Initial artwork for "The Pied Picker." |
It all begins with a story.
Since I began creating puppet shows as
a teenager, I have always enjoyed tinkering with classic fairy tales
in much the same way that Rocky and Bullwinkle and the Muppets
treated these time-tested stories. With each story, I try to find
it's core: the central idea and then take extreme liberties to tell
my own version of that story in a humorous fashion.
One story that I have always wanted to
adapt but which seemed to present perplexing challenges was that of
“The Pied Piper of Hamlin.” In this tale, the town of Hamlin is
riddled with rats. At his wits end, the town's mayor accepts the
offer and price of a wandering Pied Pier to rid the town of its
vermin. Following the trail of music stemming from the Piper's pipe,
all but one of the rats is drowned a nearby river. When he returns
for his payment, the Piper is unceremoniously dismissed by the mayor.
The Piper then seeks his vengeance on the mayor and the town by
playing his pipe and leading all the town's children up and into a
tall mountain on the edge of town. Once the last child is inside, the
mountain seals shut. Only one frail, crippled boy is left behind.
Part of what draws me to this story,
especially in my role as a family entertainer, is the idea of “paying
the piper his due.” I think all freelancers have experienced having
a contract altered or having payment withheld after fulfilling their
part of the agreement. Quite often we'd like to seek retribution but
realize doing so might jeopardize our reputations. Therefore we tend
to stew about it and hope to be all the wiser on the next project. In
this story, the artist takes matters into his own hands.
Certainly one of the big problems with
telling this story is it's ending. When I first attempted to tackle
“The Pied Piper” while a Puppet Arts graduate student at the
University of Connecticut, my professor, Bart Roccoberton asked how I
planned to deal with the overtones of pedophilia. Modern
interpretations and literary critics have proposed that leading the
children out of town into a mountainside insinuates that the Piper is
a child molester. It was as if a blemish had been pointed out on a
perfectly white shirt: suddenly I couldn't see anything else. While I
did develop the story into a finished script along with puppet
designs, I filed all that work away and worked on other ideas. But
the Piper always lingered.
Years passed. Then one day in the
spring of 2015, it hit me. I figured out how I wanted to tell this
story.
One of my favorite springboards for
starting work on a new show is utilizing a Stanislavsky idea I
learned as an undergraduate theater student at Troy University: the
“magic if.” This theatrical principle asks the all important
question of “what if...” in the course of a scene as it relates
to story, action and character. Suddenly the world opens up when you
can ask, “What if the big, bad wolf is allergic to blueberries?”
“What if instead of trying to eat the three billy goats gruff, the
greedy troll tries to charge them a dollar to cross his bridge?”
“What if the Gingerbread Man gets combined with Pinocchio?” All
at once the possibilities for imaginative storytelling are endless.
In that vein of fractured fairy tale
mash-ups, I found my answer for “The Pied Piper.” Basically, I
realized that it's the mayor, the crooked authority figure, who is
the bad guy in this story. HE'S the one who should get what's coming
to him! The original story does seem like the Piper punishes the
whole town when the town residents had nothing to do with the mayor's
decision not to pay the Piper. So, the “what if” became “What
if I combined 'The Pied Piper' with 'The Emperor's New Clothes?”
This was soon followed with “What if, instead of rats, the town is
plagued by roaches?” Then, “What if, instead of a pipe, the Pied
Piper plays the banjo?!” Suddenly, “The Pied Picker was hatched
and I gave myself the gold star for genius.
THE PIED PICKER SYNOPSIS:
While the town of Hamlin, Georgia
prepares for it's centennial celebration, a convention of roaches has
simultaneously chosen the town for it's annual meeting. Members of
the city council insist the town mayor do something about the rampant
roaches reeking havoc. Just when all ideas had been exhausted, a
wandering banjo player comes into town and takes note of the town's
bug problem. He tells the mayor he can get rid of the roaches for a
fee. Desperate for any solution at this point, the mayor agrees. The
Pied Picker begins to play some hot banjo licks and, as if possessed,
all the roaches, in mass exodus, leave the town in a hurry. With one
exception, who happens to be a banjo lover. The mayor discovers he is
in a budgetary fix: all of the town's funds had been blown on the
decorations for the centennial celebration, leaving noting with which
to pay the Picker. However, instead of explaining this to him, the
Mayor dismisses the Picker and goes about his business writing a
speech which he will present to the town during the celebration. The
Picker then gets an idea. Claiming no hard feelings, he offers to
make the mayor a fine new suit of clothes in the latest fashion which
he can wear when he address the town later that afternoon. The mayor
eagerly agrees. The Picker takes measurements and begins working on
the suit of clothes, except the mayor claims he cannot see the Picker
using any fabric. It is explained that only those who are important
enough can see the fine fabric being sewn. Of course, there is no
fabric, but the mayor claims that he, of course, can see it. Later
that afternoon when he takes the stage to give his speech, the Mayor,
thinking he is sporting the latest fashion in men's apparel, it is
made clear that he is wearing not much at all save his underwear. And
the Picker, as mysteriously as he arrived, is nowhere to be found.
Next up, CHARACTERS! Stay tuned!
Original synopsis notes for "The Pied Picker." |
Plot notes for "The Pied Picker." |
Story ideas for "The Pied Picker." |