0 1 Experiencing Pinocchio How to understand the created authentic experience of a fairytale story? Master thesis Master Art, Media & Society Tilburg University Supervisor: Prof. Dr. O.M. Heynders August, 2016 by G.M.A. Nieuwenhuizen 2 Table of Contents 3 Welcome to the show 5 Introduction Tied to strains 10 Theoretical Framework The Italian Marionette 33 Collodi’s Pinocchio The Adventures of the Visitors 42 Analysis Pinocchio musical Efteling Theatre A „real‟ Experience 70 Conclusion 74 Learned the lesson? Application References 79 3 ar, far away in Orlando, Florida, Great magical days are waiting for you. The moment you walk through the broken wall, You feel the magic happen. Tasting magical candy from the Weasly twins, Taking a look at the book of Gilderoy Lockhart, Choosing your magic want at Ollivanders: You know you are part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter 4 5 1 | Introduction 1.1 | Introduction Like many others, my mother told fairytales before I went to bed, as a child. The story of Snow White was one of my favourites. Intently I listened to every word spoken by my mother’s voice. I remember the mean stepmother who poisoned the beautiful young girl and of course the handsome prince who kissed Snow White back to life. Spoiler alert? No. Fairytales like Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs are quite familiar all over the world, and many people know how stories like these end. Mere in the Netherlands, many people have seen the movies made by Walt Disney Animation Studios or have visit ‘Het Sprookjesbos’ (The Fairytale Forest) in the Efteling. These are two examples of companies or theme parks that created a multimedia experience based on an existing fairytale story, and there are a lot of different versions and experiences of the story of Snow White all over the world. This leads to an underlying fundamental question: How is it possible to create a unique experience based on an authentic version of a well-known story? I believe we live in a generation targeting at experience. The fast and online culture makes us ‘spoiled’: we are able to see and hear everything and if we don’t know something, we’ll look it up. During travelling and visiting great places, people post it online en let other people experience it with them. Sometimes even at the same time. We all have seen and heard a lot. This makes it more difficult for creators to evolve an authentic and unique experience. In addition, the retelling of familiar stories happens all over the world, making it difficult to be unique. Think about attractions in theme parks or remakes of movies. I have chosen to focus on a retelling of a well-known story close to home. From the visitor’s perspective, this thesis studies the experience of the Efteling fairytale musical Pinocchio. 1.2. | Experience People have their own ideas and thoughts about a familiar story. To create an authentic version, the retriever needs to experience something unique; something they didn’t experience before. For me, an authentic experience is when the retriever is captured and involved from the beginning of the story until it ends. This thesis is rooted in the understanding that such an experience is created when the retriever of the story 6 experiences the feeling he really is involved in the world where the story takes place (Like in the Wizarding Wold of Harry Potter). He understands the authenticity of the story by being alienated from his daily life and transcended of himself through the sensation. An experience is not only formed by the story itself: The retriever as a person and his own ideas and motivations are part of it. Because a fairytale is most commonly known, people have their own ideas and knowledge. One will know how it ends; the other is more interested in the meaning of the story. Besides, every person has his own prior experiences. It is possible someone never read the story of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. This person will have a different experience when visiting the attraction of the story in Disneyland for example than someone who did read about the beautiful girl. Most of the time, when you visit a cultural institution, like a museum, concert or theatre, you are not alone, but part of a social group. Within this group, every individual has his own ideas and behaviours, but the whole group also expresses collective values. All of these elements influence the experience of the retriever. A story can be told in many ways: From a reading aloud from a book or paintings on the wall to a performance on stage. Every way of telling has its own physical elements influencing the experience. Are you at home when someone reads from a book or are you at a train station? Is the theatre play performed inside a theatre or outside on the streets? It is all something to think about when creating an authentic experience. 1.3 | Design The understanding of this thesis is that a lot of different contexts are important when creating an authentic experience. Some elements of the experience are formed by the creators themselves, while other elements are related to the individual. In Chapter 2, the concept of experience will be discussed. Experience is created by the prior knowledge and personal ideas of the retriever, influences from in- and outside the social group and the physical elements. These personal, social and physical contexts will be explained with the use of the Contextual Model of Experience by Falk & Dierking (2013). The kind of experience this thesis is looking for is an authentic experience: The moment the visitor completely understands the authentic story and believes he’s part of the fantasised world. According to Ankersmit (2007), this is when the individual experiences a historical sensation. All prior ideas and knowledge is scrapped off to understand the 7 authentic story. One way to accomplish this is giving the visitor the opportunity to use his imagination and be alienated from everyday life. The story of Pinocchio is written by the Italian writer Carlo Collodi in 1883 and will be analysed in Chapter 3. The book is a bundle full of small stories about a wooden marionette that turns out to be alive. The complete narrative focuses on the education of a child in the 19th century who is not allowed to lie and needs to listen to his own conscience and to the ones giving advice. Every later version is in some way based on this original story. By the time we get to Chapter 4, it is time to analyse all the data collected during three visits to the Pinocchio musical. The experience of three different social groups (young girls, students and adults) has been measured with the use of participating observation, an ethnographic research technique. On the basis of the theoretical frame, I formed a hypothetical model of the experience of the visitors. On the basis of this model and the results of the analysis, the musical experience created by the Efteling Theatre can be explained, developing a new model. On top, I already used the created experience model in practise. This study is not limited to one musical. There are more musicals about well-known stories on which the results of this thesis can be applied. 1.4 | Case Study This thesis is about the story of Pinocchio told at the Efteling Theatre. The people who visited the Efteling before know this theme park never had an attraction about Pinocchio. Since the beginning of 2016, the Fairytale Forest was expanded with the house of carpenter Geppetto and the Big Fish that ate Geppetto and Pinocchio. (Story will be explained later in this project). 8 Figure 1. Copy of picture Pinocchio in Big Fish. Retrieved from https://www.eftepedia.nl/lemma/Pinokkio This addition to the Fairytale Forest was accompanied with the fairytale musical Pinocchio, performed at the Efteling Theatre. The Efteling is a fairytale theme park for the whole family. The park includes attractions like the ‘Python’ and ‘De Baron’ focusing on the older members, while the young visitors amuse oneself in the ‘Fairytale Forest’ and the ‘Carnaval Festival’. The park kept developing and since 2002 the Figure 2. Carnaval Festival. Retrieved from Efteling opened the doors of her own theatre. Musicals like https://www.efteling.com/nl/park/attracties/carn aval-festival ‘Sound of Music’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Annie’ are already performed. In the end of 2015 the Pinocchio musical premiered. It’s a story about the marionette Pinocchio, created by the carpenter Geppetto, experiencing dangerous adventures, because he didn’t listen to his father or Fay the Fairy. Geppetto always wanted a son and Pinocchio wants to become a real boy. The only way to become real, he needs to behave and listen. He must not tell lies, otherwise his nose will grow. For now, there is only one thing left to say: Welcome to the Pinocchio experience! Please turn off your phone. It is not allowed to make photo- and film material during the show. O yes, it is also not allowed to lie during the show. Have fun!” 9 10 2. | Theoretical framework 2.1 | Introduction This project is about the experience of the visitors of the Efteling musical Pinocchio. The main focus is on what recipients think, feel and go through when entering the theatre, watching, listening and ‘enclosing’ the music, the story and performance. Thus, I’m exploring the complete experience, from the beginning to the end. In consequence, the fundamental question is: What does ‘experience’ mean in regard to musical performance? A musical experience is a way of transcending yourself from daily life while at the same time understanding ‘the authenticity’ of a story (Nahm, 2011).