Story telling

Storytelling is an important aspect of the project we are going to do on Balinese Shadow puppetry. In class, we were introduced to this concept through activities such as phone-booth, spoon-river and spitfire. Something that I have learnt from this is that it is important to animate the story with gestures, actions and voice as well. This makes the story more interesting (even if the story is bizarre itself), and it also makes the story easier to understand.
Some of these activities reminded me of the category in the Speech contest, “Storytelling.” I have seen my friends participate in this category and they always animate their voices, and also include actions. With voices, when there is a different character speaking, they change their voice by making it either harsher or gentler, higher or deeper. They also make the story more interesting by speaking how the character would feel. If they are happy, they would speak in a gentle and amiable voice. If they are angry, they would speak in a harsh, loud and deep voice. If they are panicking, they would speak in a fast paced, desperate voice.

Our task, later on, was to present a Wayang story. As a group, we chose the Mahabharata story. Briefly this story was about two “groups” that wanted the city of elephants. One group, called the Pandavas, were sons of the gods, and the other group, called the Dhartarashtras, were incarnations of devils. They had a bet to see who would get the city of elephants. The Dhartarashtras won this bet and the Pandavas were exiled for 12 years. After this period, they were allowed to go back to the city of elephants. However, the Dhartarashtras refused to give the city of elephants to the Pandavas. The Pandavas were enraged with this because they held their side of the promise, so they went to war with the Dhartarashtras. Fortunately, the Pandavas won, however they were not happy because for victory, they had to sacrifice many precious lives. So, the 5 Pandavas went on a journey to heaven. One by one, they died, until one last Pandava remained. This Pandava was followed by a dog, and once he was at the gate of heaven, the voice said that the dog must not enter heaven. The Pandava refused to leave it because he has followed him the whole journey. Then, the voice said that the Dhartarashtras were in heaven and the rest of the Pandavas were in hell. The remaining Pandava said that he would join his brothers in hell, and thus he passed the test. The dog had turned out to be his father, the god, and the Pandavas were actually in heaven, and the Dhartarashtras were in hell.
To start off, we decided to make the city of elephants a person. With minimal dialogue, we tried to show this story to the audience.

Scene 1: The Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras meet at the Elephant, and they bow. Then, the dice is rolled, the Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras place their bets. The Dhartarashtras win, and the Pandavas are exiled. There is a tableau here.

Scene 2: The 12 years are over, and the Pandavas go back to the Elephant. The Dhartarashtras grabs the elephant and there is a “tug-o-war” between the Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras.

Scene 3: The Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras go to the sides and come back in. This is the war scene. With percussion in the background getting faster, the war progresses. Then the last beat was the last attack, and the Dhartarashtras are beaten.

Scene 4: The Pandavas meets up, and go on a journey. One by one they die until the last one remains, with the dog.

Scene 5: The Last Pandava talks to the voice of god (which comes from the dog). When the Pandava passes the test, the rest of his brothers will “rise” and join him. The brothers opens the gate (the curtain) to heaven. Tableau to end the presentation.

Using almost no dialogue helps make the performance more powerful. Also, the scene where there is dialogue stands out because there is a contrast imposed. The tableaus also help make the performance more effective because it allows the audience to analyze what is occurring on stage.