Since Leah did such a thorough job discussing the dramatic elements in BYU’s premiere of A Wrinkle in Time, I will not belabor you with
a repetition. I only wish to show
how some of those elements added to one of my favorite themes in the story.
When Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which supplied the children each
with a boon to help them in their battle, Mrs. Whatsit presented Meg with her faults. Meg was not too thrilled.
But as it turns out, sometimes our faults can actually be strengths.
That’s why children are the heroes in this story. As Madeleine L’Engle put it, her book is,
“not too difficult for kids, it’s to difficult for grownups. Too many grown ups tend to put themselves
into little rooms, with windows that don’t open, and doors that are
locked. And they want to close
themselves off from any new ideas. And
[kids] are ready and open for new ideas, and new things, and new places, and
new excitements.”
Kids will try just about anything. In the play, this meant that a toy unicorn was a phone, a ladle was a flower, and a live actor was a cabinet.
Kids are even accepting of
one another. The play's characters narrated action, setting, etc. to the audience. Now you could say that this was done to
recall the book. And maybe it was, in
part. But I’m here to tell you that
there is a big difference between reading, “They were all squeezed flat!” and
hearing few actors announce it while everybody on stage obediently acts it
out. To be honest, it reminded me of
children’s cooperative make-believe, when one inspired kid decides what happens
next and everybody gets to work making it a reality.
There is a similar one-of-a-kind (can you put those two
adjectives together?) film that also uses visual style (claymation)
and POV (letters) to develop a theme: the unique power of
immature people to tackle mature topics together. It's called Mary and Max. Max is an obese New Yorker with Asperger Syndrome and Mary is an alcoholic's daughter with a birthmark on her forehead. They are pen-pals.
It’s one of
those movies you will either love or hate.
I couldn’t decide for a while, but now I love it.
You know, this has a lot to do with our papers, too. Like we discussed in class, the really great papers
come after raw, cooperative, almost childlike exploration.
This is very interesting. I agree that kids have a spark of imagination in them that helps them to think more creatively. It is something that many times is lost as we get older, but it doesn't have to be that way.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I liked the creativity of the play and the willing suspension of disbelief. It's a great principle to apply to writing papers too, that we need to challenge our own creativity
DeleteI third(?) what's been said before. I was recently playing with my 3 year old nephew with nerf swords and he pretended to cut off my arms so I couldn't fight. But then I brought regeneration into our game by saying "everything grows back" and wiggling my arms and he was totally fine with it and he even used it too, even when I pretended to die he said "everything grows back" which somehow brought me back to life haha.
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