Little Angel Theatre Presents Jabberwocky
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Little Angel Theatre Presents Jabberwocky Education and Participation Resource Pack Written by Laura Halliwell and Sarah Schofield Little Angel Theatre 14 Dagmar Passage, Islington, London, N1 2DN 0207 226 1787 www.littleangeltheatre.com The interior of Little Angel Theatre auditorium before it John Wright was re-built in 1961 Theatre founder Background Information The history of the theatre and show! The Jabberwocky show The Little Angel Theatre John Wright, the founder of The Little Angel Theatre was born in South Africa in 1906. He travelled to England in Jabberwocky was first produced by Little Angel 1935 and worked as an assistant stage manager for the Theatre in 2004, and was directed by the then Ballet Rambert while studying at the Central School of Art artistic director of the theatre, Steve Tiplady. The and Design. It was during this time he saw a puppet puppets were designed and made by Peter performance by Podrecca’s Piccoli and became hooked. O’Rourke. John made his very first puppet in 1938. When the decision was made to reprise the show He returned to South Africa at the outbreak of the it was also decided that some changes were Second World War and continued to make and perform necessary and the majority of the original team with puppets in his home country. When the war ended he got together to play around with some alternative returned to England, overland, performing with his puppets ideas of how to present this old show in a new along the way. way. In 1961 John and his troupe found a derelict temperance hall in Islington and transformed it into a magical little theatre, specially designed for the presentation of marionette shows. It opened on Saturday 24th November 1961. This was to be the first purpose built puppet theatre the country had seen for many years and the only one with a permanent long string marionette bridge constructed backstage. The bridge was designed for puppeteers to stand on while they manipulate long stringed puppets who perform on the stage below leaving the audience unable to see the puppeteers. The original bridge is used to this day. The theatre has a traditional ‘proscenium arch’ and seats 100 audience members. Over the next 30 years, the Little Angel team created and performed over 30 full-scale shows, with John and his wife The original cast from 2004 along with the first Lyndie designing, making, performing and directing as incarnation of the Jabberwocky. they established Little Angel as ‘The Home of British Puppetry.’ Little Angel shows were taken to 23 Something that had puzzled our previous International Festivals, representing Britain. audiences had been the character of Jabberwocky itself. Contrary to common belief John Wright died in 1991 but the work of the theatre the stripy faced character on the front of this pack continued apace with family, friends and supporters is not the Jabberwocky, but the Bandersnatch! working tirelessly to continue in his footsteps to make sure The Jabberwocky in the 2004 production was John’s legacy would delight generations to come. represented by a giant shiny geometric construction, which sometimes left the audience bemused, so this and some of the other characters have been redesigned and remade for this new version. Little Angel Theatre 1 Lewis Carroll (born Charles Dodgson) Literacy Links – Author Study Lewis Carroll Lewis Carroll (born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was an On 4 July 1862 Carroll took a boat trip ‘up the River English author, mathematician and photographer, most to Godstow’ accompanied by the three eldest famous for writing ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and daughters of the Headteacher (Dean) of Christ its sequel ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ (where the Church, Lorina, Alice and Edith. During the trip he Jabberwocky poem comes from) under the pen name told stories to the girls and the first version of Alice’s Lewis Carroll. Adventures under Ground was born. Alice urged Carroll to write out the story for her. That evening He was born on 27 January 1832 in Cheshire and was the and on a train journey the next day, he started to make a plan of the story. He then started writing out third child and oldest boy of eleven children. His father the story on 13 November 1862, completing it on 10 Charles Dodgson was a clergyman. In 1843, their family February 1863. moved to North Yorkshire and young Charles was educated at home until the age of twelve, when he was Over time he expanded the book into the full sent to ‘Richmond’ a private school nearby. version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In November 1864 he presented the first volume of In 1846, he moved to Rugby School where he excelled in Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, complete with his mathematics. He also loved to read, especially William own illustrations, to Alice Liddell, the Dean’s Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. He began writing short daughter who inspired it all. In 1872 a sequel of the stories for his family magazine at a very young age. In book was published as ‘Through the Looking Glass 1850 he was admitted to study mathematics at Oxford and What Alice Found There’. University. He graduated in 1854, and in 1855 he became mathematical lecturer at the college. Lewis Carroll caught pneumonia which turned out to be severe influenza, and died on 14 January 1898. In 1856, his first work, a poem- ‘Solitude’ was published His body is buried in Guildford at the Mount which became his first landmark success and began his Cemetery. career as a writer. Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of a looking glass. In an early scene Alice finds a book written in a seemingly unintelligible language. Realising that she is travelling through a backwards world, she recognises that the verse on the pages are written in mirror-writing. She holds a mirror to one of the poems, and reads the reflected verse of "Jabberwocky". She finds the nonsense verse as puzzling as the odd land she has passed into, later revealed as a dreamscape. 'It seems very pretty but it's rather hard to understand!' Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don't exactly know what they are! However, Alice Liddell as somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.' photographed by Lewis Carroll Little Angel Theatre 2 The Jabberwocky Jabberwocky By Lewis Carroll ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head The original Illustrations in the first edition of Alice He went galumphing back. Through the Looking Glass were drawn by John Tenniel, including this picture of the Jabberwock. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? This was published in 1872. Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” Originally Tenniel's illustration of the Jabberwock He chortled in his joy. was going to be the title page picture, but it was moved further into the text after Carroll deemed it too ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves frightening for his younger readers and was replaced Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: by the image of the white knight. All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Little Angel Theatre 3 Writing Activities and Ideas Mirror Writing 1) Write the story of the Jabberwocky poem. Alice first encounters the Jabberwocky poem in Include your own detailed descriptions of the Chapter 1 of Through the Looking Glass where it is landscape and environments that the Jabberwock written in ‘mirror writing’; inhabits, as well as passages describing the ‘There was a book lying near Alice on the journey the boy takes to reach them and the fight table…………she turned over the leaves, to find he has when he gets there. some part that she could read, ` -- for it's all in some language I don't know,' she said to herself. 2) Blending words - create your own nonsense words by blending two words together – you might YKCOWREBBAJ create nonsense names for things, or nonsense sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT` ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD adverbs to describe where, how or in what ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA manner a verb is carried out. Or maybe you’ll just .ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA make up nonsense words for fun – who knows – they might end up in common usage! She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. `Why, it's a Looking- glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a Some of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense words have ended up glass, the words will all go the right way again." in the dictionary - for example, Chortle and Galumph. Chortle is a combination of the words ‘chuckle’ and ‘snort’ Note, in this example only the words are backwards, in and means ‘to laugh merrily’. Galumph is possibly a blend true mirror writing the letters need to be backwards too! of 'gallop' and 'triumphant’ and means ‘to move heavily and clumsily’ The ability to do mirror writing is thought to be inherited, but anyone can have a go at it! Mirror writing can be used as a kind of basic code or secret language, If you want to see examples of more nonsense although today, the most common modern usage of words, you will find some links in the back of this mirror writing can be found on the front of ambulances, pack.