Rewrite
We were privy to a limited dramatic spectacle the other day. A few weeks back, a student of Yau Neih's had said that she and her classmates wanted to give a little performance--in English--for the upcoming Christmas show and asked if Yau Neih could provide a little Christmas skit for them to perform. Yau Neih brought the problem home and we kicked the idea around over lunch. Yau Neih finally settled on a basic plot and we all contributed some of the gags. Our premise was this: It's Christmas Eve and two children are waiting for Santa Claus. Although they've been told that nobody ever sees Santa Claus, they hope that by perseverance and clever concealment, they can not only catch a glimpse of, but also welcome their hero. Of course, it seems as everybody but Santa decides to visit the home that evening. First a neighbor comes by with a gift basket. The neighbor is startled when the children burst out of hiding, shouting, "Santa Claus!" The next person to walk through the door is the children's older sister. She creeps into the quiet house with her boyfriend, hoping to share a quiet moment together. The sudden, exuberant appearance of her siblings scare off the boyfriend and spoil the whole mood. The final visitor is a burglar, who starts helping herself to some stocking stuffers. The children unknowingly frighten off this scoundrel as well. But finally, excitement takes its toll. The children drift off to sleep, and only then does Santa appear, leaving them their presents for Christmas.Yau Neih wrote up a script for this and gave it to the student. The first progress report we got on their preparations was a bit later when the student asked if Yau Neih could show some of her classmates how to do the dance to "Edelweiss", a dance Yau Neih had taught at the English corner. Since we had never scripted a dance number into the skit, we new that somebody had been doing some rewriting. It seems the students had decided to tack on a dream sequence, where Santa and the evening's visitors danced in front of the Christmas tree. Yau Neih agreed to help out again, of course, and told them to come to the next English corner where she would teach that dance. She would also do another run through with them after the corner. So Tuesday arrived and when the dancing arrived, Yau Neih taught the "Edelweiss" dance, right after doing "La Raspa" aka "The Mexican Hat Dance". Once the dancing was over, Yau Neih and the bulk of the attendees went back to singing. The budding thespians, however, stayed on the other side of the room and practiced Edelweissing. For a moment, anyway. A minute or two later, I glanced over again and saw that they were La Raspa-ing instead. Sure enough, after the corner was over and I had taken the chairs back to their storage place I found out that a script rewrite had been made and that now the dream sequence would feature Santa and the cast getting down to Mexican music. As one partially of Austrian heritage, I suppose I should feel slighted, but truth to tell, I prefer "La Raspa" myself.
Anyway, this long winded narrative concludes with the performance a couple of days ago. We were invited to see a dress rehearsal of the skit and we were all eager to see the production of our little play. (I should mention as an aside that it will not be part of the Christmas show. They were told that they missed the application deadline or some such. But they put on the performance for us anyway, sweet kids that they are.) It was interesting to see just how our script was interpreted. For starters, we had envisioned a story with seven characters, told mostly in pantomime. The students had expanded the cast to twelve. There were the seven on stage performers, but there was also a narrator and four others who would actually recite the dialogue. The seven on stage would simply lip synch (or not, depending on their ability) to the script. It seemed a bit odd, but I have to admit it's a clever way to ensure good dialogue from a bunch of performers who are speaking a foreign language. The script itself seemed to have been expanded, with the voice actors explaining more of the action. The mimers' performance, in turn, was far more subdued than I had envisioned. Of course, my contributions were written with the vision of Loony Tunes and Buster Keaton in my mind's eye. I'm pretty sure that the kids didn't have those influences when growing up, so I couldn't expect them to evoke that same spirit in their performance. The next notable departure was the appearance of ol' Saint Nick. Again, what was envisioned while writing didn't match what appeared on stage. We had pictured Santa quietly and gently sneaking into the room to leave behind his presents for the children. The guy who played Santa, however, strode boldly on stage, pumping his fists into the air as if he was making a victory lap. It was an odd touch, but strangely enough, it worked.
I guess that would be my capsule summary of the performance: it worked. The secret, I've found, to enjoying disparate productions like a local talent show is to put aside my own expectations and enjoy what's being offered. The performance of our script had a flavor, a subtle humor that was mildly unsettling, but still enjoyable. It's a pity that they can't play to a wider audience, but I suppose that any performer that's truly eager for the footlights will find a way to get on stage.
posted by John @ 8:03 PM
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