Unconditional - Creating Site Specific Theatre

UNCONDITIONAL

Creating a Piece of Site Specific Theatre

“If you want to sleep with me, I don’t mind. I’ve never slept with anybody, and I’m very fond of you, so if you want to make love to me, I don’t mind at all. But marrying me is a whole different matter. If you marry me, you take on all my troubles, and they’re a lot worse than you can imagine” (Haruki Murakami p157).

I was set the task of creating a piece of site specific theatre. I first chose my space: a night club bathroom. I researched and observed the bathroom both when the club was closed and also early in the morning when it was open. I left one morning with an emotional inclination to message my family and friends to tell them how much I loved them because of the stories I had heard in that toilet. And that led me to devise Unconditional...

My First Trip to the Bathroom...

Queen Margaret University Ladies Toilets - 3rd Floor, East End.

•Asking what happens behind closed doors in a public toilet.

•Acknowledging bodily functions and questioning why we don’t talk about them.

•somewhere safe.

Being in a bathroom forces you to acknowledge yourself emotionally and physically. Escaping to the toilets for a breather, a thought or a cry may allow you escape from the outside world.

Kristeva

•Lacan’s symbolic order Vs. Semiotic order.

•Language as a barrier.

•Alienation of the body. Representation of the body as an abstract and thought of as something to undermine as seen in fashion and celebrity magazines.

•There are certain kinds of art that liberate our insides e.g. Kill Bill, and In My Skin.

 In My Skin

Kill Bill Volume One

Abjection: Acknowledgement of the things we are in denial of.

“Does nature not conceal most things from him – even concerning his own body – in order to confine and lock himself within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels...She throws away the key. And woe to that fatal curiosity which might one day have the power to peer out and down through the crack into the chamber of consciousness” (Nietzsche, )

My Second Trip to the Bathroom...

Mood Nightclub, Edinburgh - The Rear Ladies Toilets. 16 December 2009, 9.30 pm

I started by spending some time in the ladies before the club opened taking photos and looking around. 

Bourgeoisie:

•The neglected toilets are un-welcoming however this is always irrelevant when you have nowhere else to go.
Alcohol:

•A substance which evokes honesty, connections with people, story telling, heightened emotion.

Nights Out:

•Which include alcohol, sex, drugs, desecrating, urinating, masturbating, vomiting, bleeding, crying...

Appearance:

•Dressing up in order to attract the opposite sex. Using the toilets to maintain the image you had created for yourself before you came out.

Emotion:

•The space is like a black hole because most of the dramas and emotion that have taken place there are forgotten.

Day Dreaming, Solitude and Past Memories

My trip on the bus...

Number 30 Bus from Musselburgh to Princes Street, Edinburgh. 8 December 2009, 3.30 pm.

The Bus is a lot like the toilet cubicle as a place for solitude:

•You can be surrounded by people but completely immersed in yourself and your own thoughts. It’s like an in between stages place to be. There is no pressure to actively do anything (including thinking).

My Third Trip to the Bathroom...

Mood Nightclub, Edinburgh, Rear Ladies Toilets. 2.30 am, 3 January 2010. 

I went back for the second time to the toilets at 2 am to take notes. What ended up happening is that the girls using the toilets started asking me what I was doing and then continued to chat to me and talk at me about their lives and things that were bothering them.

HAYLEY:

-Goes to the toilet leaving the door open and she talk to me.

She talks about her children and tells me that her first child died.

-She has a Winnie the Pooh tattoo on her back as a tribute to her dead child..

SARAH:

 - She tries to convince me that she is a “good girl” corrupted by Edinburghs’ “bright lights”.

FIONA, JESS, LOUISE AND AMY

- Fiona, Jess, and Louise complain that they are being judged by other girls in the club because they look out of place.

-Amy introduces herself to myself, Fiona, Jess and Louise and tells us that she is gay. She also tells us that she is uncomfortable being in a straight club. After she leaves, I point out that she did not judge them. They reply: “That’s because she does not fit in either”.

LISA:

- Your friends are everything.

- Her journey from nothing to success.

Making a living by doing what she enjoys.

However success and money are not everything. I ask her if she is happy and she tells me 'Honestly, no. I want children'.

“You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home any more? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone...You wont ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start...” (Andrew, Garden State)

Jacques Lacan and Freud

These two theorists say that we are “in search of something we feel ourselves to be lacking (a sense of self loss), but it will never exist and never did” (Cramer) and that we search for it in a partner, connecting with them through sex: “ When in love, the sight of the beloved has completeness which no words and no embrace can match: a completeness which only the act of making love can temporarily accommodate…” (Berger, 8) and connecting with them by telling them everything about yourself – story telling: “Identity emerges in the failure of the body to express fully and the failure of the signifier to convey meaning exactly. Identity is perceptable only through a relation to another...there is always loss, the loss of not being the other and yet remaining dependent on that other for self – seeing, self – being” (Phelam, 13).

There are many different kinds of love. The kind I am most interested in and most familiar with is the love I have with my family and friends. The love I have for them is unconditional, vows made without acknowledgement. Unconditional love can be a rock from which to sore from in your own personal pursuit of happiness.

James Blunt - Cry

 Choosing Music

“This song reminds me I have people that will be there for me and vice versa...It’s ultimately about friendship especially very close ones...”(lil89).

I looked for music that talked about unconditional love and found it in James Blunts 'Cry'.

                                                         

I have seen peace. I have seen pain,

Resting on the shoulders of your name.

Do you see the truth through all their lies?

Do you see the world through troubled eyes?

And if you want to talk about it any more,

Lie here on the floor and cry on my shoulder,

I'm a friend.

Emotional traumas and constraints of society Vs Expression and a bond between two people

I have seen birth. I have seen death.

Lived to see a lover's final breath.

Do you see my guilt? Should I feel a fright?

Is the fire of hesitation burning bright?

And if you want to talk about it once again,

On you I depend. I'll cry on your shoulder.

You're a friend.

You and I have lived through many things.

I'll hold on to your heart.

I wouldn't cry for anything,

But don't go tearing your life apart.

An eternal Bond

Non existent vows that exist between friends and family in contrast with making wedding vows of ‘forever and ever’. The fact we even make wedding vows says everything about it.

I have seen fear. I have seen faith.

Seen the look of anger on your face.

And if you want to talk about what will be,

Come and sit with me, and cry on my shoulder,

I'm a friend.

And if you want to talk about it any more,

Lie here on the floor and cry on my shoulder,

Once again.

Cry on my shoulder,

I'm a friend.

Fear > Faith > Anger 

“...talking about what unites us, not what divides us. We all crave love, comfort and security, especially in those times they seem hardest to find” (Blunt). 

text and space

Creating a Piece of Theatre 

  I turned the stories and people I met in 'Mood' Toilets into characters and a script for my site specific piece of theatre called Unconditional.

Intentions

•To create a desire to text your loved ones when you leave the performance.

•To feel grateful for the friends and family that you have.

•To remember that “ Life is for Living” (Coward, 1994).

Why Here, Why Now?

•To remind people about what is real in relation to the sometimes pretentious Edinburgh scene.

•Contrasting George Street clubs with Mood in this way:

Note: Mood has a reputation for being ‘common’ People love it because of this, because they feel like they can relax.

UNCONDITIONAL

Cry is playing in the club. It feels like a Saturday night out. The audience is offered a drink to take into the performance which is in the toilets of Mood night club, Edinburgh. They take a seat in the right hand side cubicles and the door is closed. The bottom three cubicles are not used – these are performing areas. The toilet is a mess and there is graffiti inside the cubicles as well as a small mirror which hangs on the door at sitting down eye level. You can see the club lights through the see through glass in the toilet. There are lots of different home videos being projected all over the surface area of the toilets. It is a montage of happy memories which belong to the characters. The song is being constantly replayed.

The main entrance door is opened and the music intensifies. The volume is increased until it no longer sounds like music. A ticking sound begins to play. An abrupt scene plays out in the main area of the toilets as three actors stumble in and burst open the cubicle doors. They apologise each time they open a door seeing that it is occupied, and go in search of a vacant one. At the same time we begin to hear two people having sex in a cubicle. Once all the doors are opened the three drunken characters leave and the music returns to normal volume.

SARAH

Sarah’s “Bad Memory” footage is projected all over the toilet. The footage consists of Sarah’s experience leaving home and going to university which happened whilst her parents were breaking up. We see fights between her parents; and fights between her and her parents. We see her rebellion develop in the form of bad habits picked up in the night life in Edinburgh – drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, and bulimia. We see her loss of childhood.

The sex noises the audience can hear are of Sarah having sex in one of the cubicles with a man. Once he has finished we hear him zip up and unlock the cubicle door before we see him. He appears in a giant heart shaped suit. He checks himself out in the mirrors before opening the main entrance and leaving. We hear Sarah phone her mother from the cubicle toilet (the audience eavesdrops in on her conversation). She leaves a voicemail. She is homesick and tells her mother she is planning to get a bus back home tomorrow. She moves into the front area of the toilets and her “Good Memory” footage is played. Her ‘Good Memory’ footage shows her country-esque lifestyle growing up. Her days in school with her friends and summer holidays spent with the family. We see how her friends support her now. We see the strong bond she has with her siblings and the loving relationship she has with her parents. After a short while Sarahs’s phone rings and it is her mother calling her back. She is excited about seeing Sarah again. As Sarah leaves, she puts a condom in the bin.

HAYLEY
Hayley comes out of one of the cubicles haven just defecated in the toilet, pulling up her tights.  It smells of excrement. Her “Bad Memory” footage is projected. We see the time in her life when her first child died at 4 years old. At the same time her partner left her. Hayley approaches the mirrors and slowly starts to undress until she is naked. At the same time the music is fast forwarded. On Hayley’s naked back we can see a Winnie the Pooh Bear tattoo where Winnie is holding a love heart. Hayley’s “Good Memory” footage is played - The birth of her three current children and of the friends and family who were there with her as well as general playtime with her children now. Shortly after, a child enters the toilets and takes her hand. They leave together. The music returns to normal volume.

FIONA, JESS, LOUISE

Fiona, Jess, and Louise enter the toilets and approach the mirrors to apply makeup. Their “Bad Memory” footage is projected. - We see the girls struggle with their personal insecurities. Jess is concerned about her weight. Fiona is concerned about her confidence with boys. Louise is concerned about her appearance. Amy is concerned about being accepted for her sexuality. Whilst the girls apply make-up they are talking about the other girls in the club who are judging them because they don’t fit in. They meet Amy who comes out of one of the cubicles and introduces herself as gay. She tells the girls that she is uncomfortable being in a straight club because she doesn't feel like she fits in. Their “Good memory” footage is played after they meet Amy. We see the close friendship that Fiona, Louise, and Jess have; how they comfort one another about their insecurities when they are down about them. We see Amy’s friends and family accept her for who she is. Meanwhile the girls bond over their common dis-placement by chatting and through physical interaction (hugs, kisses, high fives etc.). Slowly we realise the make up they girls have been applying has taken the form of love hearts on their faces using lip sticks. After a short while the girls decide to go for pizza and they invite Amy along.

LISA

Lisa’s face appears on the projected images around the toilet. On her cheek an upside down heart has been painted on. It looks like a tear. We start to hear a lady crying which seems to be coming from inside one of the cubicles. Her ‘Bad Memory’ footage is displayed - We see her big and empty apartment. We see her struggle to feel complete when she doesn't have the children or boyfriend that she wants. We see how her success has made her feel hollow inside. On the projected image of Lisa’s face we see that she is being interviewed. She passionately talks about her success and her love for her job. She speaks about her best friend and how important that friend is to her – "you don’t make vows of ‘forever and ever’ with unconditional love, you just don't have to make that declaration". The interviewer asks her if she is happy to which she replies: “No, I want to have children”. When she starts to talk about children, the crying turns into a child’s crying. She stops talking and stares at the camera. She cries a tear. At the same time her “Good Memory” footage is projected - We see a lot of what she is talking about, her exciting younger days travelling and having fun with her best friend and her success and spending it. At the same time the music is intensified as the entrance door is swung open, and the crying get louder until Lisa says “Come on, let’s go home”. The crying stops and the music cuts, the projectors go black, and the lights are cut. But the ticking is still heard.

The lights come back up to the brightness they were at the beginning and the “Happy Memory” video montage is projected again. The audience are free to leave.

Bibliography

•Atlantic Records (2000) All the Lost Souls James Blunt. [online].Available from: http://www.jamesblunt.com/. [Accessed 3 Dec 2010.

•Berger, John. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.

•Blunt, James. (2000). Back to Bedlam. [CD] UK. Atlantic Records.

•Braff, Zach. (2004). Garden State. [DVD] U.S: Camelot Pictures.

•Cameron Lewis, Laura. (2009). Postmodern Drama. [lecture]. Directing 3A. Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, 06 November.

•Certeau, Michelle. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. London: University Press.

•Coward, Noel. (1994). Noel Coward Collected Plays: THREE. [Design For Living]. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd.

•Debord, Guy. Ed: Mcdonna, Tom. (2001). And the Situationist International. Massachusets: MIT Press

•Fiona. (2010) [Personal Interview]. Mood Nightclub. Kirsty Baxter. 2 Jan.

•Gaston, Bachelard. (1958). The Poetics of Space.  la poetique de l’espace. Presses universities de France. Translation 1968 by Aroan Press. Inc. 1st published 1969, Becan: Boston.

•Hayley. (2010). [Personal Interview]. Mood Nightclub. Kirsty Baxter.  2 Jan.

•Heidigirl. (2006). James Blunt Interview 30 April 2006. [Online Video] 3 Jan. Available from:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S44Mo-SDxs. [Accessed 3 Jan].

•Kramer, Steve. (2008). Jaques Lacan. [lecture]. Performance Theory. Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, 31 October.

•Lil 89. Online posting 06 June 2007. <http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/13530822107858530145/posts:lil8906-06-2007?

•Lisa. (2010). [Personal Interview]. Mood Nightclub. Kirsty Baxter.  2 Jan.

•Mark. (2009). Jaques Lacan. [lecture]. Critical Theory. Queen Margaret University, Mussellburgh, 14 December.

•Montabo, Linda. (1981). From Art In Everyday Life.

•Mood Nightclub, 1 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, Eh13AA. Girls toilets: main entrance.

•Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2006.  The Nietzsche Reader, ed Keith Ansell Pearson and Duncan Large. Oford: Blackwell Publishing.

•Phelan, Peggy. (1993). Unmarked, The Politics of Performance. London and New York: Routledge.

•Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, Edinburgh. Girls Toilets: 3rd Floor, East Side.

•Sticker quotes by: Robert Frederick Limited. UK, 2008.

•The Kulta Beats. “Julia Kristeva” Weblog Entry. Julia Kristeva. 01 Aug 2007. 3 Dec 2010<http://bbgs.myspace.com/imdex.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view8friendId-18683291&bbId=260466860?

“We go through this really amazing experience called life and we are trying to understand it and understand why the hell we are here...I think we all experience that”(Blunt).

                     

Dexter

DEXTER

LOOKING AT AMERICA'S FAVORITE SERIAL KILLER 

Dexter is a television series about a serial killer called Dexter who kills 'bad' people. Dexter was rescued from his mothers murder scene at four years old and adopted by the police officer that found him, Harry. Soon Harry discovers that Dexter has 'urges' to kill and he helps Dexter to channel these 'urges' for good by teaching Dexter to only kill men and women who kill innocent people.




We find out that Dexter's 'urges' are a result of him witnessing his mothers murder as a four year old boy, memories he repressed until his brother brings them back to the surface at the end of series one.

Dexters' 'urges' to kill are inherently within him and a big part of who he is, the kills give him purpose and make him feel alive. He lives his life pretending to be someone else and all the while he is numb to feelings and purpose except for when he kills.

The Design for Living dictates living life by ritual and communication. In the first series of Dexter we are introduced to a man who has only a ritual - murder. As the series progresses Dexter falls in love with a woman, Rita, who he describes as 'just as damaged as I am' and in her and her children he finds connection from communication:

"I'm Dexter and I'm not sure what I am, I just know there's something dark in me and I hide it, certainly don't talk about it but its there always, this dark passenger and when he's driving I feel alive, half sick with the thrill of complete wrongness. I don't fight him, I don't want too, he's all I've got. Nothing else could love me...not even, especially not me. Or is that just a lie the dark passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments I feel...connected to something else, someone. Its like the mask is slipping and things, people, who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me!

Further into series two Dexters' victims are found at the bottom of the ocean and a Police case opens to find the 'Bay Harbour Butcher'. There is debate amongst the public about whether this serial killer is friend or foe after the police discover that all the victims had criminal convictions. Dexter ponders on the similarities between himself and a superhero:

"I never really got the whole superhero thing. But lately, it seems we have a lot in common. Tragic beginnings...Secret Identities...part human, part mutant...arch nemesis".

A superhero has a drive or ritual to use their powers for good, to accept who they are, different or alien because of what they were born with. Dexters' natural instinct is to kill but with the help of Harry's code his ritual is to use what power he has for good. The main difference between Dexter and a superhero is that Dexter's power is to kill, and a superheroes power is more...fantastical.

In series two Dexter meets another woman, Lila, who sees him for who he really is, who accepts the evil in him: 

"LILA: We're all good Dexter and all evil

DEXTER: She's looking behind the mask and not looking away"

Dexter has always lived his life according to what Harry said it had to be. Lila helps Dexter realise that his value system is different to Harrys and that he needs to figure out who he is, what he needs and what he wants.

"- What were you doing to your mother in this dream

-Saving her life

-Have you thought maybe you weren't saving your mother in this dream. Maybe you were saving yourself

-It's not what happened

-Don't be so sure. When I got clean, all the seriously fucked up reasons I used began to surface...this could be where your addiction started.

-There were three men. I don't know what happened to them.

-Dexter if these guys are behind bars you need to confront them...you need to do whatever it takes to get closure. How else do you expect to get better?

-I never expected to get better".

As the season progresses Dexter discovers that Lila's words and intentions are not all good ones, and she has manipulated him to bring him closer to her. She does this because, as we find out at the end of the season, she is inept at feeling anything. As Dexter puts it in the finale 'You're just like me'. Lila is exactly like Dexter but this is not what Dexter wants...he wants 'a normal life' just like Rita does. The 'normal life' girl is Rita and as soon as Dexter realises this he severs all ties with Lila and grips back onto Rita. I wont give anymore away but it is interesting to see that two different people can want the same thing and that this formula is what creates love, at least in this tv show. Is love about two people wanting the same thing despite who they are? Or is it about connection, similarities and finding a 'soul mate'?

Tate - "I prepare for the noble war. I'm calm, I know the secret. I know what's coming and I know no one can stop me not even myself. I kill people I like. Some of them beg for their life. I don't feel sad. I don't feel anything. It's a filthy world we live, in its a filthy goddamn world and honestly I feel like I'm helping to take them away from the shit and the piss and the vomit that run through the streets. I'm helping to take them to somewhere clean. There's something about all that blood man i drown it".

The Joker in Batman is largely regarded as insane. However there are those that think he is the opposite, that he is in fact too sane, beyond sane. That he is more aware of the world around him than everyone else and all his actions are reactions to the clarity around him.

"The world is a filthy place. It's a filthy goddamn horror show. There's just so much pain, ya'know" (American Horror Story)

It is also implied that the Joker pretends to be insane in order to avoid execution.

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

LEWIS CARROLL'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND

MAKING SENSE OF ALICE

 

Whilst analysing a play called Frotting Reality I turned to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to compare and contrast the stories. I simplified the two stories down into equations and then compared the two. What I found was that Elsa and Alice were very similar characters, as were their journeys. Further I researched into the psychology and philosophy of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland to strengthen what meaning I got out of his novel.

Alice in Wonderland is a child's view of adulthood as she nears it herself. It is a coming of age story translated through the journey young Alice goes on. It takes her away from home and into a world she does not fit into, does not understand and is scared of. 

Wonderland's name gives it connotations of being, well, wonderful, but what it really is, is a confusing and annoying world. It is not beautiful or natural and Alice spends most of her time being treated without respect or manners - it is called Wonderland because it is a 

threshold point before adulthood and a place where she can access and observe what is to come:

"Wonderland is a product of culture, not nature...the monarchy, the rule of law, education, grammar and social etiquette...first with a cacus race with wild animals...then the fussy domestic life of a bachelor rabbit (complete with a maid and a gardener). Having discussed growth and reproduction with a caterpillar and pigeon...

 

...and madness with a brainy disembodied cat, Alice finds herself in the more complex rituals of Wonderland society – first the endlessly rotating Mad Tea Party...

....then the shambolic royal croquet game and then to cap it all, the Mock Turtle and Gryphon's nostalgic, Old Boy's duet about their school days” (Haughton).

Alice goes through Wonderland to find meaning and purpose in her life (and it also warns of love to come) and prepares her to establish her own Design for Living outside of the one she already has courtesy of childhood “...what do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning – and a child's more important than a joke, I hope” (Haughton).

Making Sense of Alice

1/ Down the Rabbit Hole
Alice follows a curious looking rabbit down a rabbit hole, a threshold that takes her to a different world. The rabbit constantly mutters that he is late and looks at his pocket watch. We find out later that he is late to tell the Duchess about a croquet game, and that the rabbit is imprisoned for it later on. However technically the rabbit is never actually late and his time is like time in a bad dream - constantly delayed but persistent. In Wonderland, time doesn't seem to have the same linear existence it does in reality, and characters are constantly moving but not getting anywhere like Gilda in “Design for Living”. There is no time here therefore it is not reality because there can be no death.“We would like there to be life after death, because that alone would allow us to definitively answer the question. But curiosity is no more an arrangement than hope". Those with imagination can imagine another world exists, a wonderland and when they do they are given choices, for example, the blue pill or the red pill?

2/ The Pool of Tears 
Alice is dropped into an environment she can't control. Alice eats food and drinks potions (like pills) to get into the fantasy world and the first situation she finds herself in is inside a glass bottle - a perfect world, freedom within constraints but she wants to get out of it. She makes a choice.

3/ A Cacus-Race and a Long Tale 
The animals all leave because they don't like Dinah (Alice's cat) which makes Alice low spirited. Dinah is her familiarity from home and she can't understand why Dinah does not fit in with this world. Things that used to be accepted no longer are. 

4/ The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
Alice grows to a giant height “When I used to read fairytales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!...And when I grown up I'll write one – but I'm grown up now...” She does not fit in. Alice then decides to grow to the right size and find the garden after running into trouble at the Rabbit's house.

5/ Advice from a caterpillar
Phallic incident with a caterpillar who questions Alice's identity. Who is she? You never grow old – the caterpillar grows up (changes) but he is still forever young. Alice's perception of what she'll be like when she's grown up is someone completely different to who she is as a child. The caterpillar asks her repeatedly who she is, until eventually Alice is no longer sure she knows the answer.

She talks about reproduction with the pigeon and caterpillar and she discovers she is two people: one virginal and one adult: “I have tasted eggs, certainly” (Carroll).

6/ Pig and Pepper
Alice learns the power of womanhood firstly when she encounters the pigeon and her eggs. The pigeon screams in fright at Alice thinking that Alice is is a serpent (due to her now grown long neck) and is scared that that Alice wants to eat her eggs. Then Alice meets a caterpillar, no doubt another phallic symbol. And then thirdly she encounters the Mad Hatter and his tea party where she realises there is no room for her in an all male world.  

Alice shrinks for a second time in size to get into a bachelor's house.“Well, then, the cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it is angry and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad” (Carroll). We are all mad - nothing makes sense so Alice gets frustrated and begins to feel the need for language to makes sense of things – she's like a foreigner in a country where she doesn't speak the language.

7/ A Mad Tea-Party

The Mad Tea-Party is the part of Alice's mind that destroys the White Rabbits watch. The Mad Hatter makes a mockery of the tea party which is traditionally very proper, and the tea party ensemble sing “Happy Birthday” – a baby's born day - "After the Hatter murdered time, time was no longer on his side and it was made forever tea-time".

“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking” (Carroll). Food keeps you alive but in Wonderland the characters don't need this kind of ritual because they don't need purpose or stability in routine.

“though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her...” (Carroll).

Towards the end of the chapter Alice gets frustrated because she can't make them understand her and once she leaves them and goes into the garden, she is appreciated for who she is and the truth about how she is feeling sets her free from Wonderland.

8/ The Queens Croquet-Ground
Nothing is as it seems - the roses are painted red, the croquet sticks are flamingos, and the Queen publicly orders the beheading of many characters only we find that no one is ever actually killed.

DUCHESS: 

"Tis so" said the duchess: “and the moral of that is – oh, tis love, that makes the world go round.

ALICE: 

“Somebody said" Alice whispered, “that it's done by everybody minding their own business!"

DUCHESS: 

"Ah, well! It means much the same thing!"

9/ The Mock Turtle's Story
Alice learns that her old school lessons can't teach her everything, “Wisdom is not a utopia. No utopia is wise. The world is not to be dreamed but to be transformed...To see things as they are, to know what one wants. Not to delude oneself, not to pretend...To know and to accept. To understand and to transform. To resist and to overcome...We must accept reality as it is, for we cannot transform what we do not accept.”


10/ The Lobster Quadrille
The characters talk about soup again – a dish with many ingredients, like life where too much pepper causes chaos.

11/ Who Stole the Tarts?
The rabbit knows the rules of the court and therefore controls it. We need knowledge in order to differentiate between truth and false. If there is no truth then there are no rules in court, and in Wonderland anything is possible because there is no truth and no knowledge.

12/ Alice's Evidence
Alice decides she wants to go home, much like Dorothy does in The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy also dreams of another land and follows a path to what she hopes will come to an end with an answer; time threatens her in the witches castle; and she meets three characters who symbolise the heart, brains, and courage of a person (love, success and persistence to go on). When she reaches Emerald City she realises that what she thought was real is not.
What allows Alice into Wonderland and not her sister is Alice's curiosity and belief in more than she sees around her.

 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

What the Characters Represent

Dinah
Childhood innocence. An animal that does not desire or need anything other than necessities. 

The White Rabbit
Time constraints in a mortal world that will always end in death.

Caterpillar
Phallic symbol. Being a young girl one day and then transforming into a sexual woman.

Pigeon
Feminine - Eggs and the vagina. The pigeon is scared of 'snakes' – fear of sex.

The Cheshire Cat
Discovering something that has and always will be there: a blank canvas.

The Mad Hatter
The part of Alice that wants to be completely and fully understood but never will be. The Hatter is her as a baby where time and language and social expectations did not exist.

The Queen of Heart
Things are not always as they seem. The external world.

Interesting Quotes

The Rule is Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday But Never Jam Today

This quote from the novel is a statement on procrastination: we plan for the future and we think about the past but doing this all the time means we don't allow ourselves any time to live in the present. Mark D White of Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy explains that we “recall that such goods are only seen as good in remembrance or anticipation but never during the actual experience of them.” White is saying that jam (what we really want) is only desirable because of the memory of it and the anticipation of getting it again but not the actual having it. Just like anything we ever lust after, we want it the more we can't have it, but when we do get it, it looses value. Instead of wanting the things that do not exist , we should learn instead to live in the actual time that is happening by wanting what we can have so that we can have jam every day!

If all I can know are my own perceptions of things as they appear to me then my perceptions must be the sum of my reality...

If we only ever pay attention to what is right in front of us we will be limited to what we can discover and learn in the world. Curiosity drives Alice down the rabbit hole. “We know that our experiences and perceptions are affected by expectation...emotional, hormones...childhood trauma...St Johns Wort...it’s as if we see perfectly clearly until we dream or drink a mysterious liquid, at which point things suddenly go crazy" (Scott F Harold). But are we crazy and the 'crazy' is normal? How do we trust our perceptions awake or dreaming? We are "never certain which state one is in, and therefore we must be aware at all times of the possibility that we are mad...but maybe drugs don’t lead to realer understanding of reality...that some drugs can sometimes precipitate mysterious experience, and one sees the world as it truly is". Reality is what we make it in the end - I would like to live life in a state of reality (reality being a place where there is time and thus a count down to an inevitable end) with fantasy intersected equally. I believe that whichever reality we choose to live, we should choose it because it gives us peace of mind and most importantly hope. 

Creating Other's Wonderlands

Having asked a friend to draw for me their life in pictures I devised a piece of theatre/film from the result. Funnily enough it turned out to closely mirror the same stories in Alice and The Wizard of Oz:

A man in a bar drowning his fears in drink and smoke whilst a busty blonde flirts nearby. He is writing poetry as he keeps thinking he sees the reflection of a woman in the mirror behind the bar, but every time he turns there is no one there. The blonde doesn't give the slightest bit of interest to his poetry and this annoys him but all the same he relishes the company of her. The fire alarm goes off and the sprinkler system goes hay-wire drowning the place in water. Everyone escapes except for Rex who finds himself handcuffed to the bar, thanks to the busty blonde. He struggles to get free as the water rises until finally his hand slips free and he crashes into the mirror behind the bar as the current sweeps him through it and to the other side. On the other side there is sun and he is dry. He spots the girl he saw in the mirror in the distance and calls out to her before chasing after her. When he catches up to the spot she was in he finds some food and suddenly realises that he is starving so he starts to eat when he sees the girl again so he goes after her again. This time when he catches up to the spot she was in, he finds a bed and he suddenly realises that he is extremely tired so he climbs in and goes to sleep. When he wakes up it is night time and the sky is tranquil filled with stars with a beautiful big moon, and as he turns he realises the girl in the mirror is sleeping next to him. He strokes her face and feels peaceful - time is still and nothing stirs except for a faint breeze. As he sits up careful not to wake her he sees something out the corner of his eye and realises it is the mirror again glinting in the moonlight. He stares closer at it and realises that on the other side is a girl who looks exactly like the mirror girl drowning in a room of water. He decides he has to save her and he strokes the mirror girls hair one more time before heading towards the mirror as it engulfs him in a shower of water. Suddenly he is submerged in water and he realizes that he is back in the Bar. He spots the girl he saw drowning and swims to her before pulling her to the surface and safety.