When the
school director handed me a list of names of 16 students from grades 3rd-6th
with an official stamp of approval at the bottom I felt on top of the world. I
had successfully navigated the system and figured out how to get my own
recognized group of students to start an environmental club. I danced around the kitchen table showing off
my list to my host mom, and for the next few weeks I was no longer the gringa
in her room with no work to do. However
it was one thing to successfully get an official list; it was a whole other
issue to figure out what to do with the kids. The first two classes we played
games that semi related to the environment, and we made a leaf tree of our
strengths, but I was itching to do something bigger. As I skimmed through our
environment education related resources I came across a play that one of the
volunteers had done four years ago. I had assisted in the production of a play
two years ago when I was working in Moab, and I grew up in Ashland, so I
figured that I was equipped with all the skills one would ever need to get 16
students to memorize lines, create costumes, and direct how to put passion into
lines.
That week I
handed out scripts and assigned roles feeling that theatre director power
coming over me, making executive decisions on the spot, and surprised by my own
confidence behind how to put on a successful play. We went outside and formed a circle that
quickly melted under the sun, and we attempted to do a first read through. The
students seemed to be engaged and excited, but the concept of following along
and listening to what their classmate was reading was far beyond them. We made
it about halfway through the play before their attention span had transformed
into picking fights with the people beside them or sitting on the ground
searching for snails. Executive decision made I herded them back into the
classroom and made them draw pictures of what they thought their character
looked like, and ideas for how we could make their costume out of recycled materials.
This activity was met with very mixed reviews, many being too intimidated to
draw something from their imagination that they just shut down. I was receiving
the first rebellion to my hierarchy and I was not quite sure how to handle
it. Desperately I looked for pictures of
the jungle animals they were supposed to portray, and allowed them to write out
a description rather than draw it. We also faced the issue of not knowing what
some of the animals in the play were, as they were not found in this area. So I
allowed those students to pick whatever animal they wanted to be. It turned out
later after some research those that we did not know were actually a name of an
indigenous group, but the students were set on being animals so there was no
going back.
The plot of
the play was essentially a farmer arrives in the jungle and asks some tribes people
who the owner of the land is. The tribe’s people proclaim that nobody is the
owner of the jungle and they all take care of the jungle together. This does
not please the farmer so he kills the tribe’s people and proclaims that he is
now the owner. With his new land he builds a factory of some sort and
contaminates the water, which kills the fish. He then skins the crocodile for
profit, and cuts down all the trees to build a farm. He does all this with the
help of an engineer who gets fatter and fatter throughout the play as the
farmer pays him for his work. Finally
the farmer destroys the natural landscape and becomes sad that he cannot repair
what he’s done, so he kills himself. The
engineer is upset by this because there is no longer anyone left to pay him
except, as the trash assures him, he will always have the trash for company. It
ends with all the plants and animals that had been killed by the farmer’s
actions coming back on stage and saying why it is important to protect our
environment. It may not be the happiest play but it did have an environmental
message so I went with it.
The next
week I attended a community-planning meeting for the town festival. This
meeting went well past midnight, and was extremely painful to sit through, as
most meetings are. What did come out of
it for me was 1) there were going to be shirts for a participants who ran in
the mini-marathon during the fiesta, and 2) there was an arts performance part
of the program that I could potentially present my play at. This meant I had
three weeks to get my students in gear, rehearsed, and ready. Not to mention
that one of those weeks I would be out of town picking up my mom and family
friend from the airport. Nonetheless the
next day I once again received an official document. This time it was an
invitation to participate in the art performance program at 7:00pm on Thursday
night in the outdoor cement sports camp. I felt I was finally really being
accepted as part of the community.
Before I knew it I was overcome by
the stress and pressure of being a director, and decided that I would make my
group meet just about everyday for the next two weeks. I would gather as many
of them that showed up on the town’s plaza and we practiced their lines in
divided chunks. It turned out getting them to learn the lines was the easiest
part. They proudly took their scripts home and memorized them all on their own
that is all except for the lead character. I had decided to put the most
disobedient student of mine as the lead role hoping that the responsibility
would make him step up and preform. Turns out he resisted this attention the
whole time, but never wanted to say that he didn’t want to be the part. So I
continued to push him to do it, and he continued to resist by being too cool to
memorize his lines.
We went door-to-door
collecting cardboard boxes, which we cut apart to lay flat. We then bought
packaging tape and aggressively taped the cardboard into large panels to which
we could paint the scenery. The idea of theatre was so foreign to these kids
that the vocabulary of set design, script, props was lost on them as much as
the words in Spanish were lost on me. My inability to express exactly what I
wanted turned me into even more of a tyrant but once they saw the products of
my ideas the respect grew. They were
even more excited to make their own costumes. We cut wings, tails, ears, and
more out of cardboard, and went through many paint sets to bring the dull
cardboard to life. Kids brought in potato sacks to decorate with trash and cut
arm and head holes out of in order to represent the talking trash. Once the
ideas were out there the creativity kept on rolling and soon we were so
engulfed in the creating of costumes and sets that we forgot to actually
practice the play. I rarely had all 16 students together practicing so we
rehearsed in choppy parts but I had faith that when it was the actually event
the pressure of performance would be enough for them to pull it off.
After
frivolously working all Sunday with a handful of students I came home with two
large scenery pieces, and a tall cardboard tree. The cardboard was flimsy and
heavy. I explained to my host mom that yes while they were very pretty they
were quickly falling apart at the spots that they cardboard was taped together
and I had no clue how we were going to get them to be free standing. My host mom dove full force into the task and
came up with a most brilliant solution. She pulled down three bamboo poles from
our roof storage and for the rest of the afternoon we measured, sawed, and
sewed on support poles that would reinforce the cardboard, as well as provide
places that my backstage crew could hold up throughout the play. At that time I
did not have a back stage crew, but I could picture them, all dressed in black,
running around with walkie-talkies.
All too
quickly I had to leave to pick up my mom and family friend from the airport,
leaving the project on pause until I came back. To the students that still
didn’t have costumes I gave them direct instructions to make their costume at
home in the time that I was gone. That afternoon as I was waiting for the car
to take me to town the mom of one of the my students hollered for me out my
window. She was holding up a gold fabric and asked if this would do for a
lion’s outfit. Amazed that in such a short amount of time she had found fabric
and was asking for my approval. I quickly assured her that that was beyond what
I had expected and I was very impressed. We talked for a while out my window, involving
the other neighbors about how she could sew this lion’s costume, and I realized
I should have given this task to the mother’s a long time ago.
The car
arrived and that was that; I assured everyone I would be back at least a day
before the performance and hopefully it would all work out. Keeping in mind
that by this point we had still not fully run through the whole play once, as
this was too much to ask for the attention span of my students. Picking up my
mom and family friend from the airport and traveling around the jungle was amazing
but slightly tainted by the taste of a play director’s stress, as I worried if
I could really pull off a play. On Wednesday we made it back to my regional
capital and I left my visitors on their own for that day as I went back up to
my town to frantically try and organize a play rehearsal with everyone for the
next day. I left a pile of announcements on the school maintenance woman’s desk
as she assured me she would deliver it to ever student on my list. It was in
her hands, as I rushed back down to town to enjoy a delicious steak dinner with
my guests.
Our taxi
the next day did not quite make it up the hill fast enough, as I arrived late
to my own dress rehearsal. Unbelievably all of my students were there, except
for the lead. I pushed through with a smile, demanding one student to go and
find him, as we went down to the cement court to practice. The students showed
me the costumes they had come up with which were very impressive, and we once
again choppily practiced with my reading the main leads part. Finally our hero
showed up with a look on his face that proclaimed there was no way he was going
to do this play that night. As he hid
behind a pole I pulled out my final speech that said I know we can do it. We
either do it now, or in a month, but we will perform this play together the
decision is in your hands. My students rallied to get it done this night, and I
got a half agreement from the lead role to go ahead. By then the kids were
spent and didn’t want to practice anymore. So we left once again with the
reality that we had still not yet practiced the play through. It was walking
away from the dress rehearsal that it dawned on me that the logistics of doing
a play at an outdoor arena were very tricky, and we needed microphones. In all
honesty with this reality I didn’t believe we could really pull this off.
I rushed
back home and put my mom and family friend to work completing the last few
costumes that were left. We painted wings red, and cut out spikes for a
crocodiles tail, and before I knew it the day turned to night. The knot at the
pit of my stomach was ever growing and I just wanted the night to be over. At
7:00 I walked down to the arena to see what the actually start time would be. It
was clear that it was no time soon so I hung around trying to confirm that I
would get microphones for the performance. Finally one of the teachers showed
me two mics and promised a cordless one as well, calming my nerves slightly. I
gathered a few kids to help me bring down the scenery sets from my room and we
paraded them down with many eyes following us. It wasn’t until 15 minutes
before the show was supposed to start that my lead performers teacher called me
over and asked if I really thought the student would do the play, seeing as all
afternoon he had been telling the teacher that he wouldn’t. I gave him a
hopeless look and said I sure hope so! I kicked myself for trying to give this
student more responsibility, and should have gone with the handful of other
children that really wanted to be in the play, but it was too late now.
At 8:00pm
the set up crew went off to have dinner and I realized we wouldn’t start for
another hour so I followed suit and went back home to eat as well. At 9:00pm I
headed back down and ran into my lead role in the street. To my surprise he
clearly had farmer’s clothes on at which I aggressively embraced him overly
excited that it appeared he was actually going to pull through. I encouraged
him and showed him the pistol we had made out of cardboard, this seemed to
please him, but he still proclaimed that he was not going to do it, and he
didn’t know any of his lines. This I told him I knew wasn’t true, and it would
be over before he knew it. Despite my
official invitation our number was not on the list, so I begged to be put up
towards the front so we could get it over with quickly. Squeezing our way into
eighth I went to sit down with my family waiting for the program to start.
There were many parts I was anxious
about, not knowing how they were going to play out. I knew it would take us a
while to change into our costumes before our number and thankfully they
announced that we would be next a little early. I jumped out of my seat, walked
determinedly for our set designs and started to get students dressed. Every
other line I spoke was WHERE IS THE TAPE as we had to tape many of them into
their costumes. The number before came to an end and we were still not ready. I
did not have my backstage workers in black so I begged two kids on the sideline
to help us out. Ears were falling off of heads, and wings were becoming
unstuck. The nurse came over to offer help, and I gratefully put her to work,
but it was not my pretty moment, of flustered stressed Spanish to try and
explain a job to do. Just as we were as ready as we were every going to be I
look around to find the lead role, walking away giving up on the event. I grabbed
his arm, gave him his bag of props, and told him he could do it. We walked out
on the court to the news that there was no cordless microphone, and we needed
to go way up to be right in front of the audience. At this news I realized there was no way the
audience was going to hear any of what was being said. The whole town was out
to watch, and they were not going to be able to hear a word of my message.
So it went down, we were all there
in beautiful outfits, and sceneries of the jungle. I pushed, screamed, and
encouraged the students as we tried to make it through our first every full run
through of the play. They were lost as to when to come out, but I screamed to
them their lines, and they did what they could. Our lead role disappeared
midway through the play, but at my demand he came back and finished it out. It
was chaos, and went unheard but they looked lovely doing it! Finally we
struggled to the end in which we shouted out a big thank you. Slightly
embarrassed at the failure I herded the kids off, and congratulated them on all
the effort they put into it. For lacking
a microphone and never having practiced the whole thing through they did an
incredible job. It was my first official project on display in front of the
community and I was glad to have at least shown that I had been working on
something. I’m definitely not cut out for a director role; I like to hand that
off to others. Through this it became very clear that if I had had more
community members helping me out, most of the challenges could have been
overcome a lot more easily. I walked away that night feeling a mix of emotions,
disappointed at the lack microphone but proud that my students had gotten up
there and done a theatre piece, something they had never been exposed to before
in their lives. This week I am baking
them a cake, we will have a celebratory party and go back to playing
environmentally themed games.
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