I’m going to start out more simply. As usual, Marc has amazing things to say, but he writes at such length that one hardly knows which part to respond to. (Pardon, Marc.)
I do appreciate Marc’s comment that what we do onstage does not need to detract from the music/poetry. That said, I think we have plenty of opportunity to dazzle the audience, and may develop more: I can always make more music to stretch things out.
Case in point: “Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room” probably should contain minimal dazzlement during the main song, but there’s nothing that prevents us from adding a Ballet of the Sunflowers which takes the main theme and extends it into a bigger piece.
Two things happen there: it lengthens the program a little bit, and I do think 34 minutes is too short, and it gives more children stage time. That’s the thing we’ll explore over the next few months.
But to make this brief and open up for comments, I don’t think we need any kind of plot/script/frame to make it work. There’s a sense of movement through about a day and a half in the whole piece, and I really think that’s all we need to offer the audience. I think I’ve said this before, but one instructive model is that of Cirque du Soleil. They may set up a barebones storyline at the opening, but the following two hours is just one visually arresting image after another. Connectivity? Not so’s you’d notice. Logical plot? None.
One visually arresting image after another…
For me that’s the challenge. And my picking through various concepts and notions is just a way to spark ideas. I encourage everyone to be thinking about playful and unusual ways to support these song performances. We have a chorus of children; they can sing and move at once (we’ll teach them how…). How “period” do we want our visual elements? Costumes? I’m wondering if there might be something in the tradition and conventions of English Pantomime to inspire us? I’ll look into it. I like the notion of the “arresting” nature of the stage world also conveying a child-like joyful home-made sense. Charming because of the inventive way the familiar, domestic, and simple are crafted into magical and theatrical elements.
Each song’s performance a-whirl in its own maelstrom of associations, its own fanciful sense. You could even pick objects at random and will the images into being as the performer and the children surprise us with the imagined reality of each song using action and objects and touches of visual language…
I’m done…
Of course it’s the challenge. And I’ve been successful at resisting the urge to try to solve that challenge, mostly because I have to concentrate on the music itself.
But more than that, I have convinced myself that it’s not my place to think about it yet. If this is a Lacuna kind of thing, then we have to wait unti Lacuna has taken it up.
I am reminded of 1997’s Midsummer. We played and played and played, but it wasn’t until halfway through rehearsals that we formulated the “rules of engagement” for the fairy band. We couldn’t systematize their improv, couldn’t provide an analytical framework until we saw what we had to play with.
I think we’ll find this to be true in WB as well. I agree that each song will have its own “maelstrom of associations,” but eventually, they’ll start to connect and then we’ll see what is necessary to propel the piece forward.