QPAC PRESENTS BARKING GECKO THEATRE COMPANY S BAMBERT S BOOK OF LOST STORIES ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY DAN GIOVANNONI & LUKE KERRIDGE FROM BAMBERTS BUCH DER VERSCHOLLENEN GESCHICHTEN BY REINHARDT JUNG PLAYHOUSE, QPAC 11 15 OCTOBER 2017 EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS & PARENTS* WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY JEMMA GURNEY FOR BARKING GECKO THEATRE COMPANY *THESE NOTES HAVE BEEN PREPARED PRIMARILY FOR TEACHERS OF STUDENTS IN YEARS 3 6, BUT CONTAIN WONDERFUL RESOURCES FOR PARENTS AND CARERS TO PREPARE CHILDREN BEFORE ATTENDING A PERFORMANCE OF BAMBERT S BOOK OF LOST STORIES. DEVELOPMENT PARTNER
WELCOME! ABOUT BARKING GECKO THEATRE COMPANY Barking Gecko Theatre Company is Western Australia s locally cherished, nationally significant company that creates and tours world-class theatre for children and families. For nearly 30 years Barking Gecko has created exquisite and thought provoking productions, making it WA s longest running theatre company. Barking Gecko s award winning history of innovation and excellence reaches on average 35,000 people a year, encouraging them to embrace a life of curiosity, empathy and play. VISIT: WWW.BARKINGGECKO.COM.AU DO YOU KNOW WHY WE ARE CALLED BARKING GECKO THEATRE COMPANY? Apart from being a fun and memorable name, this small Australian reptile is a perfect fit for who we are. Although small, the Barking Gecko has a loud voice. It can run up a wall or over a ceiling and look at things from a totally new perspective. Barking Geckos or Underwoodisaurus milii are found on rocky outcrops, mostly in southern Australia. Production Images in this kit are by photographer Jon Green and subject to copyright. 2
CONTENTS How to use this Teaching Resource 4 Watching a live performance 5 BEFORE THE SHOW Bambert s Book of Lost Stories Synopsis 7 Introductory Activities 8 Storytelling in the theatre 8 Identifying the Elements of Drama 9 Meet the Creative Team & Elements of Design 11 AFTER THE SHOW First Thoughts 20 Revisit the Elements of Drama 21 Reflecting & Exploring 28 Interview with Luke Kerridge 25 Suggested Links 26 THIS PRODUCTION OF BAMBERT S BOOK OF LOST STORIES PREMIERED ON 9 APRIL 2016 AT THE STATE THEATRE CENTRE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, PERTH, WA. 3
HOW TO USE THIS TEACHING RESOURCE Bambert s Book of Lost Stories brings together Australia s most extraordinary creative minds to realise this exquisite production. At times amusing, other times melancholy, this new Australian work reminds us how stories connect us to the world and ultimately, the power of kindness. These teaching notes have been created with students in Years 3 to 6 in mind. You will find that they are broken into self- contained segments so you can choose to work through the kit in sequence or extract the segments most useful for you and absorb them into your own lesson plans. Included are insights into the adaptation process, behind the scenes images and designs, thematic questions, exploratory exercises, and reflective activities, with Australian Curriculum links for English and Drama. You will find these many of these activities can be used to explore both our stage adaptation and Reinhardt Jung s original story, Bambert s Book of Missing Stories. Feel free to adjust the content to best address the individual needs of your students. AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM LINKS English Language, Literature and Literacy Drama Elements of drama, Dramatic action, Design elements, Production roles KEY THEMES / IDEAS Addresses important themes about: Difference Loneliness Physical obstacles Power of the imagination Forms of storytelling Friendship 4
WATCHING A LIVE PERFORMANCE Barking Gecko Theatre Company promotes a total theatre experience with the aim of stimulating imaginations and encouraging active listening and learning. Above all Barking Gecko wants students of all ages to enjoy and appreciate the performance. The following pop questions are designed to help students engage appropriately with the live performance and fellow audience members. For many students theatre is a new experience and different standards of behaviour apply than when going to the movies or watching television. THE AUDIENCE IS A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF THE PERFORMANCE. What adjective would best describe how you feel about seeing the play? How could your behaviour affect the performers and other audience members in the production? What are the main differences between watching a live performance and watching television at home? How will you know when it is time for the performance to begin? Audience behaviour affects both the performers on stage and other audience members. The following are important behaviours for being a good audience. - Have something to eat and drink before and visit the toilet before the show begins because you want to be able to give the performance all your attention. - Remain in your seat during the performance and keep hands, feet and objects to yourself. - Pay attention and do take part if invited to. - Turn off your mobile phone and do not take photographs of the performance. Is this your first theatre experience? If not what other plays have you seen? What did you like about the experience? 5
BEFORE THE SHOW 6
BAMBERT S BOOK OF LOST STORIES - SYNOPSIS Below is an introduction to the story of Bambert. Depending on time available you may also wish to read Bambert s Book of Missing Stories by Reinhardt Jung on which our production is based. Read the story and use the information and activities that follow to prepare for seeing the show. This is the story of Bambert -- an impossibly small man with an enormous love for writing. Tucked away in his quiet attic, and surrounded by books of every kind, he doesn t ever go outside. Mr Bloom, who runs the grocery store downstairs, sends up breakfasts, letters and messages, in a little elevator. Bambert s life is a quiet one but although he is alone, Bambert is never lonely. Because tucked away inside his stories are his friends his characters. But one day, Bambert realises something if he s never been out into the world himself, how can his stories possibly be real? He decides to set his stories free, to send them out into the world on little balloons, in the hope that they will find a home. The stories contain instructions: the finder must return them to Bambert, postmarked, so he knows where they should now be set. The final story Bambert sends out into the world is blank: Bambert hopes that, somehow, it will write itself. He waits, and waits and finally, they are returned, with postmarks from all over the globe. From Spain comes a story of a Princess seeking the key to truth; from London, a hair-raising tale of waxwork figures; in Russia, a beam of light in a prison cell offers a ray of hope to imprisoned writers; and in Poland, nature conspires to help re-imagine a kinder version of history. But what of the final story the one he hoped would write itself? As Mr Bloom watches on from downstairs, Bambert grows more and more restless. Will his final story ever return to him? FIRST THOUGHTS Come up with as many words as possible to finish the following sentences: Bambert is This story is about ROLE ON THE WALL Draw a large outline of Bambert on butcher s paper and stick it on the wall. Imagine that this outline represents Bambert. Inside the outline write everything we know about Bambert (e.g. small, scared of the outside world, imaginative, talks to the moon) 7
Outside the outline write everything we know about the world outside Bambert (Mr Bloom lives downstairs, surrounded by books etc.) Keep your Bambert outline so you can add to it after you have seen the performance. IDENTIFYING THE BIG IDEAS What is the meaning behind this story? Try to come up with 5 words that are the Big Ideas behind Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. Create 5 still images, or tableaux, which represent your 5 Big Ideas. Look at each tableaux and discuss as observers what they think is being communicated then refer to the performers to discuss how successful they were in communicating meaning. EXTENSION ACTIVITY Take pictures or sketch the frozen images and turn them into a comic book strip allowing the characters, events and meaning in the image to be revealed in more detail. STORYTELLING IN THE THEATRE Use the following to conduct a guided discussion. Tableaux Still images created by bodies in space to create a visual story. Ask students to ask themselves: Where shall I stand in relation to others in the group? (encourage each to take a different position / stance / level) How can I communicate the meaning with my body language/gesture/facial expression? What do I want the audience to think/feel when they look at this tableau? How many people does it take to tell a story? Well, that all depends on how you tell the story. It only takes one person to write a story that person is usually referred to as the author. Sometimes an author might ask an illustrator to create some images that will help to tell their story. How do images help to tell a story? 8
But what about other kinds of storytelling? Can you think of any other ways to tell a story, apart from writing it down? Bambert s Book of Lost Stories is a story that we are going to tell through theatre. This kind of story is called a play. How is a play different from a story in a book? In the theatre we can use lots of different elements of a story to bring it to life on stage things that you can see, hear, feel and sometimes even smell to help create the characters and the world of our story. ELEMENTS OF DRAMA These elements are known as the Elements of Drama and they are: CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS SITUATION VOICE MOVEMENT FOCUS TENSION SPACE TIME LANGUAGE SYMBOL AUDIENCE ATMOSPHERE 9
Look again at the synopsis of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. Try to identify some of the Elements of Drama in the story by answering the following questions: Who are the characters in the story? What is the character s relationship to each other? What is the situation at the beginning of the story? What do you think Bambert s voice would sound like? Have a go at speaking in your Bambert voice. What would Bambert s movement look like? Have a go at moving around the room as if you were Bambert. Now look at the image below from our performance of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. Try to identify a few more Elements of Drama: What is the focus of attention in this moment? Is there any tension in the moment? How can you tell? How much space is being used up? What is unusual about how the space is being used? Do you think time is moving fast or slow in this moment? Why? What is the atmosphere, or mood, of this moment? What makes you think this? You ll be able to discuss the last 3 Elements of Drama, language, symbol and audience once you have seen the performance. 10
MEET THE CREATIVE TEAM It takes a lot more people to tell a story in the theatre, in fact it takes a whole team of people, each of whom help to create a different aspect of the performance. They are called the Creative Team. Look at the picture below another moment from our production of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. Make a list of the different jobs that you think might go into creating the moment from the play that you can see here. What other jobs might be involved that you can t see in the image? Now have a look at the list of the creative team that created Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. How many do you think match up with what you identified from the picture? Adapter Adapter & Director Production Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Dramaturg Performers Dan Giovannoni Luke Kerridge Jonathon Oxlade Chris Donnelly Ian Moorhead Matt Edgerton Igor Sas, Nick MacLaine, Amanda McGregor, Jo Morris, Tim Watts 11
WHAT IS AN ADAPTER? Dan Giovannoni is a playwright, which is very similar to an author, but instead of writing stories to be read, Dan writes stories especially to be performed in a theatre. In partnership with the co-adapter and director Luke Kerridge, Dan s job in the creation of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories was to take the author s book and turn it into a script. This script is a very important part of making a play - it is what everyone else in the Creative Team uses to do their job. Dan and Luke created the script for the play and a group of performers in a process called Creative Development. Dan would write the story as a script, the performers would then try acting it out. Together they would then talk about what worked and what didn t and the script would be refined further. The team repeated this process many of times for different sections of the story until collectively they thought the script was ready to go into rehearsal. If you have had a chance to look at Reinhardt Jung s book Bambert s Book of Missing Stories 1, you ll know that it includes 11 of Bambert s stories from his Book of Wishes. Because it takes a lot longer to perform a play that to read a story there was only enough time to include 5 of these stories in the play. Another important aspect of Dan s job was to work out how to tell a shorter version of Bambert s story without losing any of the Big Ideas in the original book. Take a look at this extract from the English translation of Reinhardt Jung s book. This excerpt is from one of Bambert s stories, The Princess of Cordoba: Now take a look at the same section of the story from Dan Giovannoni s script adaptation: 1 The English version of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories by Reinhardt Jung, Illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark, translated by Anthea Bell, Egmont, 2008 12
Princess Maria takes her place on her throne. A trumpet fanfare as the Lady Chamberlain enters and announces the King. Lady Cham Princess! Distinguished guests! Good people! May I present to you his Royal Highness the King- The King slips past her. King Maria King No need for fanfare. Only me. Daughter! Big day. We re finally going to get this city a future King! They already have a future Queen. Darling, this is not the time; we ve got a line of a hundred potential suitors queuing around the block! A trumpet fanfare. The court is silent no, really, shush! Lady Cham Her Excellency Princess Maria Gonzales-Olivia will today choose the Future King of our fine city. The challenge placed before them? To bring our fine Princess her one heart s desire, which is which is She looks closer at his scroll, confused. The Princess interjects: Maria Lady Cham King I ve asked that they should bring me The Key To Truth. O K. The Key To Truth! This can t possibly go wrong. How are the two pieces of writing different? Is the meaning still the same? Which piece of writing tell us the most about the characters, the setting and the situation? In a group of 3, have a go at performing Dan s script. 13
WHAT IS A DIRECTOR? Luke s role in creating Bambert s Book of Lost Stories started when he first read Reinhardt Jung s book and imagined it as a play. I was drawn to the image of Bambert, a man so impossibly small he literally doesn t fit into the world. Recreating this character onstage was an exciting idea for me. Luke Kerridge As the director, Luke s job was to imagine what the book should look like, sound like and feel like as a performance and then help everyone in the Creative Team create what he imagined. The performance you are going to see began as an idea in Luke s imagination. Go back to the excerpt from the script on the previous page: In groups of 4, have another go at performing the scene, this time with the fourth member of the group taking on the job of director. Questions for the director: How does each character talk and move? How can the audience tell the character s relationship to each other? What is the atmosphere in the scene? What is the Big Idea you want the audience to understand from watching the scene? 14
WHAT IS A DESIGNER? A bit like a detective, a designer will read the book and play script to find important details to help create a physical world for the characters to live in. These designs also contain important clues for the audience. There were 3 different kinds of designer involved in creating Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. Each of them created a different aspect of what you will see, hear and feel in the theatre. PRODUCTION DESIGNER A set is the designed space that is placed on a stage to create the different settings for a play. A set might represent one location in a play or, like in Bambert s Book of Lost Stories it can be made to represent many different places and times. Jonathon Oxlade s set design might look small and simple at first, but you will soon see how clever he has been to fit many different elements of the story it a very small space. Costumes are the clothes, and sometimes the objects, worn by performers to let the audience know more about their character. For Bambert s Book of Lost Stories some of the performers play many different characters, so one of the challenges for Jonathon was to design costumes that could be changed very quickly as the performers switched from one character to the next. To create the set and costumes designs for the production Jonathon worked with the director, Luke, to come up with a style for the overall design, this is called a design concept. He decided on the colours, textures and materials that would make up the overall design and from this plan he created all of the many elements of the design. Every single piece of clothing, object and piece of scenery you see in the play has been specifically chosen by Jonathon. 15
This is Jonathon Oxlade s concept design for the set of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories Explore the image in detail. How might it be used during the performance? What materials might be used to make it? 16
Now look at the 3D model Jonathon created of his set design: What is the same? What is different? What new information do we get from seeing the design in 3D? Does the set design make you think of a particular place or time? Thinking about what you know of the story, try to identify the different spaces you can see in the set design? 17
Jonathon s design includes sketches of every object used in the performance: Which character from the story do you think this is? Why? 18
Now let s return to the Princess of Cordoba scene (p.12): Choose one of the characters Princess Maria, The King or Lady Chamberlain design a costume for that character. Make sure you draw a front and back view as well as a close up of the head just like the example above. Think about what colours and materials you will use and label your design to show the different elements of the costume. What does your costume design tell us about the character? THE SOUND DESIGNER Ian Moorhead composed the original music that you will hear during the performance and created many different sound effects that will help you to imagine the many different worlds the characters in the play will visit. When you are watching the performance: Listen out for Ian s sound design. Try to remember the different sounds that you here. How do they help your imagination? Listen to the music and try to notice when it is having an effect on the atmosphere of the play. Is there a particular moment when the music made you feel a certain way? THE LIGHTING DESIGNER Chris Donnelly designed all of the lighting that you will see during the play. The story takes place in many different locations, at different times of day, in different seasons and both indoors and outdoors. Chris design will help you keep up with the when and the where of the story at every moment. It will also help to create the atmosphere of different moments in the performance. When you are watching the performance: Before the show starts look up! When the show begins you ll also see that the lights are shining different coloured light and that they can all be made to shine more or less brightly. How does the direction, colour and brightness of the light effect the atmosphere created? Try to remember a particular moment in the performance when the lighting made you feel a certain way. 19
AFTER THE SHOW FIRST THOUGHTS Discuss and note down your initial responses to the performance using the framework below: I liked I disliked I was surprised when I was confused when I was reminded of Go back to the Role on the Wall you created before seeing the play: What new information can you add inside the outline? What new information can you add outside the outline? Revisit the 5 Big Ideas of the story that you identified before you saw the play: Would you change any of these now that you know the whole story? Whether your 5 Big Ideas change or stay the same create 5 new tableaux to represent these ideas, but this time re-create actual moments you can remember from the play that you think reflect each idea. 20
THE ELEMENTS OF DRAMA Firstly, now that you ve seen the performance, let s think about language, symbol and audience. Look at the image below: Can you remember which of Bambert s stories this moment is from? Describe the language the characters used in The Waxwork Museum story Can you remember any specific words that the characters used that were different from the rest of the play? How did the language used in this story help us to understand the story? 21
Here s another image from the play: What important role does the moon play in Bambert s life? What Big Idea in the story could the moon be a symbol for? Even though there were five performers on stage, the Creative Team chose to use a puppet to perform for the character of Bambert. Why do you think they did this? How effective was this? Why did they use actors, who play characters in the story, to operate Bambert? 22
How did different members of the creative team used the Elements of Drama to communicate meaning? Try and give an example from the play of a moment when each of the Elements of Drama below were used to tell the story: CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS SITUATION VOICE MOVEMENT FOCUS TENSION SPACE TIME LANGUAGE SYMBOL AUDIENCE ATMOSPHERE 23
REFLECTIONS & EXPLORATION Below are a selection of activities that you can use to continue your exploration of Bambert s Book of Lost Stories. How can a story write itself? Give students a page with the heading It is my wish that this story will write itself Ask them to choose a location somewhere in the world and write a story set in that place. Somewhere on the map Ask students find a location on the map of the world and write it down. Now ask them to imagine three characters and right a short description of each. Students swap settings and characters with each other and write a story using the setting and characters they have been given. Adapting for the stage This can be done in small groups or as a collaborative class activity. Select one of the stories written by the students, or, if you have covered Reinhardt Jung s novel then you can use one of the stories not included in the play. Group students into Creative Teams, with writers, directors, designers and performers. Using this resource as a guide conduct your own Creative Development to adapt the story into a play. 24
FURTHER INFORMATION FOR TEACHERS INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR, LUKE KERRIDGE Q: How did you get the idea to create this work for the stage? I first discovered Bambert s Book of Missing Stories about 10 years ago. I was living in London at the time and found it in a dusty shop in south London. I m a collector of unique and unusual children s books, and I remember what really struck me when I read the book was the character of Bambert, and how much you care about him and how quickly you become attached to him as a reader. What appealed to me about adapting this story for the stage was how beautiful his project was, sending his beloved stories out into the world to find their own setting via envelopes attached to balloons. Bambert finds the world outside too overwhelming, too noisy and too fast so he has had to create his own world, surrounding himself with words and books. The world of his imagination and creativity has a heartbeat. Bambert s stories literally burst into life and in some ways are more real or rich than reality. This work is about how rich the world of imagination and creativity is. I was also drawn to the idea of Bambert, a man so impossibly small he literally doesn t fit into the world. Recreating this character onstage was an exciting idea for me. Q: You have had several creative developments with actors but also with students, why? At the centre of each story is a child who can push back and give their point of view on the world, however I am aware how sophisticated the story is, so was particularly interested in including the perspective of children in this work and did this first with upper primary school students at a school in Sydney over a term for once a week. The book spoke to them in incredible ways and their responses were very moving. I would read the book and then they would give me their opinions. We did a range of activities each lesson such as writing, drawing & design which all influenced my creative processes. I also talked to teachers about different things they could do during the week. This was a rewarding process for children and teachers who tied the book across the curriculum as Bambert s stories reach out to all corners of the world, cultures and history of the world. Working with the young people has guided my artistic process. We can t include everything from the book so I really look to their opinions and the parts they liked the best, the parts they found the most challenging and considered this in the construction of the adaptation so it is a rewarding and emotional journey for the audience. I think young people have such an incredible perspective on the world, so I was interested in developing parts of Bambert s life not in the book. I worked with a selection of Barking Gecko Theatre Company Ensemble students, in 2015 aged 9-12 years to explore aspects of his life not expressed in the book, including how he 25
might set up his world to make it easier to function in the attic. Students had fun designing inventions to help him access things in the world and physical exploration of what it is like to be very old and small in a busy, fast world. Each student also wrote a wish for the world, which we attached to envelopes and released into the sky. LINKS Promotional Video - https://vimeo.com/164669171 The Australian (review) - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/stage/bamberts-book-oflost-stories-little-man-with-big-ideas/news-story/6752b042954560daba23b315a8876c71 Radio National Interview with Luke Kerridge (audio) - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/bambert's/7311152 The Taboo of Sadness Finegan Kruckemeyer (essay) http://finegankruckemeyer.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/04/thetabooofsadness.pdf Barking Gecko Theatre Company - http://barkinggecko.com.au 26