Nostalgia: a Devised, Post-Modern Work

This project was a part of Baylor's Advanced Directing class. The assignment was to direct a 10-12 minute devised postmodern piece with no more than a seven person cast. The only prompt I was given was a collection of photographs by the artist Jane Long, with the intention of creating a piece of art that relied less on dialogue/the traiditional modes of theatre and more on semiotics.

Inspiration

The prompt/inspiration for this piece sprung from a collection by the artist Jane Long. In this collection, Jane Long transformed turn-of-the-century photographs into surrealist portraits. Using photomanipulation, she added layers of magical element to demonstrate what lies just beyond reality, gathering them into her collection, Dancing with Costica. The characters from each of these photos originates from the Costică Acsinte Archive on Flickr Commons. 

After looking through the collection, four photos jumped out at me.

Words:

After reflecting on these photos, a list of words came to me:


Together, with my cast, we narrowed it down to focus on Memory, Dream/Nightmare, Nostalgia, and Wonder. These four words were condensed into the general theme of childhood. We created a series of episodes attempting to capture these feelings with themes grounded in the photographs but reaching for lofty concepts.


Sensory Correlations:

A quick note, these words pertain to the collection as a whole. Many were later narrowed down to focus on the specific images chosen. But these allowed the mind to move beyond the stiff, regular bounds of theatre to think in terms of a more liberal experience for the audience members.

Touch

The rhino’s body. I want to pet it.

Soft cotton

Wood grain beneath my feet

Cold metal

Bones

The breeze of the night

Magic tingles

Being smothered by tons of pictures

Drizzle

Falling through nothing forever

Warmth of the sun

Dampness from running through a cloud

Wind inside 

Porcelein

Hitting a plastic world map so it spins

The waves knocking you over

Drying skin

Soft Caress

Feathers on the face

Uncomfy shoes

Magic water

Tracing cracks in the ground 

Running along a fence, dragging your hand across it

The woven basket

Holding your finger above the flame until it starts to burn

My mom’s tablecloth

Tearing a piece of paper in two

Pulling a doll’s hair

Burning your mouth because you eat too quickly

Stretching the legs a bit too far and hurting yourself

Imbalance

Laying down in a field and starting to itch

Running my hand over cloth

Diamonds

Flowerrrsss

Metal shovel handle

The earth crumbling beneath your feet

Critters scurrying over your body

Sticking your hand into water


Taste

Dirt

Dry dust on the tongue

Someone’s braids (I used to flirt with girls by eating their hair)

Flower petal

Licking a pole

Dirty water

Paper

The taste of a foggy day

Salty water

Rubber ducky

Licking a mirror

Chewing on a shoe

Gargling Salt water

Holding a stick in your mouth

My grandma’s apple dumplings

Doll’s hair

PANCAKES

Mushrooms

Grass

Those rubber chicken’s with the long necks that squeak

Rusty water

Smells

Smoke

Dust

Crisp, clean air that stings the nose

Daisies

The good dank smell of the forest (leaves decomposing)

The smell right before it rains

A freshly pressed suit

Cotton candy

Dew

Sea salt

Soap

Wax

Peonies

Sweet ice cream shop smell

Fish

Fire

Grandma’s dining room

The laundry smell good stuff

Eggs and Bacon

Pouring boiling water over a tea bag

Florals

A field

The smell of Arkansas at night

Camping

The smell of the mountains in New Hampshire

Semiotics and Associated Images:

Cast

Hailey Miller

Asia Richards

Eliza Denley

El Walker

Dylan George

Wyatt van Houten

Noah Corzine

Episodes

The piece begins in pitch darkness. The cast members sit scattered throughout the audience and begin to breathe in sync. One...Two...Three...Four... And as they breathe, a video starts to play upon the projection screen.


The screen freezes on the face of the zombie before fading to black. Through the dim light, the audience sees someone move, hunched over and dragging a leg in the silence. The cast begins to sing One, Two, Freddie's Coming For You from a Nightmare on Elm's Street.

The song ends and there is a moment of silence before Captain Feathersword by The Wiggles begins to play and the cast member on stage pulls out a lightsaber! He begins to count to ten as the cast in the audience scatters, looking for places on-stage (or in the audience's laps) to hide.


Dylan, the member counting, finds each member and chases them off stage with his light saber before they come back on...with TOY GUNS that they grabbed off the stage in the scuffle! They arrange on either side of him, attacking him from both land and see. On screen, historical footage from World War II plays. Dylan grabs a toy plane and begins to fly off when BANG

A nerf bullets soars out of the audience and hits Noah in the chest. He slumps over. The rest are confused. They giggle and run up, saluting as if they've lost a comrade. The Last Post begins to play as a Flag waves on the screen before distorting as they realize Noah really is dead. A sniper, El, sits in the audience. She begins to shoot at the other kids, hitting Wyatt and Eliza, as the rest scatter in the red light.


El hops down from her perch in the audience and walks towards Eliza and Wyatt. She notices their positions and moves them so it looks like they are merely sleeping. She places a football in between the two of them and rights a chair before sitting in it. Coastline by the Hollow Coves begins to soar through the air as Wyatt and Eliza wake up and begin playing together. El watches them toss the football back and forth, enjoying the sight of these two siblings playing together. Eventually, Eliza drops the ball and Wyatt wrestles with her before they move on to blowing bubbles.

Wyatt attempts to run with the bubbles, but falls and injures his knee. Eliza runs to El, pulling her into their world, beckoning to her that she must help Wyatt. El looks around amazed that she was able to enter her memory and kisses Wyatt's knee. He's healed! They follow their new leader El, exploring the stage. El discovers a blanket and they all transform into superheros, assembling the two chairs and table into a blanket fort, which in turn transforms into a car.


Wyatt and Eliza begin bickering in the backseat. As El turns to stop them, we hear the sound of a car crash and the characters fold over in slow motion. Silence fills the room as Hailey and Noah bring out a halo and a pair of wings, respectively, to put on Eliza and Wyatt. The kids happily accept and skip off, waving to El who remains on stage in the silence.

All of the sudden, Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter begins to play. Asia enters, climbs into an owl costume on stage and flaps around before picking a letter up off of the floor and reading out loud: Sophie! (For context, Asia is a member of the sorority Chi Omega, whose mascot is an owl. Also, Sophie is well known in Baylor's Theatre department to be an avid Gryffindor). Hailey runs out, escorts her to a chair and sorts her into..... HUFFLEPUFF! She spins her chair around saying, "We've been waiting for you all summer and we're so glad you're finally here!" Yellow balloons and streamers fall from the sky. Behind the curtain, the three male members of the ensemble sit in sority stack and sing a rendition of "I wanna go AD Pi," but change the words to "I wanna go Hufflepuff," as yellow light floods the stage. 


Hailey runs and dumps Sophie back into the audience. Dylan takes out his phone and texts a photo to all the freshman in attendance. It is a picture of faculty member John-Michael Marrs captioned "In da Wild." After a minute, it appears on the screen, and Dylan counts us into a dance remix of Happy Birthday begins to play.

Everyone runs in, putting on birthday hats and kicking the balloons that are now on the stage. Asia tosses out knick knacks and presents to the audience, while El dispurses Capri-Suns...without the straws, and Hailey gives out cupcakes...after taking a bite out of them.


Noah throws out a glow in the dark beach ball to the crowd while Wyatt and Dylan do a little boogy on stage. 


Finally, the music stops and Hailey, El, and Asia yell "SLEEPOVER!!" They encourage the new kid, Eliza, to ask her parents if she can stay the night with the rest of them. Dylan sits on the bottom step with the audience, watching as Eliza turns to face upstage. After she asks if she can stay the night, Wyatt and Noah, from behind the curtain, respond with random words: "Orange," "Bicycle," "Curtain," etc., while Eliza responds with words that generally relate to Cinderella.

Dylan stops the action and forces Eliza to try again and remember how it really happened. This time, Eliza faces the audience, and as the argument gets more heated, a slap is heard and the light turns red around Eliza. She has been slapped. She sits there, and as the rest of the cast clears the room, Dylan walks up to her and holds her face gently. He leaves, and Eliza pops every balloon left on the stage.


Asia walks up from the audience to the easel that has sat proudly iat the back of the stage for the duration of this piece. Simultaneously, Noah enters and begins to play a ditty on the keyboard, kneeling on the ground. Asia begins to paint with her hands, churning them over the canvas until the shape of a butterfly appears. One by one, the cast members enter, covered in large one shirts. Asia marks them each in a different place, until finally, Eliza enters and Asia gently cradles her face. 

Each cast member turns to the painting and a video begins playing on the screen. The first 45 seconds of this clip from the Desolation of Smaug play as the cast members enact butterflies bursting from their cocoons.


After the video is over, they start to giggle and have a pain battle. They are so consumed in the battle, they do not notice when a picture falls. Then another. Hailey peels off from the group and pics one of these photos off the ground. Suddenly, photos rain from the sky onto the stage and audience. The cast members look around in wonder, before looking at the photos then looking straight at the audience. The photos are pictures of all the audience members from when they were children.