It is fair to say that Stars Above was born through devising. Devising gave us a rich new world full of ideas, characters, plot and dialogue; but when Hippocampus Theatre decided to resurrect the show a year after its birth with a smaller cast and in a more streamlined fashion it became clear that the script needed significant work.
The ideology of our new theatre company is based on storytelling, so my first job as writer was to painstakingly cut words, lines, characters and actions to make a simpler, clearer play. Anything in the old text that did not serve the plot had to go; like pruning a bush so it will end up healthier, I suppose...
Feeling a good deal lighter, the play now had to be restructured so our smaller cast could still tell the
story. Introducing Owl and Rooster!! I wrote these two new puppet characters into the play so we could function with fewer actors and also create a little bit of magic for our younger audience. As well as taking part in the action, these bird puppets are narrators that address the audience directly, leaving no doubt that the story will be explained properly! Our new narrators open the play with a prologos taken straight out of Ancient Greek tradition, a prologue that sets the scene and lays the foundations for what is to come.
"Welcome, all, and here we are, to tell a tale, to spin a yarn
To make life harder for myself (not to mention the cast), but hopefully more enjoyable for the audience I decided to incorporate a lot more rhyme and metre than we'd had previously. Although the subject matter of the play is a mythical fantasy, the actual performance style fluctuates between plain realism and expressive physical theatre; my challenge was to mirror these styles in the choice of language. Much of the dialogue is conversational prose but when the style of action moves beyond the everyday and into a heightened state, the text follows suit with rhyming couplets and Dactylic metre.
How has this happened? You've risen too soon! And now we have met, the sun and the moon!
I wanted to pepper the text with references that firmly tie it into the world of storytelling. Themes and sayings that resonate with the huge existing body of folklore and myth. Our introductory creation story is an amalgamation of accounts in the Bible, Koran and Celtic myth and our tree of life has roots in many cultures, from Eden to Yggdrasil. 'Listen', booms the Chief of the Night; the first line of the play seems simple enough but it comes directly from the opening of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. By making these connections with myth and legend we hope to create a story that resonates with humanity's deep, lasting love of stories
"Listen! In the beginning, there was a time when the world was new and undefined. The time of the great, empty void."
So, after a while my work was done. A script; written, saved and printed. Then it was time for our process to come full circle and return to its roots in the arena of devising. Actors taking back control of their own characters, giving them an infusion of their own spirit to bring them to life. Puns and funny mistakes that randomly happen whilst having a laugh becoming treasured gifts we add to the tapestry. Always striving to improve and master our story...
A stronger and clearer plot, new characters, metre and rhythm and a unified world of storytelling. Re-writing Stars Above has been a great challenge that I have really enjoyed, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Who knows what will happen when we step out onto the boards!
Now it's time to learn those lines...
Stars Above is a family show by Hippocampus Theatre that combines music, dance, puppetry and storytelling to create new and exciting theatre.
(See our website... https://hippocampustheatre.weebly.com/)
