IB THEATRE GROUP PROJECT LITTLE RED RIDDING HOOD PERFORMANCE

Lesson 1


For the last couple of lessons, our aim was to explore our understanding of how the combination of the use of lights and sounds could have an effect on a dramatic piece. In our groups ( Natalia, Mike, Grace, Ali and me) we had to explore the performance potential of an interpretation of the Little Red ridding hood story by ………, and to gain an insight into devising our own play, as a practice for our IPP.

We first cut the script to meet the maximum number of words we were aloud, being 1oo. This I found challenging as we had to try keep the scene of the story and the scary atmosphere within the word limit and staying truthful to the writer, so we had to decide what we wanted to keep and in what direction we wanted our play to go in. We decided to make it un naturalistic in style, meaning that although the characters where real people, the delivering of the lines would be un naturalistic, and so the essence of the play is discomforting and perturbing.

This is the script we made, with the cuts:

Blocking Blocking Blocking

Girl enters St L (Silhouette)

Girl: “It is a northern country

Harsh, brief, poor lives.

They have cold weather, They have cold hearts

-This was my idea to place here, as I thought it was a good sentence to describe the over all emotion of coldness of feeling.

Mother enters St R (Girl still on stage, facing audience)

Mother: “Go visit your grandmother, she’s been sick. Do not leave the path because of the starving beasts”

(Fight between girl and wolf)

-Lights projected behind scrim of the wolf

Girl: “Red eyes, grizzled chops!”

(Girl wins fight picks up the paw, continues towards grandmother’s house)

-Lights behind scrim disappear

Girl: “I slashed off his right forepaw.”

(Girl enters grandma house)

-Cyc changes to the lighter red color

Girl: “Grandmother!...She’s moaning and shaking.”

(Girl sees paw)

-Red intensifies

(take out cloth, hand drops, Girl screams

Girl: “The wolf’s paw! It’s a hand, toughened with work, freckled with old age”

-Blackout instantly

(villagers come running in, beat Grandma and stone her to death)

-Lights projected from behind scrim to show stoning.

-Blackout instantly.

Girl: “The Devil is as real as you or I.”

it was my idea to finish off with this sentence as I thought that the sinister, eveil and hated mood created by little red ridding hoods fight and violent actions before had changed the atmosphere's feel, to a more dark one, therefore this phrase tells the audience that they must true anyone, even their close relatives as the enemy might be anywhere, and makes them feel scared and threatened, looking around them with unease. This will be a very powerful way to reach the audiences feelings.

Aly over God mic: “Now the child lived in her grandmother's house; she prospered.”