staging

Staging Proposal for Whale Hunter

In my opinion, one of main point in the book the whale rider is the unequal rights that women have which is a conflict between the modern world with the old tradition. In order to highlight these two points, I want to show the story from two different perspective. First perspective is from Kahu, she will act out her story about how she develop such a deep love to her grandpa Koro, and she wishes she can help him with his goal of leading the Maori people. Second perspective is from Koro, He will act his transformation from how disappointed feel about the birth of Kahu because she is a girl to he accept her and choose her as the new leader of the tribe after he saw her riding the whale. In that case, audience can experience the conflict between the modern thoughts with the old tradition.

In my play, Kahu represent the modern thoughts. She learn them from her grandma Nanny flower that women can do what men can do. She also influenced by her uncle Rawiri who has known a lot about the world outside the tribe. Koro represent the old tradition parts in my play. He believe that only man can be the leader, so he ignored her grandchild Kahu who love him and trying her best to help him. The play will focus on mainly how the relationship change between Kahu and Koro, and other characters are less important, because they are only used to explain or carry forward the story.  The whale in my play share the same role as the butterfly in the story of My love My Love which is only a guidance for Kahu. It will teach Kahu the tradition and the culture and help her to prove to Koro that she is the leader he’s waiting for.

The sound effects and the lightings should be the most important part for staging my play. In order to differ the two perspectives I have, There should be different music playing when Kahu or Koro is acting. For Kahu, the music should be modern and active which shows her personalities that she is a girl with modern thoughts and firm spirit. For Koro, the music should be constrain and solemn which shows how strictly he follows the tradition and the limits it brings to him. In the end, when Koro finally accept Kahu the music will be a combination of both become peaceful and joyful showing that the tradition adapt the modern ideas. For the lightings Kahu’s also should differ with Koro’s. Koro’s background light should be darker than Kahu’s showing that how depressed the old tradition is. And when the whale appear to guide Kahu the light should be smooth and has a light blue color like the shallow water under the sunshine. I can use the digital camera to project the image of the whale on the background to give audience a magical feelings. Lastly, for the costume all the characters except Kahu should wear traditional Maori clothes to perform the differ between tradition and modern. That is how I am going to stage the play and I think it is going to entertaining and fun! I hope I have the chance to turn it from an idea to practice in the future. : )