Saturday, March 30, 2013
'Jungalbook' looks at what defines man or animal
TribLIVE: Rudyard Kipling's classic tale of a child raised by wolves in a jungle in India is brought to life in Greensburg Civic Theatre's production of “Jungalbook.”
This adaptation of Kipling's “The Jungle Books” by Edward Mast performed by the Greasepaint Players follows the story of a young boy, Mowgli (Cameron Swartz), as he makes friends with Baloo the Bear (Denny Donegan) and is watched over by Bahgeera the Panther (Mike Crosby). Mowgli faces a major challenge when he is confronted by Sherakhan the Tiger (Rob MacIntyre), who killed the boy's parents.
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4 comments:
It seems that there many a play out there where people must become animals and yet still carry a realistic and relatable quality. I think the trick, at least from what I can gather based on other shows I've seen is to try not to convince the audience that you are the animal, so much as give impressions of the animal and let the audience fill in the rest. I think it's much more powerful to let the mind guide what the person perceives. As for it being set on a jungle gym, I think it make the story a little more relatable by taking the audience to a place they are little more familiar with.
I actually didn't know that The Jungle Books was written by Kipling, though that makes perfect sense. This sounds like one big professional production of the Freshmen Animal Projects, as well as a way around performing a well-known story without all the Disney contractual stuff. I'm really happy that they're using a school jungle gym, I just hope they use it in a slew of creative ways, much like the way the Cirque show Totem uses theirs- a cage, a swing set, rigged to fly for more acrobatic tricks.
I wonder how much the costumes resemble the way that The Lion King on Broadway managed to make you think that the human actors were animals, as it sounds as though they were going for the feel of actual animals, rather than go the easier route and portray more humaniod animals, like Hobbs from Calvin and Hobbs. Like everyone else, I do like the use of the jungle gym as a set, because it allows the actors to achieve acrobatic movements without distorting the look of the set to support them.
This sounds like a staged version of animal projects! Having just gone through that phenomenon, I can relate very clearly to the idea of having to find the essence of the animal without caricaturing it. In our study of the Bartenieff basic movement principles, we saw all the different ways that the human body can move, and the different ways that animals with homologous structure to our own bodies move. That was one particular element that i can imagine the actors in this production struggled with. We simply arent built like these animals yet we have to find a natural way to move which is either imitative enough to be obvious or which captures the essence of the movement without actually replicating it - no easy feat! I'd LOVE to see the production!a
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