jaw and a red light in its eye, moved by rods.
I was quite disappointed by the puppets. I was expecting properly coloured puppets, or perhaps copies of the Quentin Blake illustrations from the book. The red and blue colours of the parents seemed a bit odd, and the faces of the puppets were identical, which seemed a little odd when a range of emotion could have been portrayed. However, I do think the Rhino was probably the best, as it was simple, menacing yet not scary.
Dahl wrote it in 1961, and centers around a young (seven to be precise) English boy who, having lost his parents in a freak accident involving a rhino, goes to live with his cruel Aunts Sponge and Spiker. He is regularly beaten, and appears to be kept in almost slave like mistreatment.
James meets a strange and unexplained magical old man, who seems to know James plight. The old man gives James a bag of "1000 slimy crocodile tongues" which possess magical properties. James is told to keep them safe, but being in a rush to get back to his home he drops the bag right under an old peach tree.
By the next morning, James Aunt's discover that not only has the previously fruitless tree produced a peach, but the peach wont stop growing! They quickly monopolize the peach, and the paying public come to view the peach.
Meanwhile, James appears not to have returned home, but instead climbs inside the now enormous Peach through a mysterious passage right into the Peach stone. Once there he meets a Grasshopper, Centipede, Spider, Ladybird, Glowworm and Silkworm. All these insects have become enormous and appear to have been given human intellect and power of speech from the magical crocodile tongues James dropped the previous night. The Insects and James cut the giant peach loose and roll down the steep slope from the Aunts house to the sea. Meanwhile, both aunts get squished. Yay!
James is introduced to all the inhabitants, and quickly learns that the insects are far kinder than any humans James had met since his parents died.
Sadly, sharks approach the peach, so James decides to attach the Spiders and Silkworms threads to the necks of seagulls and flies the peach onwards!
Whilst airbourne, the Peach strays into some clouds. In these clouds, the crew of the Peach discover sinister creatures James calls "Cloudmen", who create all sorts of scary meteorological phenomina which the throw down to Earth. James and the crew are pelted with hail stones, but the seagulls drag the peach onwards through the Cloudmen city and right across the Atlantic.
James realises that the peach has been transported all the way to America. The crew all celebrate, but quickly realise the strings attached to the seagulls necks have been slashed by a passing airplane. The peach hurtles downwards, and the all the inhabitants of the Peach believe they are going to die. Luckly though, the Peach lands right atop a building.
The Empire State Building! The crew are brought down and presented to the Mayor of New York, who welcomes them with open arms. All the inhabitants find new jobs, and James lives happily ever after inside the Peach stone, where it has been placed in Central Park. It is revealed that James has in fact written the very story the reader has read.
Reception
Because of the books scary and macabre images it is "a regular target of the censors and is No. 56 on the American Library Association's top 100 list of most frequently challenged books" (1) This is not without reason, and as a company we must remember that our audience is potentially quite young. Some of the aspects which I believe may need to be tackled carefully are as follows:
The Rhino eats James' parents - An utterly terrifying idea even to an adult
The Aunts - James is frequently beaten, verbally abused, overworked and rarely fed. This could be very upsetting to children who will identify with James as he is a young child too. The Aunts are also potentially fear inducing, as they are grotesque and self indulgent to an extreme. This should be treated carefully, and to diffuse the fear factor make them comical not fearful. Personally I think this is one of the problems with the film.
The Cloudmen - Scary weather controlling people in the sky - Whats not to be afraid of? To make them less scary, they should be magical rather than scary, and perhaps even comedic?
The Peach freefalling - this is deadly situation, but hopefully the funny responses of the characters will make it less scary and its short period
