staging MLMLoTPG

Personally, I would stage MLML or TPG as a sort of juxtaposed play. While the novel has somewhat of a “modern fairy tale” theme, I feel as if it has an additional feel of just a clashing of settings. For example, the god-given princess who was prettier than all other women and more special than all other peasants, dreaming of her true love...which she’d find in a wrecked car, dying. Or, the magical nature of her wishing upon a butterfly and experiencing her wished-for true love, only to find her hopes shattered and destroyed as he chooses another woman and she’s left to die outside the metaphorical palace. These contradictory elements of the book make me want to stage a play with a similar feel, where it would be magical and dream-like, full of whimsy and general Disney-esque “magic”, but the other half would be instead more down-to-earth, less enchanting and certainly duller.

Although this would definitely be hard to visually represent on stage, I think this could be clearly accentuated via visual motifs, especially color-based ones or some that accompany certain characters. For example, I have an idea where during Desiree and Mama Euralie’s visit to the gods, there would be fog machines that blow light amounts of smoke onstage to help give their presence a dreamlike feel, and heavy fog to accompany Papa Ge’s rare appearances. Aside from the heavy smoke of Papa Ge, the other gods would have lighter smoke so it wouldn’t block the audience’s view of them, but be enough to be noticed by the audience. I would also like to touch back on my color idea for the butterflies and wishing, which I based my practice essay on Monday on. Essentially, it was different shades of blue to accompany the motif of a wish, faint and flickering blue to represent the first wish that the second Ti Moune would fail to make, a base blue to represent the wishes successfully made, and a dark, angry, blue to represent Desiree’s refusal to release the butterflies from the metaphorical cage.

One of the more subtle ideas that I have is based around costuming. Simply put, I would like to have the peasants wear dull clothing, mainly earthen tones. Desiree, however, would wear tones shades lighter, enough to be noticeable but not enough so that she can still blend in as “one of the peasantry”. Then, when she receives the dress and comb and shoes from the woman near the Beauxhomme hotel, I would like the colors of that outfit to be dull but still colored or faded, which would contrast with the bright (almost obnoxiously) colored clothing of the rich folk. Even when she receives the makeover before Daniel’s planned ball, her clothing would still be somewhat darker or saturated, to mark her as different.

Finally, I have a small (although not very fleshed out) idea for Andrea, where she would be accompanied by changes in lighting. While I’m not very sure how it works, I envision that Desiree’s costume-based prominence would contrast with Andrea’s lighting based prominence. Rather than being noted via changes in color saturation among crowds, Andrea would be noted as the lights on the stage would be a few shades dimmer, but she would have a spotlight on her (not much brighter than the rest of the stage, but again, enough to be noticed) to mark her out, a woman who stands out from the crowd.