Monday, 20 December 2010

The fight for the curtains, the stage and the lights...!

The stage is all set now with the backgrounds, curtains, a carpeted elevated dais and lights as well. And now ask me what I went through to get all this...!
I cannot imagine how these people can be so dead artistically. They do not desire or are even aware of how things can be improved upon or created. They have no sense of presentation, appearance and definitely no desire and will to work - just forget hard work..!

To begin with the teachers were totally unable to understand why I was so keen and working hard on presenting different scenes like King's palace, Bethlehem, or Stable scene." Its not needed. We all, as well as all the parents, know full well the whole Christmas story. When the king comes we can imagine that this is happening in his palace or Jesus is being born in a stable in the night time, no? You don't need to set up backgrounds to tell us that."
I argued that play doesn't just mean saying a few dialogs. It has a certain way of being presented as a whole; It is an art which involves acting, expressions, dressing up, scenes, background, sounds, light and music together but they merely thought I was being insane. Perhaps I am but I don't care. I am only doing things the way they should be done. Just because it was never done before in this school doesn't mean it can never be done or will never be done.
Then the question of the stage. Since we don't have any elevated dais type area in the school which could work as stage, I had planned long before that I would create one by putting tables together with a carpet on top. Everybody started resisting. "Why do you want a stage? The children can very well perform on the floor. Standing on tables can be dangerous. The children can fall down and hurt themselves. The tables can slip; besides we need tables in class, how will we manage without tables?" and  blah blah blah
I somehow silenced them by saying that I needed the stage because the children being so small won't be visible to the tall audience and this can create a chaos; and anyway, I was not taking all the tables of the school but only a few and tables won't be dangerous; my actors know where they have to walk.

Finally when I secured the tables, they started resisting that I shouldn't cover them with a carpet. Why? Because, the children might get confused where they were standing. Let them know that they are standing on tables; they'll be more careful. Besides the carpet can make them trip and fall. Better spread a quilt on it because it is soft"
Their intelligence beats that of the dumbest ass in the world. ...To think that they will even be able to stand erectly on a soft, fluffy, mushy quilt while they will fall down like autumn leaves from a withered tree on a flat, firm, anti slip carpet is beyond me.

They weren't even letting me cover the sides of the tables too which looked really ugly revealing the underneath space of the stage but I covered that too using other smaller anti slip carpets. As had already refused to arrange any lights for the stage so I carried my 2 bedroom table lamps and An brought her's and dear dear S went straight to a big electronics shop and purchased a huge 10 meter extension chord to support these 3 lamps so now I had been able to arrange stage as well as stage lights too.
And As and the whole school says we can't afford to have such programs. They are too much upscale....!

I had requested As to provide me hut cut outs and she had agreed. At the last moment she cozily told me she couldn't. She hadn't imagined that if she couldn't give me I would create my own. I painted big triangles of paper to look like thatched roof, painted designs of windows and doors and kept everyone guessing what I was up to; I was so afraid I would be told I wasn't allowed to do this too. Nobody could surmise what those triangles and squares etc were for. Finally at the last minute when I  stuck those triangles and squares on children's bright red colored mattresses to look like a house or a hut it was too late for them to tell me I couldn't do it. As's eyes nearly fell out of her head when she saw my huts....!

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