Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Notebook pages for 10-8-2010

Another notebookpage from antiquity.


More brainstorming.

The tragedy of Voirrey & Gef

Bestest friends until circumstances tore them apart,
Trying to find a title, and a voice. Is this for kids?

Rumpelstiltskin + Other fairytales with threats

Bluebeard   }
Orpheus     }   don't look...
Lot's wife   }
All of these old stories pivot on characters looking when they were told not to. Gef makes a similar kind of threat ("If you don't treat me right, I will do you harm"), and the story that unfolds could be seen as Gef making good on the threat.

Farm is sold. Reporters.
Gef is possessive and jealous.
More events plucked out of the  research.

Gef: Who knew that death would suck a second time.
Linking Gef's second death at the hands of the new farmer to his supposed first death in India. Still playing with a voice.

[2nd Farmer + Gef = Elmer Fudd and insert character here.]
And why not? A farmer trying to rid his land of a talking, mischievious animal leads or sidesteps here. The Loony Tunes were ramping up over this period of time. I'll do a little more investigating, but it's an echo that brings a whole lot of imaginative baggage with it, for me at least.

The first fragment of scripting: Voirrey says good bye to Gef. Overleaf from previous page.

V: Gef, I have to go.

(silence)

V: I really have to go.

G: So, go.

V: Gef.

G: I said, Go.

(silence)

V: Gef?

(pause)

V: Gef?

(silence) - (scurrying?)
                (clicker-clack of claws)
I see this as one of the tent-pole scenes of the play, where things unravel for both Voirrey and Gef. A little spare perhaps, I admit I don't like writing 'shouty' scenes. When I write I tend to imagine writing for a black stage. This scene is Voirrey standing still, in travelling clothes and with a bag. We can't see Gef. Presumably if it were a realistic set or a film, the place to set it would be in the barn. But in my head, they are two voices, one seen and one unseen.

The silences are actually people not speaking, there could be (should be?) background noise, whether farmyard or ocean or wind. Perhaps rain. One participant in the scene is about to destroy the world they both share. And I can't make up my mind who it is.

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