Tibet Through the Red Box

The last few months Didzis has been involved in practicing for a play that finally showed the last three days. It has been quite the experience, with a lot of creation by the students from scratch to prepare a theatre in the round production. When I say by scratch, I mean that the kids got to decide what to do and how to do it with their own interpretation of the story. The process was long, and sometimes frustrating for the students, and had them really thinking that they were not ready to go this week. But it all pulled together, and over the last three evenings as a member of the audience I have seen a huge progression. Namejs even got pulled in to do the props. :-)

The Title of the play is Tibet Through the Red Box. It is the story of Czech film maker sent to Tibet to make a documentary about a road being built in China. He and his crew get separated from the road builders, and find themselves wandering in the mountains and end up in Tibet among jingle bell boys, yetis, fish with faces, Tibetans, and finally arrive inLhasa where they meet the Dalai Lama. The story is told from the perspective of the son Peter (actually 4 Peters at different ages) who describes his understanding of the story through reading his father's journal which has been kept in a red box throughout the years.

The following pictures are more or less a combination of different scenes, and you can see the use of the ladders as key to the change in the scenes. The pictures aren't great as the first night I took no pictures, the second night I ended up right behind one of the boxes and found my camera continually focusing on the person sitting in front of me, and the third night I ended up facing the overhead projector that projected the different colors of light onto the stage... But what I have is what I have. Some pictures here are also for Rosie who is in China and could not see Toby perform, and others for Sooz as she didn't have a camera with her.

The stars are representing the Communist Czechoslovakia.

The ladders are representing yaks, and Didzis main line in the play is happening right here. He spoke clearly, and loudly, and was well understood.

Representing a Tibetan Stupa.

The three Tibetans minus the fourth.

The three prop helpers from grade 4.

The Cast Party!