Summer Daze
A great time in May in Clare putting on our play The Big House with the ALFA students. Having culled their thoughts about characters and talents I set about trying to generate an appropriate story. The west of Ireland in 1913 in a big house in Galway was the inspiration. We all share very intensely inhabiting this landscape and we could all recall images of these houses and their parks. A comedy was called for, and with Shakespeare as the muse, off we set with a tale of adventure, switched identities, republican activity from the son of the house, Callum O'Donoghue and the chauffeur, Rafe McGuire, and a climactic trip to Argentina to hunt for dinosaurs. This later detail came from the students' research which revealed some of the earliest dinosaur remains were in Tierra del Fuego. I came with a few scenes roughly mapped out and because we worked for three hours every day, by the end of our first week we had a script and some great work on the themes of the house and home as a haven..
You know you have hit some significant archetypal theme when the students can't let their books alone, drawing their ideal houses and describing in detail the habitat that they want to live in. This theme of home and exile is fundamental. We wrote it collaboratively, had time for plenty of movement, drama games, speech and projection work, and journalling. Their brief was getting the script under their belts while I was away and by golly, they did. We had polkas, tango and a waltz in the play and dancing before each rehearsal brought a animating joy into the room, loosening up even the most timid. Special effects included an explosion which we pulled off with four red candles bound with black tape, my lap top, speakers and flashing lights. Rafe and Callum quickly blackened their faces with charred wood back stage before appearing from the back of the audience having blown up the west wing. lady Violet, not recognising her nephew, dressed up as his sister who is meanwhile busy dressed up as her brother, seeking dinosaur bones in Argentina, swoons dramatically But this is just a prelude to a madcap chase to Argentina taking the Silver Spirit Rolls Royce to Cork the boat to Spain, and a steamer to Argentina where Rodrigo de Mendes, played with fabulous Latin brio by our visiting German student , Emma, awaits with black moustache felted from Tamarind's fur and tango moves to turn the world upside down.
