Stage Design Project- Concept

Play: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Here's what sort of inspired the concept:
Monologue from Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
Harper is hallucinating. Prior is dreaming. The two meet.
Harper:
I don't understand this. If I didn't ever see you before and I don't think I did then I don't think you should be here, in this hallucination, because in my experience the mind, which is where hallucinations come from, shouldn't be able to make up anything that wasn't there to start with, that didn't enter it from experience, from the real world. Imagination can't create anything new, can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions... Am I making sense right now?
Key words: recycle, reassemble

Basic Plot of Lion, Witch, Wardrobe
Kids get sent to a boring home in the country for the summer.
Find Narnia, a mystical land through a wardrobe.

Our take:
The kids are still in the house (they can't physically enter a mystical world through a wardrobe).
Narnia is imaginary.
The imagination (Angels in America) cannot create.
Everything in Narnia is in the house.
Random objects in the house serve as inspiration for their imagination.

Concept
A defamiliarization of everyday objects.
The kids are able to use objects they find in the house as something new.

Think: its almost as if the kids are playing with action figures of themselves. While still in the physical world of the house, these action figures can be inserted into a fantasy world. Because of their size, a household pet (for instance) would become a monster to an action figure.



Important!
Nothing in the imaginary world could be just labeled as fantastical. Everything needs an explanation and a real parallel.

This served as the leaping point for our concept and we thought about what everyday objects could be transformed into something new and different.

Initial Sketch:

Key Locations/Elements:
Inspiration and Trasformation

Forest- Forks, Silverware, Coat Hangers/Hat racks, Brooms(?)




Lamp Post- Candle Stick, Desk Lamp




To Be Continued...