“Words and ‘The Firebird’” series of articles

2014

2014 Jan

Jan 27 Mon

On the 4th and 5th of March, Chester’s children’s drama-group Jigsaw are performing “The Firebird”, based on a Russian folk story about a prince who tries to procure an apple-stealing bird while avoiding getting captured himself for his own thievery. I know Jigsaw are doing this play because I’ve been deeply involved with them in this since the first rehearsal, even more deeply than last year when they were putting on “Ghosts of the City”. Yes, I am going to be comparing “The Firebird” to “Ghosts of the City”.

You know me as a writer. I’ve written the words to four songs for the show (two-and-a-half more than I wrote for GotC), and I think they’re pretty good songs. (Yes, I know I’m biased.) Watch out for lyrics like “The fruits that form upon each branch are lovely, lush, and luscious”, “I just want to spend forever with you”, and “I saw them returning from their quest! Returning!”

You know me as the main designer of Duncan’s Childhood Blog. I will soon be designing the programme, and I’ve designed the poster advertising the show (as I did for GotC), and Jigsaw’s director says it’s the best poster I’ve yet done. (Yes, I know there are only two.) My Firebird poster is on the right, and you’ll see the programme either at a performance or on Duncan’s Childhood Blog afterwards. Both, I hope.

You may know me as an assistant director, if you read my articles about GotC (2012 Sep 22 and 2013 Feb 08). And I am assisting the direction of this play too. I’m leading small groups; I’m writing down new stuff happening in rehearsals (I told you I was a writer); I’m helping kids with their line-learning and diction.

And I find it brilliant. The land of Jigsaw is lovely and lush indeed and I want to spend forever doing stuff as amazing as this. Every week I’m glad to return there (it sure beats doing maths homework), and I hope the kids share my enthusiasm... actually, I don’t need to hope, for I know most of them do. They’re great. They’re lively, they’re focussed, they’re creative and well-mannered. (And the supervising adults are impeccable too.) You know this means it’s going to be a terrific play - make it your quest to see it!

Here’s the Chester Chronicle’s take on rehearsing “The Firebird” and their review of the show.

2014 Feb

Feb 08 Sat

There are certain grammatical and punctuational customs that irritate me and will therefore be flouted in this article, so I apologise for the loss in readability due to my strange punctuatings. I will also for the next few articles be writing example constructions in pale blue, to avoid overusing quotation marks, and, where I do use those marks, displaying them as single (’) rather than double (”). Talking of which, one of my pet peeves is the comma before said quotation marks.

I’ve stubbed my toe. That sentence requires no comma - it’s a simple subject-verb-object construction. I said these words. requires no comma, for the same reason. But add some actual speech, as the object of the verb ‘said’, and such a sentence is generally written as I said, ‘Ow, the pain!’, whereas I find it more logical, albeit less visually appealing, to write I said ‘Ow, the pain!’..

Notice that I’ve also added two full stops, the blue one because while the exclamation mark finishes the Ow, the pain! exclamation it does not finish the I said ... . sentence enveloping it, as indicated by the quotation mark after the exclamation mark. (Similarly, the pale grey one is there to finish the sentence enveloping the I said ... . sentence.)

Such syntactic Inception is commonly found with brackets (this is another reason for a change to how we punctuate around direct speech!). That last sentence is seen as acceptable, whereas My sister exclaimed ‘I love direct speech!’. would not be despite it likewise being a sentence with another nested within it. I’m convinced that the only reason the exclamation mark (or question mark or full stop) can end two sentences at once when used with quotation marks is because it’s traditional to have that happen.

You may argue that when you speak something like And Matilda was like, ‘No way José!’ you naturally pause before reporting what Matilda said, and punctuation indicates a pause so there should be punctuation before No way José!. But that belies the fact that there is punctuation before No way José!: the quotation mark itself. You might as well write I’d left for the shops., I wasn’t there when she arrived,,,,, but I returned soon enough to see her leave.,, which is ridiculous. Surely the quotation mark can subsume the comma’s role there! It is, after all, a comma itself, an inverted comma!

Yeah, perhaps it would be good to invert established practices.

Feb 09 Sun

One thing I quite like is that the semi-colon is physically bigger than a comma (; versus ,) and accordingly marks a bigger pause than a comma does, typically between two related but grammatically separate sentences such as I saw the scorch-marks, the lights, and the UFO itself; my dog was oblivious.. So why then is the full stop so teeny-weeny? If as a sentence-finisher it didn’t have a capital letter immediately after it you’d hardly notice it was there!

On the subject of majuscules, I quite like our use of capital letters to mark proper nouns, to distinguish Turkey from turkey, people called Jack from animals called ‘jack’, and Jigsaw (Music Theatre) from jigsaw puzzles (compare the sentences He says jigsaw puzzles unnerved audiences and He says Jigsaw puzzles unnerved audiences). I can accept the capitalisation of the first word of a sentence (though if the full stop was more noticeable, like • perhaps, and was only used to finish sentences, this wouldn’t be required). I do not however like the capitalisation of words just because they fall at the beginning of a line of poetry or lyrics. This is inane - what does such a capital signify? That the word begins a new line? You can tell that anyway, because it’s on a new line. It’s on a new line!

This is particularly annoying when it’s in the subtitles to a music video where the lines are short, so every third-or-so word is capitalised and every six seconds I’m like, ‘Why is When capitalised? Have we started a new sentence? Is this the name of a person? Oh, no, it’s the first word of a line; the word before completed a rhyming couplet or preceded a totally arbitrary line-break... Not confusing or distracting at all.’

2014 Mar

Mar 04 Tue

Mar 05 Wed

I don’t use Facebook like my friends use Facebook. I prefer to promote my ventures with Theatre in the Quarter, the Chester-based drama company whose junior divisions I assist the direction of and write lyrics for (Jigsaw) and act myself in (Quartz, see “War and ‘Masque’”, later in the blog). It follows that I’m quite fond of writing, on my Facebook page, stuff such as what follows.

Feb 03 - I suppose I ought to inform you of a spectacular brand-new piece of theatre in the Chester area: “The Firebird” by Jigsaw Music Theatre. It’s going to dazzle, partly because I wrote a fair bit of it, but mainly because they’re Jigsaw. Do come if you can!

Mar 04 - They are as dependable as the grey wolf, as beautiful as the princess Helen, as brilliant as a flame-feathered fowl, and utterly mesmerising as one of the finest young people’s drama-groups in the Northwest. Whoever has had nothing to do with Jigsaw Music Theatre has missed out on a great treat, as tonight’s spectacle showed. All is not lost however - there is still one more performance of “The Firebird” to go! Tomorrow, 7:30pm, Bishop’s High - be there!

Mar 05 - The apple-tree has borne fruits; the horse has brought us to our paradise exquisite; the firebird has left us with magnificent feathers that will endure unfaded for a good while yet. Everyone involved with Jigsaw Music Theatre is thoroughly deserving of the commendation they receive, be it for the script, movements, music, lyrics, lighting, sound, set, costume, chaperoning, puppets, poster and programme, toleration and encouragement of me/us, or indeed for the rather splendid acting, dancing, and singing from our highly dedicated and talented performers. There is little left to say but thank you. I hope you’ve gained as much as I have, so much. I’m in tears writing this. Until next time, next term, and that will be my last term, farewell cast and crew.
Thank you.