MONKEYING AROUND....

We recently had the school holiday program at work- not that the holidays are in any way over, just the week we have programs is done and dusted. Sigh of relief.

My Thursday theme was Jungles----I dressed up (naturally) as Vicki, Jungle explorer. Imagine if you will leopard print, a snake skin belt and a gardening hat with more animal print dangling from the brim. I also had my bag full of animals and a net (amazing what a desperate woman, a paper tube, a circular cross-stitch hoop and some bird netting will produce). The net was because I was hunting for George, my missing monkey.

The kids, of course, got right into it. I went around sneaking up on various children, thinking they were poor missing George, netting them only to find they weren't a monkey at all.

Amongst this fun and games, I created some silhouettes to see how easily the children could tell the jungle animals apart.

 We started with a person... easy to identify.  Then we moved onto a lion, then an elephant, next a crocodile and a parrot...they knew them easily. Had a falter with the hippo though, a few doubts of what it could be. But the majority over ruled and they were delighted that they guessed them all right.

Sometimes a shape is easy to discern. That outline can only be one thing...

but what about if we see this...

Is it a duck, or is it a rabbit?

So is the above silhouette really a rabbit? Could it be something else....

So how much truth do we have to deliver? Is it all in the beholder, is it up the audience or in the case of writing, our reader.

Is this really a short story about a man and his dog. Or when you look deeper, is it really a short story? Perhaps it should be a novel, the plot muddies, the characters grow and move in a way we never really expected.  It is no longer about a man and a dog...perhaps it is a cultural reference to ageing......a look at the social boundaries we place upon each other...or is it merely Lassie rejigged for now.

Is this a poem...or should it be a play? Is this novel 80 % padding, is it really only a short story with very clever words thrown in for the sake of it.

I personally like the idea of things not necessarily being what they appear to be.

Of making the audience work for it...or at least get something on one level, with other levels, perhaps more subtle, waiting to appear.

Just like how the Disney movies have differing layers of humour, a basic one so every child gets a laugh, and then that adult layer where the parents get to have a chuckle.

Maybe it's time for us to look at the outline of some of our work...to see if it really is what it contends to be.

And maybe it's time for some integral re-working...who knows?

Vicki