MOUTH OPEN, STORY JUMP OUT TEACHER RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH PUPILS IN YEARS 4-6
A Battersea Arts Centre Production MOUTH OPEN, STORY JUMP OUT Conceived and created by Polarbear FROM THU 18 SEP - SAT 27 OCT 2018 FOR PUPILS IN SCHOOL YEARS 4-6 Polarbear makes things up: stories, jokes, adventures - he s a master maker-upper. But where did it all begin? Mouth Open, Story Jump Out is about the moment that started it all, and how one little decision set off a chain reaction that changed his life forever. International assassins, secret codes, dog-eating boa constrictors and more emerge when a father disappears and a boy discovers a talent for telling tales. An inspiring show about the creative potential inside all of us by one of the UK s most respected spoken-word artists. Page 2
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO THE PACK p. 4 ABOUT THE PLAY p. 6 MAKING THE PLAY: INTERVIEW WITH POLARBEAR p. 9 DRAMA ACTIVITIES - OVERVIEW p. 14 Page 3
INTRODUCTION This pack is for teachers bringing pupils to see Mouth Open, Story Jump Out in autumn 2018. Mouth Open, Story Jump Out is an original piece for young audiences. Created and performed by Polarbear, this is the story about a boy who tells a lie, and when the lie grows too big for him he discovers the difference between telling a lie and creating a story. Telling a lie is selfish, telling a story is a gift. When his father leaves in the night, Polarbear is upset and confused; no one will answer his questions or explain why his father has left. In school his teacher asks him to give his book presentation. He hasn t done it. He finds himself telling a lie in front of the class which paints his father as a mysterious hero, on a secret and important mission. Mouth Open, Story Jump Out explores the power of the imagination and the process of making up stories in which the audience becomes part of the story making. The children are invited to imagine and add to the ideas that Polarbear offers. At times it is hard to distinguish between what is scripted and what is generated in the space with the audience. The message of the piece is that we all have stories in us, we can all create stories, we just need to be given the space and the opportunity to do so. Where do we start? How do we create characters that interest and excite us and how do we choose which way our story should go? I always say to teachers that Mouth Open, Story Jump Out is a starting spark, and at the end of the performance it genuinely feels like Go on, go on have a go. That s the goal of it. The classroom activities, which will be added to the pack by July 2018, will be designed to support and extend pupils visit to the theatre and offer teachers ways to pick up on and explore the themes in the play, before and after a visit. They will use storytelling, drama and creative writing as ways of exploring ideas that are relevant to the play and to support teachers in meeting National Curriculum requirements: All pupils should be enabled to participate in and gain knowledge, skills and understanding associated with the artistic practice of drama. Pupils should be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They should have opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences, as well as to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama and theatre performances. National Curriculum Resources will also provide National Curriculum links to Key Stage Two English through the development of spoken word, as well as PSHE and citizenship. Page 4
CPD - MONDAY 10 SEP, 10AM - 4PM There will be a free teacher CPD day for Mouth Open, Story Jump Out where teachers can find out more about the show and gain practical experience of the accompanying scheme of work before running it with students. To book this or find out more, email schools@unicorntheatre.com. Steven Camden (Polarbear) is one of the most respected spoken word artists in the UK. Regularly performing his work internationally since 2007, Steven has graced stages from Kuala Lumpur to California via Glastonbury and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His work has featured extensively on BBC Radio 1, 3 and 6. A published author, Steven has written three Young Adult novels for HarperCollins, Tape, It s About Love, and the recently-released Nobody Real. Steven is also a playwright and his debut play, Back Down, was produced by the Birmingham REP and toured nationally in 2015. He was co-writer and script mentor on the Akram Khan Company s Olivier Award winning production Desh, as well as script writer for LIFT festival s acclaimed production Turfed. His theatre piece Mouth Open, Story Jump Out received five star reviews, has been on multiple UK tours and has toured internationally four times. His most recent play, I Knew You, was performed at the Birmingham REP in 2017 and toured nationally. Steven s first Radio 4 play, Sleeping Dogs, aired in 2013, and he is currently developing an original television series with Expectation Entertainment. The Unicorn Theatre is the UK s leading professional theatre for young audiences, dedicated to inspiring and invigorating young people of all ages, perspectives and abilities, and empowering them to explore the world on their own terms through theatre. Purpose-built for children and based in London, the Unicorn is one of the most prolific producing theatres in the UK, presenting up to 30 productions for children of all ages every year, and touring widely across the UK and beyond. Page 5
ABOUT THE PLAY Mouth Open, Story Jump Out is the story of how Polarbear (the stage name for Steven Camden) started his life as a spoken word artist, poet, writer and storyteller. This one-man shows explains how it all began with a lie that he told when he was a child. The story starts when Polarbear is ten years old, a boy who likes superheroes, but doesn t like custard. He isn t too tall or short: he s just in the middle, and he isn t cool. He has a dog called Gus. He introduces his mum, a nurse who can fix anything and loves reggae, and his sister Donna, four years older than him and a black belt in King Fu. He describes his dad as up and down ; when he d had a good day, his dad would tell stories and say Stories could take us anywhere we wanted to go. When he d had a bad day, it was best to leave him in his chair. One Sunday night, when everyone is asleep, Polarbear s dad disappears. He doesn t know where he has gone and no one will answer his questions. He waits for him to come home, but when he fails to return, Polarbear, angry and upset, flushes his toothbrush down the toilet. I felt something in my stomach. Not a tingle. More like a spark and I knew then, something was going to happen. At school Polarbear has a best friend from nursery, Dominic, who eats fish paste sandwiches and doesn t care what others think of him. But Polarbear does. Dominic has found out about the school talent show and wants to enter them both because he thinks they can win. Polarbear is not so sure. Later that day, Polarbear s teacher, Mr Bukowski (his favourite teacher, who looks like a bear with a shaved face) asks him for his homework a book presentation - but he hasn t done it. He s forgotten because he s been distracted by his dad leaving. He stands before the class and in the moment makes up a story about not doing his homework: he tells the class that the reason he hasn t done his book report is because he s been helping his dad, who is travelling the world to write a book about being a secret agent. Polarbear describes how powerful he felt as he told his story to the class. Rumours spread around the school about how Polarbear s dad is a spy and how he s helping him with a secret mission in Australia. The two head girls, Lucy Cheung and Maria Brown, seem to be very impressed and ask Polarbear if it s true. When he says that it is, they tell him That s pretty cool. Polarbear is overjoyed with their new opinion of him. And so the lie grows, and to avoid getting found out Polarbear decides he needs to learn as much as he can about Australia and heads off to the library. At the library, he finds the school bully Danny Jones reading up on Australia. Page 6
Danny Jones. Let me tell you about Danny Jones. Same age as us, but he looked like five years older. Big boulder shoulders made for pushing you over... He had these crazy puffed out cheeks, like some kind of hard-core hamster. He was the only ten year old who could grow a full beard and for some reason he didn t like me. Danny Jones is fascinated by Polarbear s mission and they become friends. Polarbear gets deeper into inventing the story of his dad, and becomes closer to Danny, while at the same time Dominic has entered them into the talent competition, under the stage name Full Force. Dominic has said that they ll perform a dance act, but Dominic can t dance, and Polarbear shows us how bad at dancing Dominic really is. Polarbear is caught in the middle of the web of story, or lies, he is telling. He is creating stuff to keep Danny believing, and he makes up more stories so everyone will keep thinking he s cool. When he and Dominic fall out in a supermarket, Polarbear s stories begin to unravel, and Danny finds out that he has made everything up. He confesses to Mr Bukowski and apologises to Dominic and Danny - he understands that telling a lie Page 7
and making up a story are different. Telling a lie is selfish, telling a story is a gift. He dances in the school talent competition. And then a letter arrives... In this one man show Polarbear isn t performing alone; he enlists the audience in the storytelling. Each performance is different as Polarbear interacts with the audience, riffing off ideas, asking everyone to imagine and draw a character from the story which shows how they imagine they might look. He asks for the audience s own experiences of everything from dogs and what the best job in the world is, to homework and their opinions on the difference between telling a story and telling a lie. This play is about the audience s collective imagination, the live nature of theatre and storytelling and the contract between performer and audience. Mouth Open, Story Jump Out cannot happen without its audience, without their experience, creativity and imaginations. Page 8
MAKING THE PLAY INTERVIEW WITH POLARBEAR COULD YOU TELL WHY YOU WROTE MOUTH OPEN, STORY JUMP OUT? I was in a school with a year six group talking about making stuff up about how much I used to lie. I d told a lie, and my teacher said I should write a story about this lie and so I did. I won a rubber that was shaped like soap, and it was the first time I d ever written anything, and the first time I d felt validated. In this conversation, this kid said to me So is all of it lies?, and I said, No, no, no. I think there s a difference, but I didn t have a clue what that was. I couldn t stop thinking about it when I left: the difference between a story and a lie, what is it? I landed on the idea of motivation, the why being important. There s a line in it that says, A lie is selfish but a story is a gift, and I stand by that. My goal is to connect and share and feel close to each other that s why I tell stories. A lie, to me, is something that is covering something up, or is something that s trying to manipulate, and it s tricky because both are blurry and some would argue that all stories are manipulative. Why I run with ideas is for the fun and discovery, and for that sense of feeling like we re in it together, and then that feels like a gift. Of course, it s also about me learning that lying is untenable, not only in terms of your own effort and brain space but in terms of your relationships. It s about family and friendship, particularly friendship, and the boy called Danny Jones who s the bully, and the fun of finding out his truth. The need to connect and to share stuff is the driving force. WHY HAVE YOU CALLED IT MOUTH OPEN STORY JUMP OUT? There was a book from Trinidad of ghost stories which I read in Year 6 called Mouth Open, Story Jump Out, and it was the first book that ever fully got me. It scared the life out of me, a collection of short stories, Caribbean ghost tales. My family are from Jamaica so there was lots of crossover in terms of the myths, and it all fitted. I use my mouth with every story; even when I m writing books I don t write things down. I m convinced that the story coming out of your mouth is the best way of seeing if you like it, to own it. I think it has a power that s slightly more primal than writing things down - and I love writing things down. I think it s a skill or a practice that has been maligned over time, that hasn t been considered valid. I always say to teachers that Mouth Open, Story Jump Out is a starting spark, and the end of the performance it genuinely feels like Go on, go on, have a go. That s the goal of it. Page 9
TELL US ABOUT THE INTERACTIVE PART OF THE SHOW. THERE S A SCRIPT, AND THERE S A STORY THAT YOU TELL, BUT IT S COLLABORATIVE TOO... In my mind, it s like I m driving and we re in the car, and every now and again I pull over and we wade off into this wood for a while, and then we get back into the car and go with some stuff we grabbed from the wood, and that s the stuff that we do together. The story is always the same but we re thickening and enriching as we go and realising there are sides, and then rather than me telling you what we re doing we realise collectively that along the way there are tangents that have added to the main story. We could follow any of them that s what I want to get across we could go that way or we could follow this. It s the idea that stories are everywhere, and if you want to run with it you run with it. It s not like there s ten stories in your brain that you have to use sparingly, they re absolutely everywhere and they replenish themselves, and it s like all you need is to do is open your mouth and share something with a person, and then another person, and another person, and combine this hive of minds. I ve done it to two hundred people at a time and I ve done it to three people, and it s always fun. The success or satisfaction of it has very little to do with numbers. It has more to do with the sense of shared ownership. WHAT DO YOU HOPE THE AUDIENCE S EXPERIENCE WILL BE? Stories don t exist in a straight line; they exist in all directions at once. There s a point in it when I talk about the fact that most of my ideas don t happen in words, they happen in pictures, and I say OK, who have we mentioned so far in the story? and everyone gets a piece of paper and a pen and we draw a version of that person, really quickly, in a minute. A) You have to choose the character you want to draw, but B) even if the person next to you has chosen the same person, they might have a completely different version of what the character looks like. There is no wrong. All there is is what s interesting and what s not interesting. And for this little time, all we re going to do is follow what s interesting. Sometimes that s something that people already know, at other times it s like a revelation and you can feel that in the room. What, it can t be wrong? No it can t be wrong. Wow, that s too much for me! The nice thing about a group is that there s security: you can sit there and do nothing if you want to. It s the absence of pressure that s important - some people just want to sit there and enjoy it. That s fine too. When you actually mean that, and actually give people space to choose, there s something inherently attractive about it. I don t have to do anything, but here s this guy saying I can choose to get involved if I want. To actually contribute. I can do what I want - how often does that genuinely happen? If I m ten years old, I would argue not that often. And anything goes. An idea is an idea whether you re eight or forty-eight. It s the same, there is no hierarchy. It s a powerful thing, a story. Whether they re jokes or tragedies, to share something powerful that you created together - I don t think there s anything better. Page 10
AS THE WRITER AND CREATOR OF THE PIECE, HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHAT IDEAS TO INCLUDE? Feeling comes into it a lot. There are feelings in response to things, certain feelings in my gut. It s that sense, it s not just in my head. About 10% is in my head, but it s how it feels in my body, it s about what feels right: I don t know why, but I m going with it. It s the no pressure thing, it s like This feels right, I m going to do it. You make choices. I ll go Yes [to someone s suggestion] and I won t know why, or No, no, too easy that comes up a lot Too easy we can do better than that, and something falls away, and something else, an alternative, comes in. At the end I always do a question and answer session and they always ask How did you get to that bit? There are tangible choices being made. I also undermine myself Oh we haven t got time for this I get carried away. I m hopefully trying to convey the sense that I don t fully know. Not that I have no idea, that I don t know that it s possible, but that I could shoot off in another direction at any time. And that it s fine. HOW MUCH OF THE CONTENT IS SCRIPTED AND HOW MUCH IS CREATED IN THE MOMENT? There are characters that are described, or certain feelings that are described that are definitely crafted, there s no way that it has just come to me. There s a bit where I m describing the bully, Danny Jones, and there s a rhyme poem that just rolls off in the middle of everything. I can sometimes see the audience thinking What, have you just made this up? There s the sense that you don t know, Page 11
but it doesn t feel manipulative. Too far either way and it becomes pointless or it becomes overmanipulative, like a puppet master. There are also bits where I do experiments and I talk about lying and what gives you away, almost a sense of Let s try and be good at it - there s mess in all of it. Sometimes people get upset about the dad leaving. It s touched a nerve and that has to be the case. It has to matter; it s this weird pendulum between saying that there isn t the pressure, but then things matter. Well, why does it matter? I m choosing to tell you this, I want to tell you this because it feels important to me, it matters. YOU RE A WRITER: YOU EDIT AND HONE THE LANGUAGE YOU USE. ON THE ONE HAND IT S MESS AND WHAT S GENERATED IN THE ROOM, AND ON THE OTHER YOU RE TRYING TO COMMUNICATE SOMETHING IMPORTANT... Mess isn t just the absence of order, mess is contrast to me: this crafted poetic two lines of description, next to me running around the room sweating, asking a question, that s what conveys craft to me. That the things that are crafted appear effortless. Because they have been chosen at the right time, effort has clearly gone into it. I never really wanted to be on stage, it just happened to me and I ran with it. This show came along and blew most of my other performance work out of the water. I m basically a hype man, people are allowed to have a go, have a go if you want, if you don t, just have some fun. If you see me do [the show], it s clear. It speaks for itself about why I m doing it, that my excitement is genuine. There s the cliché of the kid coming in who doesn t want to be there. The first thing I say to them is Do you know what s going on? No. Good. Then we know we re on a level. These things you re convinced or told are weaknesses - I don t buy it. It s not about smashing the system or anything else: there are elements, there s a tone, a language, a feeling in this that s transferable and useable. CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW YOU CAME TO BE A WRITER AND STORYTELLER? All of it is a celebration of my nan, who used to tell stories and have everyone mesmerised in the kitchen. This show is as close to me embodying my nan as possible. The kitchen was constantly full of people: relatives, strangers, talking constantly, constant laughter and music. My family came from Jamaica and from Ireland and people just talked constantly. My nan wouldn t even be looking at you, she d be cooking, talking about something and the whole kitchen is on tenterhooks. It s just a quality, isn t it? I d sit on the floor and listen. I thought I wonder if I got that in me? I d always written stories and told stories but I d never performed them or shared them. I had been making music with friends of mine for a long time, making rhymes and rapping, and there was a booklet for a literary festival in Birmingham and we said we d go down, but Literary festival, what does that mean? It was in a comedy club and they called it spoken word and I rhymed something and won a phone. I hadn t a phone at the time and I thought Hang on, and I won 20 and we had a Chinese meal. I thought This could be on to something. The guy came up to me and said That s great, would you come and do a gig for me in Glastonbury? I went to Glastonbury and someone from Apples and Snakes [an organisation promoting performed Page 12
poetry and spoken word] saw me and I got my first commission. And alongside it I began working in schools, and realised that the schools stuff was more satisfying. I love writing; I love writing novels, I love writing for the screen, I love writing for other people to perform, but I m not an actor and I ve no desire to be an actor. If I have to do something again exactly the same I can t do it. This feels conversational - I love holding a room, channelling my nan. It being low-fi is very important, because I wanted it to be able to go anywhere; in my head it was going to be in schools, or in one place. To be a full celebration of my nan - this is my equivalent of turning my back and making breakfast, there s nothing. If I don t bring it, there s no crutch. What I hope it does communicate is this sense of it s in everyone, if you want to run with it: it s not something that just a select number of people can do. What school did to me was made me think that there was a pristine blank page that needed to be neat and perfect, and you had to know before you started. I never knew, I never like my first, second, third, fourth idea, but just getting this stuff out and seeing it in front of me and feeling like I was discovering stuff, and saying Look at what we did there s an empowerment of running with ideas and allowing yourself that freedom that I find infectious. Page 13
DRAMA ACTIVITIES Our teacher resources and CPD support teachers in embedding drama in their curriculum planning. Working through drama allows children to explore things that matter to them within a fictional context, draw on their prior knowledge and apply it to new situations, develop language as they give expression to new understandings and develop emotional intelligence and critical thinking as they see things from different perspectives. It also allows the children to take responsibility, make decisions, solve problems and explore possibilities from within the drama. CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES These drama activities, which will be added to the pack in July 2018, will be designed to capture children s imaginations and increase motivation to speak and write their own stories. They offer a range of possible ways to link with your classroom priorities. The activities will provide teachers with ideas and strategies for work in the classroom through which to explore the characters, themes and setting of the play before and after your visit. You will extend the imaginative reach of the play and allow children to give shape to their own thoughts, feelings and understanding through story telling. Page 14
MOUTH OPEN, STORY JUMP OUT A Battersea Arts Centre Production Conceived and created by Polarbear Resource pack written by Catherine Greenwood