There is a building.
Once it was a pumping house.
Then, when the water ran out, it became a museum of the history of water.
Then, when the drought became critical it fell into dis-use.
Tickets are checked by gate - not at building.
People enter into ROOM 1 (Big room)
They are allowed to move freely around this room
There are relics of how water was used in a form apparently safer world
small artefacts in cabinets and picture frames around the room
super 8 film of family at sea side
film of how water is/was used in different parts of the world
a fish hanging from roof - made of recycled materials
sounds of rain
people as holograms use bowls of water to perform a washing ritual - (THIS ACCOMPANIED BY TITLE “Washing - 1900-2000”)
projections of rain on windows
A boy in a dressing gown and slippers asks for a glass of water (he could be an exhibit, he could be squatter).
No response.
His sister appears and in some way asks “Why is there no water ?”
Flood lights turn on in in lower area
Sounds come up from bore hole
Large hook swings across and is lowered into hole
A choir sings
A swaddled creature is hooked up into the room and lowered on to a surface, and unwrapped
Sound of pipes cracking then water flowing through them.
The creature spits out water and breathes.
The creature breathlessly lists the layers of soil - each layer interspersed with the word “beneath”
Ending with “Go beneath”
The children look for a way down.
They find the trap door.
The girl descends. A frogman with a live camera follows her.
Film of her descent and journey down a tunnel is projected - we see lit areas, with small personal objects, perhaps personal things that have been dropped into the river or down wells - arranged in little alcoves.
The girl emerges into a blue area. The area of the memory of water.
“Come.... You must come....” she says.
The boy takes the audience down the steps into room two.
ROOM TWO.
A machine underwater.
Items floating in the air as if they are floating in water - litter, a bike, old can etc
Water sounds above
Water projected on the skylight
The machine extracts memories from water
It has people looking after it - they tell us how it works.
They interpret the memories - they listen to the water on headphones attached to the pipes, then explain what the water is remembering. (possibly many at the same time to different groups of the audience).
Then the boy and his sister ask their question - “I want a glass of water”. There is embarrassed silence. “Why is there no water ?”.
The operatives make a decision. They set the machine to tell us 3 important memories -
1. about a fish who was just going about its business (part sung ?)
2. about a fisherman who was trying to catch it (filmed testimony of the fisherman)
3. about what the fisherman had hooked (recorded voice of a bystander)
And as each memory is heard so, above us, lights illuminate something related to it
1. the fish (now dead)
2. a baited hook and float
3. the swaddled creature (but smaller now)
The operative produced/ wear PH strips, showing the water is acidic
We start to hear a breathing sound - a slow pulse
Sound of blood moving through the body
“The water was poisoned ?” - guesses the girl
“The water is poisoned” - avers an operative.
“But some survive, some have found ways” says another.
Singing calls us to the next room.
ROOM 3
Is full of fog.
There is drumming and sounds coming from below a large tank.
Through the fog we start to see shapes - people.
The fog clears
On top of the tank, and on other raised areas around the room, live a small family/tribe of people.
Things are dangled off the tank.
There’s a washing line.
There’s the steam from many boiling kettles.
A scratchy record played on a record player.
Some come down to meet the children.
The children ask their questions.
The family/tribe tell of the flood and the drought and the flood and the drought - Film projected in the window echos this.
They tell of their survival and of their plans.
They have sunk a small bore hole - they list (and perhaps show) the layers of soil that their drill worked through.
But it’s getting late, they must sleep.
There is washing and bedtime preparations.
A bath is prepared for a baby.
A swaddled baby is produced - it is the same creature we saw in rooms one and two - a seed, or a life, that can be nurtured or poisoned.
A bath song is sung as the baby is unwrapped and bathed.
The family/tribe have now all changed into dressing gowns and slippers.
The side doors open and they lead us into the car park.
CAR PARK
In the dusk, the washing ritual from the first scene, is repeated by as many of the cast as we can muster. Bowls, water, simple movements.
EXIT
We move round the side of the building past a well dressing and choir at the top of the grassed slope.
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This is a great start at pulling together people’s ideas expressed into a clear ‘journey’ through the building. I think what’s going on in the Museum/room 1 in terms of artifacts is great. And the holograms of washing rituals is an excellent way of showing movement, a reason for it. The room will be quite light at the start – perhaps we should subdue the lighting. Especially if each hologram person could be lit somehow with small lights on the body. We must find a way to use the switch board.
ReplyDeleteSo now there are no adults in the group of seekers/visitors? And the family group live on the tank in room 3. Or should there be an adult with the first group – but not so magical?
Interesting how we came to think the bore hole is now revealed at the beginning instead of reaching it as the end of the journey, when it was to be a kind of salvation. But the moment of the swaddled creature rising up is a wonderful trigger for the journey. The quest for a solution (!) is now lost isn’t it - it’s more a showing of what happens/has happened in relation to the world’s water – there’s no resolution is there? The ending is – not optismistic but realistic I suppose, which is right but it’s quiet and domestic as opposed to loud and boreholish.
Outside, I like the repetition of the washing rituals – perhaps could be developed to dunking heads in water or washing more of the body??? – movement made larger perhaps?
It would be simpler for audience if there was only one outside setting – thinking of getting audience to move on – how long this will all take. But it’ll become clearer, the ending. But I like the idea of turning our backs on the concrete and building and looking towards the natural setting and towards the river.
Perhaps the idea of the personal artifacts could be continued into the last scene– the family have collected more in their digging for a source. Perhaps made them into altars with candles. A tap could represent a cross.
Lots of film projection opportunities (dark enough?) and sound recordings – live sound. And at the moment 4 songs: the bore hole song; song at end of Room 2; the bath song, final song - perhaps there could be a repeated chorus, a melody that runs throughout.
In this scenario – audience remains in one group. Will this be feasible? Let’s try out – we know only 60ish is limit in room 3 when in rows. Perhaps we can plot out audience layout for each room soon. Tickets checked by gate – will depend on getting parking access in the field – will look into this. Not forgetting our box office target is approx 400.
This is really beginning to take shape – I’m excited!.
1 other idea came to me. The boy in the dressing gowm is a different age in the 3 rooms - boy in dressing gowm, young man in dressing gown, older man in dressing gown. All asking for glass of water.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea that the boy and the girl are squatters - dressed in clothes made from some of the museum visits maybe?
ReplyDeleteIs the audience target 400 a performance night or overall?
Caroline