Scriptnic - The Notebook

A slightly bizarre but rewarding session, which involved going off road in a land rover, generated the following outcomes:
1. the group are going to try to use authentic accents and that makes life a LOT easier at this stage.
2. much discussion of the film and the novel revealed some enormous differences, not the least of which are:
- a different ending (they don't die...)
- the novel deals with three parts of the characters lives, including a large middle portion about the children and the family that Noah and Alli have together.
- the novel has more to say about the onset of Alzheimer's.
- a theme of metaphorical ghosts and haunting.
- more poems and literary connections.
3. the idea of "boxes".... we divided the story into 8 key events, like this:

1They meet
2They part
3They meet again, some years later.
4She makes a choice between Noah and Lon.
5They have a family together
6They discover she is developing Alzheimer's.
7He reads to her (and this is now his life)
8She comes back to him, but...

Imagining that each of these events is like a verse in a song, we thought this song would have two different choruses, one entitled "Falling in Love" and one entitled "The Thief" (as Noah refers to the disease which robs her of her memories as "The Thief".) - both things seems to be happening over and over - he reads, she falls in love, the thief takes her away... he reads... she remembers.... they fall in love..... Actually, I suppose the story has something of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, about it.

In an attempt to avoid becoming entrapped in a hum-drum process of copying scripts or lines to be spouted on a pros. arch stage, we decided these are NOT scenes. They are, in fact, boxes. These boxes can be stacked in any order.

Each of the group has the task of filling some boxes. A box may be filled with anything appropriate to the title on its lid. CDs; Props; copied out fragments of poems; mottos; photographs; powerpoint presentations; costumes; musical instruments; famous art work; other films and books.

Each box is a resource for creating a part of the experience. Note the word "experience" - not play or scene.

We have some other ideas - like asking the audience to write down something they would least like to forget on a scrap of paper and then use that in the performance; the audience could be asked: when did you first realise you were in love? and the answers to such things interwoven into the performance.

The notes could be then used in some way - e.g. Alli's mother tearing up the letters from Noah - the notes could be torn up. Or if they were shaped like flowers they could be stuck on a to a back drop which then (via animated projection) becomes a giant field of flowers, all with mmillions of leaves just like those ones a field which Alli and Noah then walk through....

Impressed? I said it was a good session.