Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A-Z Blogging challenge: Evil?

This one I had difficulty with pinpointing as a prompt and as a concept. Evil? Really does it apply?

Gef, the mongoose isn't evil, of course. He is unsettling, in the same way that a ticking bomb on the dining room table is unsettling. From the first encounter I had with Gef in the pages of Usborne's Ghosts there is a tug between Gef's cheerful antics and his more sinister intentions. He cajoles, he threatens, he throws objects and vandalises. On the other hand, he jokes with Jim and is fiercely protective of Voirrey. He brings the family rabbits to supplement their diet.

There will be no bad guys in this play. It could be too simple to say "James/Harry/Gef' is the 'bad guy'". I hope the character's behaviours come across as complex, or hint at complex motivations.

In terms of the theatre, the actors bring so much to a role. I like to think of characters as fiction-suits (to steal an idea from Grant Morrison's Invisibles) that actors put on. The human underneath the role brings with them texture. My goal, my hope, is to provide them with a suit that intrigues them, that clothes them well, that doesn't turn out to be garish and ill-fitting.

Well this meandered a little.

Tomorrow: Farms and Farmers.

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