In order to adhere to the time restraint, we decided not to do a detailed scripted narrative and instead do something more contemporary and similar to earlier class exercises keeping dialogue to a minimum and instead take advantage of movement and gesture. We also decided to use a series of six short scenes that flow into each other rather than long and complicated scenes. We also decided to have simple semiotic costume that simply suggested our character traits i.e. Rapunzel wore white (signifying purity and innocence), the witches wore black (signifying evil and mystery). The set and props were also kept simple in keeping with the piece (a bottle and a packet of cigarettes) because according to Aston and Savona’s Theatre as Sign System, ‘in theatre, we assume that everything placed within the frame has an artificial and predetermined meaning’, and thus must be absolutely relevant to the piece. Our lighting consisted merely of a spotlight and candles (keeping to the constraint of a maximum of three light sources). We wanted to keep the idea of the ‘black box’ theme by having our audience ‘in the round’ and thus close to the action.
Due to there being six people in our group, we decided to have three female witches (like in MacBeth), two princes and a Rapunzel. Keeping lines to a minimum we decided to select what we felt were the key lines from the Sexton poem and split them up between our three witches throughout our piece. We felt that this simplicity would enhance the key issues in our piece: lesbianism and modern day inhibitions.
In the first of our six scenes, the witches started off walking round in a circle around Rapunzel all chanting in a whisper, ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down thy long hair’, gradually building up to a shout. We thought that this would create a powerful start that would emphasise one of our key issues.
During my individual research on the Brothers Grimm for the seminar I came across some information stating that originally, the tales were intended for adults and contained violence and sex scenes, for example, Rapunzel had sex with the Prince. In the fourth scene of our piece Rapunzel lies down with both Princes after letting go of her inhibitions and in the fifth scene wakes up to find herself pregnant (she sits up holding her stomach and gasps), so although our piece does not literally depict a sex scene, it implies it semiotically: it gives the impression that sex has taken place and Rapunzel’s gesture implies that she is pregnant. ‘Everything presented to the spectator within the theatrical frame is a sign. Reading signs is the way we set about making sense of the world’. (Aston and Savona, Theatre as Sign System).
The theme of Rapunzel losing her inhibitions integrated well with our lesbianism theme as in Sexton’s version of Rapunzel, Mother Gothel is portrayed as a lesbian, thus we took this idea and applied it to our three witches. In our first three scenes we depict the witches trying to keep Rapunzel for themselves: ‘None but I will ever see or touch her’, Put your pale arms around my neck’, and act as a barrier between Rapunzel and the Princes (the temptation to lose her inhibitions).
To signify Rapunzel giving in to the Princes in scene four we used the simple gesture of her pulling her hair out of her ponytail thus literally and symbolically ‘letting her hair down’ and reinforcing one of the piece’s meanings.
To go against the stereotypical fairytale happy ending, we decided to make Rapunzel suffer. After she abandons the witches and has sex with the Princes and finds herself pregnant, the Princes both deny that the child might be theirs and leave Rapunzel on her own, rejecting her like she did the witches. Rapunzel then looks at each of the witches in turn who have knelt at the back of the space, each behind a candle.
As Rapunzel looks at each witch, they shake their heads and after each witch has denied her, they all blow out their candles, leaving Rapunzel alone in a dimmed spotlight. We felt that the silence was powerful and actually enhanced the meanings within the piece. The rejection of Rapunzel by the witches at the end was because she had lost her innocence and betrayed them and they no longer desired or wanted her. The blowing out of the candles signifies the lost passion and desire, also signifying the loss of the hope of returning to the witches for Rapunzel. Although a sign stands for something that is not present (as illustrated by Pierce and Saussure) i.e. the lit candles are not literally hope or passion. However, lit candles can often make people think of hope or passion, and the sudden lack of the lit candles can reverse people’s perceptions, making them think of the lack of hope and lack of passion instead.
After the candles have been blown out and Rapunzel is left alone in the spotlight, she speaks the last verse of Sexton’s Rapunzel changing it slightly to make it relevant to the piece:
“As for Rapunzel,
Her heart shrank to the size of a pin,
Never again to hear: Hold me, my young dear,
Hold me,
And only as she dreamed of the yellow hair
Did moonlight sift into her mouth”.
The spotlight was then faded out which helped to signify the end and we felt that ending with the end of Sexton’s Rapunzel gave closure to our piece and reinforced the idea of Rapunzel’s loneliness and the end of the piece.
All in all, I think that our piece adhered well to the constraints and task instructions given. We kept within the time restraint and the limited light sources as well as keeping our performance within the black box, using techniques and exercises that we learned within the unit in class rather than just creating a piece that had no bearing on what we have learned over the past few months. The space consisted of no set save from three candles and a couple of props that we felt were essential to our piece and we kept costume very basic. We felt that as a group, we produced a powerful and unusual piece that we produced from key issues that we identified through research we conducted, rather than just telling the story of Grimm’s Rapunzel in a different way. I personally felt that if we had the chance to develop our piece further, I would not choose to work with some of the same group members, as certain members of our group did not turn up for rehearsals on time (or at all) and I felt that 50% were not taking the assessment seriously. I feel that our piece could have been developed further or improved with a more reliable and dedicated group and felt that the ideas and research for both the seminar and the final piece came from just three members of the group which put a lot of pressure on us and thus I’d say this was our weakness.
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Bibliography
Anne Sexton – ‘Rapunzel’
Aston and Savona – ‘Theatre as Sign System’
‘Theatre, Life and Language’ (Class handout)
Brothers Grimm – ‘Rapunzel’
‘Terms and Concepts’ (Class Handout)
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm.html
