Daisy Pulls it Off. Will we?
Monday, March 24, 2008 @ 10:17 pm.
How positively ripping! We're doing an English schoolgirl play set in the 1920s! Oh, wouldn't that be topping!
The problem with this play, it seems, is the absolute lack of a plot. Daisy Meredith is a full-fledged Mary Sue.
This is a quote from a review:
The play itself, and by this I mean the written play and not Hatfield’s production, was dire. The plot was about as transparent as French toilet paper. The dialogue was trite and uninspired and the characterisation was a mathematical impossibility, scoring well below one dimensional. But, and this is quite a substantial but, it was a fantastic production.
To give you a rough idea of the plot, and really, no great length is needed. Elementary school girl Daisy acquires a scholarship to attend Grangewood School for Young Ladies. Whilst at the school she suffers the plottings of Sybil Burlington and her doting follower Monica Smithers who feel it is their duty to keep the school clear of Elementary school types. She hears of its financial difficulties and vows to seek the treasure hidden somewhere within the grounds of the school. However she has a competitor in this, Mr Scoblowski, the enigmatic Russian music teacher. The play comes to a head when she cracks the clues, finds the treasure, rescues Sybil and Monica from certain death on a cliff face, finds her missing father is the mysterious janitor, and also the heir of the estate to which Grangewood belongs AND wins the hockey finals for the school. All whilst being locked in the Sanatorium after being set-up as fraudulently winning the poetry contest, cheating on a Geography test and stealing a rare book from the library (not exactly Shakespeare is it? – ed.)
The dialogue was horrendous and yes I could have scrawled the entire plot of the second half on the back of a napkin in Hatfield bar during the interval. But even the fact that the characters somehow manage to have less depth and conviction than a Blyton novel didn’t matter one bit. This was an absolutely wonderful production.
Among other things, Daisy Meredith has (not grammatically correct)
- An amazing singing voice
- A general aptitude for studies
- 96% for Geography tests
- Excellent poetry recitation; she wins a contest for it no less (prods the quote)
- Is excellent at hockey
- Got a scholarship
- Everyone is prejudiced against her except for Trixie Martin
- Plays pranks
- Is pranked on
- Is threatened to leave Grangewood in a fortnight or they'll say she cheated on a test
- Locked unfairly in the sanatorium
- Searches for hidden treasure
- Her mother is an opera singer trying to make ends meet
- She has a plethora of siblings
- Her father is supposedly dead
The list goes on. On and on and on. Maybe.
I know what roles my classmates and friends would want to play. All the characters are set into these roles:
- Mary Sue heroine
- Peppy, eccentric sidekick
- The Queen Bee
- The Queen Bee's drones
- The teachers
- The enigma
I have no idea what will happen and I prefer not to speculate.
ONTO OTHER THINGS
I cut my finger on a knife. Mr Tay was right: It really does bloop out like that. (A year ago he was describing how a girl, while doing dissection, chopped off her fingertip and the blood went bloop bloop bloop [he mimed it]. He was joking about chopping it clean off, but still.) Amazingly it's only the second time it's happened in my entire life. The first time was in Primary Two when I tried to open my friend's bathroom's magnetic shower door. There was a whole lot of blood. All I remember was that it hurt and I didn't dare to open it again.
My sister cut and straightened her hair. She has a side parting now, and a fringe, and straight hair somewhere around the neck and shoulders. I dread the day when it becomes curly again. It may not turn out well.
It looks nice now, anyway.
BACK TO THE PLAY
We get the script on Wednesday. I can't wait, because I always can't wait for such things. I do feel rather demoralised based on the things I've heard about the play though.
Hm. I have nothing else to talk about. Farewell!