January 14, 2009

I wrote a scene! (Snow White)

(Note: This part of the play continues from the Rapunzel portion. Like the red cloak going from Sleeping Beauty to Red Riding Hood, I'm imagining the mirror somehow transferring from Rapunzel. This may change later, though.)

We are mirrors in the queen's private rooms, watching and judging all. The place has an air of decayed splendor.

There is a magic MIRROR that is a statue of perfect beauty - tall, thin, and pale with dark hair and blood red lips. It wears a Mona Lisa expression and holds a mirror in its hands. Despite its beauty, there's something creepy about it - as if, when we gaze at it, it gazes back and finds what it sees ugly or pathetic.

Orixa paces, fresh from a bath. She is now approaching menopause, but there remains an elegance to her. She examines herself in the magic mirror. Notices crows' feet at her eyes and brow, wrinkles on her mouth, stray gray strands of hair (all of which maybe only she can see).

SNOW WHITE enters as if going inside a secret chamber within a temple. She bears an eerie resemblance to the magic mirror.

[Mood music: The Velvet Underground, "Venus in Furs"]

Snow White dresses Orixa, applies her make-up (a face mask, perhaps?), and does her hair. There is something erotic about how reverent and meticulous she is. This is no chore, but a kind of liturgy. She may even sneak kisses onto Orixa's feet and hands.

Meanwhile, Orixa struggles to keep her regal reserve and avoid looking at Snow White. Snow White places a crown on her head. Orixa now resembles a kabuki dominatrix - a terrible beauty with clothes for armor and make-up as war paint.

Orixa admires herself in the magic mirror. The mirror gives an approving nod. It could even glance at Snow White.

Orixa notices Snow White waiting with neck bared. Considers. Pounces on Snow White, bites, and gorges on her blood. Holds Snow White in fierce, predatory embrace as Snow White clings to her (may even shiver and cry out in ecstasy). Orixa tears away. Harshly dismisses Snow White.

[Mood music: Bauhaus, "Bela Lugosi's Dead"]

Orixa allows the blood of youth and life to flow into her, invigorating her. Marvels at the breath coming from her lungs, the heart beating in her chest. All her earlier coldness melts away as she succumbs to rapture. Dances for joy - free, expressive, graceful.

When the magic fades, Orixa literally tries to hold on to it. She fails.

2 comments:

  1. There is a lot here that really rings with what my wife created with Transformations last year. Transformations was a performance piece based on Anne Sexton's poetry, a swathe of which was retold fairy tales including Snow White (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=597) and while I don't think it will directly inform you piece, I think it's worth having in the image banks (and forgive my blithe assumption that I'm adding something you don't already know)

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  2. Travis,

    I remember seeing something like that a while ago and thinking, "Damnit!" and almost scrapped the piece. Fortunately, I hadn't read Sexton's poems at the time. Now that I have (in my own personal library now), I'm much more at ease with what I'm doing.

    I have a particular fondness for Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" myself.

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