FIRST REHEARSAL

Pinch-punch-first-of-the-month of June at Imagination Stage means turning a page on our Production Calendar and starting to build the world of this summer’s ambitious extravaganza, THE NEVERENDING STORY. Best known to American audiences from the 1984 movie adaptation, this brilliant fantasy mystery and adventure was written by German author, Michael Ende, in the years following World War II and published in 1953. Like its British counterpart, C. S. Lewis’s better known CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, Ende’s book deals with bold conflicts between good and evil, an imaginary world full of eccentric characters, and the journey of some youngsters against enormous odds to ensure that the positive forces prevail over the bad. That’s where the parallels end, however, because in Ende’s world view, there is no Aslan willing to sacrifice himself for a flawed humanity. Instead, Ende repeatedly shows his leading characters faced with profound difficulties—the death of loved ones, lack of faith in the abilities of the young, adult apathy, self-interest and outright vengefulness. Yet the author draws us through the perils and pain of dark characters and events as a way, in the end, of affirming the light. He affirms each person’s ability, and indeed his responsibility, to choose peace over violence; bravery over cowardice; generosity over meanness; and action over inaction.

This is a fantasy with a great contemporary feel with many great lessons the children of today.

These are the ideas that we began with on Monday in our first rehearsal. A company of 9 actors has been assembled in order to populate both the real world and the world of Fantastica. As you can imagine, there has to be a great of deal of doubling and fast costume changes in order to realize the 37 characters in the script. (And even this represents some fraction of those in the novel.) During the Design Presentation to the company, Set Designer Dan Conway showed a model of the set. This involves a circular playing space with four trap doors, a metal bridge with a spiral staircase and a huge projection screen that is decorated to look like a printed page from the book, THE NEVERENDING STORY. Dan showed the group several images on his Mac laptop that are being photoshop-ed in order to create the lush and varied backdrops for the scenes in Fantastica. Puppeteer and Puppet-maker Eric Van Wyk showed the cast his sketches of puppets that he will build for the show: hand puppets that are The Good Fairy and Eribo; Bun Raku puppets for the Sassafranians (who grow young instead of old) and the Night Hob, VoshVazool, who brings news of The Nothing to the Magnolia Palace, home of the childlike Empress. Eric demonstrated his work-in-progress, Vooshvazool’s bat whose wings are crafted from half of a black umbrella! Costume and props presentations were made by Kathleen Geldard and Dre Moore respectively. Because the cast will be onstage most of the time playing everything from pedestrians on the street to aspects of the landscape in Fantastica, Kathleen has chosen to put most everyone in a base costume that matches the sepia tones of the big page of the book on the set. To this many different pieces will be added or changed throughout the show in order to create all 37 characters.

Labels: 2007-2008 Season, 2008-2009 Season, Janet Stanford, Neverending Story