With the performance date approaching at an alarming rate
additional rehearsals have been added to the schedule, in addition to making
room for extra work to be done in predetermined rehearsals. Today’s session was
originally going to focus on the final scenes of the play, in which the four
Pevensie siblings return to the lamppost, and emerge back in the real world,
before telling the Professor all about their adventures. We worked on all of
these scenes, but also managed to find the time to sort out more costumes and
choreograph the fight between Peter and Maugrim (and also practiced the fight
between the White Witch and Peter).
The four Pevensie siblings spend fifteen years in Narnia,
growing to young adulthood in the process, prior to de-aging in matter of moments and finding themselves
right back where they were on the day they climbed into the Wardrobe. Something
that none of the adaptations put any focus on is just how unusual an occurrence
that truly is. At the point when we stumble out of the Wardrobe and find
ourselves as children again we take a moment to pause and take in the sudden
alteration. It is a really fascinating discussion point that these four
children are now wise beyond their years: they have won a war, ruled over a country,
grown to maturity, etc. then they are young children once again with all of
that knowledge and experience they’ve gained.
The final scene of the play involves the four children
telling their story to the Professor, who tells them that they will return to
Narnia again someday, and then cryptically suggests that he has also had
adventures there himself. As the children get to the end of their story they
come to the realisation that they accidentally left the Professor’s fur coats
in Narnia. This lead to a very funny run-through of the scene where the
Professor was outraged to discover this and slammed his fist down on the table –
we carried on, but never regained our composure after that!
We then worked out the fight sequence between Peter and
Maugrim – AKA ‘Peter and the Wolf’. This was another unusual fight sequence as
it has an ‘armed against unarmed’ dynamic, and yet the one who is armed is at a
disadvantage. This fight is Peter’s first battle, and he has never fought with
a sword until now. As a result Peter is extremely nervous during this sequence,
whilst Maugrim is strong and confident: being the captain of the White Witch’s
Secret Police. These factors help to make the fight a lot more performative and
character driven. There is a very strong sense of threat to Peter’s life in
this duel, for although he is destined to be High King of Narnia, he is an
untested warrior. The choreography captures Peter’s inexperience very strongly,
and hopefully there will be a sense of danger when the audience sees the show.
We also took advantage of the time we had and sorted out the
costumes for all of the Pevensie’s when they are fully grown adults, as well as
for several other characters. Then since we had our fight director on hand, we
practiced the fight between the White Witch and Peter a few times to get it up
to a more performance-ready standard.
Quotes of the day:
“The first thing I’ll do when I’m king of Exeter will be to
make some decent roads!” Jake Francis
(Life imitates art! We all encounter perilous frozen pathways en route to
rehearsal)
“Tumnus will be long dead by the time you get back, but his
great, great, great grand-daughter is pretty fine!” James Bush (Contemplating the children’s eventual return to Narnia)
“Excuse me, my name is Peter Pevensie, and you appear to
have killed my brother, so if you wouldn’t mind, then prepare yourself for the
possibility of death!” (Rousing words
from the future king!)
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