Crabapple Trolls Travels
The show with Agnes and the masks took many shapes and forms in Winnipeg, Victoria and Montreal.
Based on the story, I wrote a script and based on the script I developed different performances, in different cities with different musicians and actors and audiences. With Agnes as a storyteller and the Troll masks and cups being portable the show was extremely flexible. Not so sure of the quality, I asked one of the organisers at a festival what he thought. “It held the audience,” was his answer.
Crabapple Trolls
Crabapple Trolls Fringe Script -Written by Sue Proctor, June 9, 2017
SET - Amanda’s bedroom has a bed, a window and a closet in which action can happen that is visible to the audience. A box of Brody’s stuff and a pile of Amanda’s dresses are on the floor.
A creek with a culvert under a bridge is outside. At the edge of the yard is a crabapple tree whose leaves have turned colour and most of the apples are on the ground. In the culvert is the Troll’s cave that the audience can see inside. Creek sounds.
Scene 1
AUNT AGGIE In this world of ours, one day I was a child. Yes me. You might
not have recognized me. I looked more like you then, than me now, but yes I was a child. I was me but I thought and looked like a child. Let’s call me Amanda, even though that’s not my real name, because I’m making up a me to tell you about me. Does that make sense? I’m not always sure. I’ll make up lots of things in this story to tell you more about real things by pretending things are real. Does that make sense? Let’s pretend that it does.
I lived by a creek that I could see from my bedroom window. In our garden we had a tree that gave up hundreds of bright red crabapples every year. My mother made an abundance of beautiful, sweet crabapple jelly and crabapple preserves. When the crabapples were cooking on the stove in the fall, the house filled with the smell. I used to sit in my room and stare out my window. That’s where our story starts.
Do you ever dream when you’re awake? That’s what Amanda does. I think it’s called daydreaming. Let’s find out what it’s about. I can let you in on her secrets because she was me, is me, well I’m pretending she was me. It’s very confusing. Listen.
AUNT AGGIE plays the family seated in the kitchen with mugs and tea cups. This is the conversation that she pretends:
MOTHER I need you to take care of Betsy again today. It really is good that she has her own room now. She’s sleeping so much better.
FATHER The room in the basement by the recroom seems to suit Brody just fine.
MOTHER I’m so glad that they’ve changed rooms.
AMANDA What? I don’t want to take care of Betsy again. It’s not fair that she has my whole room. I hate my new room. It’s a boy’s room.
BRODY Oh too bad.
AMANDA But it looks like a boy’s room. Everything is cowboys.
BRODY Well boys are better.
MOTHER You can’t expect me to make new curtains, those curtains are perfectly fine. And they match the bedspread and the colour of the walls.
AMANDA Then let Betsy have the curtains and the bedspread. I hate green and I’m not a boy!!
FATHER Why is Amanda making such a fuss? Really Amanda. Now don’t be selfish.
MOTHER I don’t know what to do with her.
BRODY Yes. What can we do with Amanda? She’s so selfish. (sighs and shakes his head. AMANDA is angry but silent.)
FATHER Are you ready to go fishing Brody?
AMANDA Can I go?
FATHER With the way you’ve been behaving young lady?
MOTHER I have to finish this article so that I can get busy with the crabapples and make the jelly and preserves.
BRODY I love the smell of the crabapples cooking! Could we take some of the jelly for toast?
MOTHER Well you already had so much for breakfast. Maybe I’ll make you some peanut butter and crabapple jelly sandwiches to take with you. Actually Amanda, how about you make the sandwiches and I’ll get the other things ready.
AMANDA What, make his peanut butter and crabapple jelly sandwiches?
FATHER Do you always have to complain? Just do it. Have you got everything son? Fishing rod? Tackle?
BRODY Yes, Dad, I’ve already packed my gear.
MOTHER How about warm clothes? Do you have extra socks and your wool sweater?
BRODY Yes, Mom. I’ve warm clothes.
AMANDA (As she starts making the sandwiches.) Oh dad, why can’t I come?
FATHER No, Amanda.
AMANDA Please dad, I know how to fish.
FATHER How many times do I need to say no? This is a father and son fishing trip and you are not allowed to come. Besides, your mother needs you here today.
AMANDA Couldn’t I go mom? I took care of Betsy yesterday. You wrote all day.
MOTHER Amanda, what has gotten into you? Absolutely not! No and no. I am so tired of your whining. You know I have a deadline and there’s no way for me to research and write if you don’t babysit. So stop arguing. They’ll only be gone for a few hours.
BRODY Yeah, Amanda. Always complaining when she needs to babysit.
AMANDA (jumping on him) Oh Brody, you make me so mad! (THEY start tussling)
FATHER Break it up. Amanda, go to your room. Take Betsy. Brody get the rest of your things. Amanda, I’m ashamed of you, making so much a fuss! You’d think you were the baby.
Popcorn Philosophy - The Creative Process
As Agnes, I introduced the kids to crabapple jelly which they sampled on crackers in my show “Crabapple Trolls”. I discovered all the kids mostly spoke French so they needed to help Agnes communicate en français. One Grandmother fed Agnes the French words at the right times.
When I went to do the show at the Fringe within a limited budget, I did the show as Agnes the clown as a storyteller and animated cups by using different voices to represent the family. Part way into the story, Agnes invited children up from the audience to play the kids in the story and Agnes played the mother. She cautioned them not to eat the crabapple jelly sandwiches because they were glued to the plate. We had actors, Beverly Grace and Terry Foster, with Troll masks and two child Troll puppets made by Hildi Janzen, as well as a bumbling Janitor, Mathew Havens, who played Brody. A great deal of the show was improvised in commedia style.
Problem #1. The premise was that Agnes was telling a story of when she was a little girl. However, I realized later, Agnes was not a little girl – she would have been a little clown. When I was a little girl, I had no idea I would become a clown. Maybe it happened at puberty.
Problem #2. It was hard for the audience to focus on animated objects in a big theatre. They couldn’t tell who or which cup was talking. Puppets need a special kind of set up.
Problem #3. With that much improvisation, we had a lot of people on stage who didn’t know what to do.
Things that went well:
Good thing #1. The kids enjoyed being onstage and playing a real part. The audience enjoyed seeing the kids onstage.
Good thing #2. The piece applauded the child’s imaginative reality.
Good thing #3. The play demonstrated problems that children can have with their siblings or parents from the child’s point of view.
I’m interested in how memories and dreams can feed the writer’s or artist’s vision to reflect different levels of reality in their work. In this piece I tried to express my sensibilities as a child and my loving, imaginative connection to the living beings in the environment around me.
I was allowed to wade in the slimy creek to collect tadpoles and to keep them in a loaf pan by our back door and watch them turn into frogs (or die). There were always frogs jumping in our creek. One time we found a garter snake sitting on our doorstep.
Odds & Ends
Video Interview at Global News: https://globalnews.ca/video/3612148/family-fun-at-the-winnipeg-fringe-festival-
References
Proctor, Sue. The Archetypal Role of the Clown as a Catalyst for Individual and Societal Transformation. https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/977096/