Introduction to Wolves of Willoughby Chase

When we came back after half term, we all brought in the play book and practised a read-through. Although none of us had been cast as a character yet, we allocated each other a character and did a full read through, which benefited those who had not yet read it. Then with Justine, we practised some dance moves that we thought represented wolves. We are all playing wolves in the play so it was helpful to learn all the moves.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was written by Joan Aiken, who was born in 1924. Many of her books, including The Wolves of Willoughby chase are set in an elaborate alternate history of Britain.

The play was made into a feature film in 1989. Russ Tunney adapted the book for the stage which tells the story of two brave and determined girls as they fight against creepy wolves, snowy wastelands and their very evil guardian, Miss Slighcarp. The opening of the Channel Tunnel has led to dangerous wolves roaming Britain, but this is not the only danger that cousins Bonnie and Sylvia, and their friend Simon the Goose-boy, must face as they encounter a variety of characters and mysterious schemes by the evil Miss Slighcarp and Mr Grimshaw. Russ Tunney says in The Adaptation in the playbook that Joan Aiken was a wonderfully imaginative writer who created evocative worlds and rich characters. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is essentially a thrilling adventure story about two children and their fight for justice and survival. He says the magic of wolves is the way in which you enter the warm hearts of the two young girls in the quest against frozen hearts of adults. He was determined to create a beautiful, snowy, icy, girls' world. He went on to explain that the story is really about the imaginary world of children - where there are secret doors in every room, where every adult is either a life-saving friend or a mortal enemy, where there is an adventure behind every tree, and most importantly where evil can be defeated by good. A world in which you could be saved last minute by a boy who lives in a cave, where a relative can recover last minute from her death bed. And most importantly, he says that "the more ridiculous the outside world, the better". I think we all bared this in mind when thinking about our characters, costume, props, and even set. We wanted to have this ridiculous set, and outrageous costumes, we know that the novel is based on fiction, we know from the very first part of the play:

"Once upon a time that never was,
  In 1832,
  In an England that never existed
  In the reign of King James III"

This paragraph states that not all the events or fact actually exist, such as King James III, he was never actually on the throne at this time, it was William IV. Also, in the play it mentions about The Channel Tunnel, which wasn't actually built until 1994. Wolves are also present in the novel a lot, but in those times, there were never really a huge quantity of wolves in the 19th Century, the were very rarely heard of, and people most certainly were not afraid to travel at night or leave their homes because "the wolves were hungry" like the characters in the play. I think the wolves are more like a metaphor for the evil people in the play such as Miss Slighcarp, Miss Brikett, and Mr Grimshaw. There is a scene where Miss Briskett is walking through the woods like a wolf. Cheese is also a metaphor for greed in the play as all the evil people in the play fret over cheese and always want cheese and talk about cheese. Mr Grimshaw also states in the play that 'women should always carry a gun' but that would have been very unlikely in 1832 as women were not actually permitted to carry guns at all.

When reading the play, we knew that we would have some reference in of Bertolt Brecht, specifically the ‘Verfremdungseffekt’ which is roughly translated as “defamiliarization effect”, “distancing effect”, or the “estrangement effect”, and often mistranslated as the “alienation effect”. To achieve this Brecht wrote, “stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them”. he used various theatrical techniques such as the actor’s direct address to the audience, very harsh bright stage lighting and the use of songs which would interrupt the stage action. In addition to this he used placards and even made the actors recite the stage directions out loud during the play itself. That is where we got the idea of using our own placards, where we projected images on the card for added affect and to create an ambience.

Russ also writes in the book that the director of his adaptation felt that the set should look like the inside of a dolls house and all the props should come out of toy boxes because it really helps in the play to see the entire world from the eyes of a young child. And also because journeys are an on going motif in the story, to use chests and suitcases. Russ says to "Be imaginative, conjure something gorgeous rather than something real. the girst that Joan Aiken has given you is that the play is set in a period that actually never existed, this means you have freedom" I think this quote was the part we all talked about most - freedom. There was no limit. We had this huge theatrical play to do what we want and express it how we wanted. So we created our set, in 3 parts, and hung sheets over all the bars to express 'freedom' we used chests full of props and suitcases to show the motif of travel throughout.