Directing Fairy Tales; any thoughts? wisdom?

How Might Fairy Tales be Adapted for the Stage when Aimed Specifically at an Adult Audience (aged 16+)?

This is my dissertation question, which I have begun to answer through a practical devised project, the presentation of which took place in February this year, but I am still writing the essay based on my experience and research and am looking for your opinions on the subject.

Does anyone feel that the psychoanalytical interpretation of Fairy Tales is relevant and worth investigation for our stages? If there was a showing of a Fairy Tale at your local theatre would you go? Would you prefer it to be light hearted and tame or to delve into the darker aspects of the tale? What would you expect it to explore? What would you hope to gain from it?

And in terms of the practical element of the work;
I found during the devising period was that I was working as a Director in the capacity of deviser, creator, writer and that this conflicted with my role of Director as Realiser. I am investigating different models of Directing now and wondered if anyone out there had any wisdom they would wish to share regarding their personal experience of Directing Models, which worked and which caused difficulty and why?

All help, thoughts or general ramblings on the subject would be greatly appreciated, should you say anything I find profound I will of course request your permission to quote you in my essay!

Many Thanks!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ray Jones on April 21, 2007 at 11:27am: Sue Casson did an amazing version of Wilde's The Happy Prince directed by Tom Blackmore

Happy to put you in touch with Tom if you want me to send you his e mail address

Kind regards

Ray; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by tina muir on April 26, 2007 at 10:41pm: Hi Katrina

Yes, i would definitely go an see a fairy tale that was aimed at an adult audience. I think that the psychoanalytic interpretation is interesting and is particularly so in terms of the way fairytales have been altered throughout history to suppress freudian desires (arguably). What interests me, however, is the storytelling aspect which these fairytales allow - the style of performance that they invoke and they ways in which they are dealt with by companies. I saw Forced Entertainment the other night doing 'And On the Thousandth Night' which was 6 hours of non-stop storytelling, where they included and subverted and altered every fairytale/folk story/ fable you could possibly imagine. It was a really simple staging, but a fantastic production. Kneehigh and Alibi also work with fairytales/storytelling in their work. Have you read Michael Wilson's "Storytelling and Theatre" and Jack Zipes "Creative Storytelling"? (he looks at alternative readings of fairytales/stories)

Oh - Shockheaded Peter is another show you could look at.

Hope that helps a little.

Tina; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Katrina Harrison on April 27, 2007 at 12:04am: Fantastic! I'm jealous I would love to see Forced Entertainment's 'And on the Thousandth Night', but great to hear from someone who has seen it.

I absolutely agree with the Freudian argument but have found myself leaning more towards the Jungian focus upon archetypes, and have specifically explored the inclusion of the shadow principle.

And I also agree with what you say about the variation of performance style these stories invoke. It's been a fun project, I never thought I'd say that about my dissertation - it always filled me with such fear!

Thanks for the pointers, bit late for inclusion for the dissertation maybe, but this project will not stop there, so thank you very much indeed!

Best
Kat.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Savident on April 27, 2007 at 8:20am: Also check out Sondheim's Into The Woods - totally based on folklore tales. Happy to post you a DVd but would want it back.
Sincerely
Paul; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Katrina Harrison on April 29, 2007 at 11:24pm: Thank you very much for the offer but that Musical is high on my bibliography!! I loved it, I'm not so clued up about my musicals and it was given me as a two-fold gesture of edcuation... fairy tales and musicals.

I especially loved the Prince Charming's, they are fantastic characters with some of the wittiest moments. But thank you again for the offer of posting the DVD, very kind of you.

Kat.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nei l Reading on May 11, 2007 at 11:33am: i'm sure you're well ahead of me here, but check out Kneehigh and their Angela Carter adaptations, more importantly, get hold of some Angela Carter, that girl sure knows how to tear-up a fairytale.

But as i said, i'm sure these are already on you bib!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Katrina Harrison on May 11, 2007 at 11:46am: They sure are!
Angela Carter is amazing. Well maybe that's getting too excited, but I really loved reading her stories. Fantastic, Company of Wolves wasn't too bad either!

I have now handed in the Dissertation!! Hurray!!

However, Discovering Faerie will have a future on the professional stage one day!
So keep the info and chat coming!

Much appreciated.

Kat.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anthony Murphy on May 21, 2007 at 10:17am: Hi Katrina,
Seeing your query I was reminfded of a recent very rough outline I did for presenting the Three Little Piigs as modern tale...........more than happy to send my notes along.
Also a very inetresting 'take' on Romeo and Juliet (using the Jerry Springer Show !).
Let me know if you are interested.

Tony Murphy
(tony_murphy@btinternet.com); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kevin Chilton on May 28, 2007 at 11:19am: Hi Katrina,

The original Grimm brothers fairy tales were pretty disturbing and for one of the best adult interpretations of a fairy tale (Little Red Riding Hood) I recommend Neal Jordan's film Company of Wolves.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Fay Hennell on October 14, 2007 at 9:02pm: Hey Katrina,

I came across this page as research for my own dissertation and was wondering if you would be interested in sharing some of the work that you did and discoveries that you made with someone who is feeling a little lost and overwhelmed at the moment :).

Thanks,
Fay
xxx; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Patrick Jasper Lee on November 25, 2007 at 1:01pm: Hi Katrina. It's interesting that as soon as I join British Theatre.com the first thing I see is yourself talking about fairy tales! As this is my field where theatre's concerned, something that might help is that 'fairy' tales were once 'folk' tales (pretty gory in parts and nothing like the soppy tales Grimm and the Victorians gave us, although you probably already know this. Original versions were changed to make them OK for Victorian kiddies - never underestimate kids' needs for gore!) Some folk and fairy tales go back an extremely long way. In my own (Romani) culture they are very old. And these tales were the only history anyone in this country had at one point. Over thousands of years the same tales were told around campfires and passed down through the generations, until modern times when they took on tamer meanings. Acting out tales was something all of us did, within ritual form, to help us understand the rewards and consequences of life - many Shakespeare plays have their roots in early folk tales! If you'd like to know a little more, I'd be more than happy to help. Incidentally, the Jal Folk Theatre Company has packed the house out when performing an original tale, so people still have that ancient need to watch and learn from something that goes back thousands of years when they see it on stage. Look forward to hearing from you. Jasper (Patrick Jasper Lee - Jal Folk Theatre Company).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by gavclarke on December 9, 2007 at 1:12pm: Marina Warner writes very well on folk tales and has incorporated them in interesting ways in her creative work, also AS Byatt has some fascinating takes on folk tales; ▶ Reply to This

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