Proposal

In preparation for our IB exam in May, my Literature and Performance class read the book, The Whale Rider. In class, we have been discussing the book. My classmates also have to design our own version of the novel that would be performed as a play.
My adaption would be focused on the family dynamics between Kahu's family. One of the things that I would change about the novel would be that the whales would be minimally involved in the play. This is because it draws away from the focus on the family and is extremely challenging to stage both the actual whales themselves and the entire plot about the whales without looking entirely ridiculous. I also would tell Rawiri's stories about his time abroad in the opposite way that it is told in the book. I would move the stories that Rawiri mentions in his narration about his family's life to the center of the stage, with his times in the other countries to be shorter stories told by one of his family members as if they are reading one of his letters to Kahu.  I would also need to add more action that would happen with his family at home, so that there is enough things to happen in the large interval of time that he is gone.
There would also be major changes to the characters that I would include, decides the whales being made into background characters. I would shift the focus to be more on Kahu herself, as she has a very interesting story and is unintentionally the center of most of the family dynamics that the book explored. I also would add a small amount of interactions between Porourangi, because he was mostly left our of the novel, yet would have an extremely interesting role in the family dynamics that would be explored in my adaption. I also would cut out many of the unimportant characters, such as the boys that hangs out with and Jeff, because they have little impact on the outcome of the story and could only distract the audience from the main focus of my play, which is the family dynamics.
     As my focus is the family dynamics, I would also minimize the roles of the gods and the magical realism in the play. While I would include some crucial  parts of the mythology that are needed to help guide the audience through the plot of the play, most other examples of the mythology would be ignored. An example is how the stories behind Kahu's name and the whale rider would be kept,  while some of the periodical references to the gods would not be kept. This  would have played a very limited impact on the plot, especially since mine is focused on the family. It would also allow for the audience to focus more on the family and be less confused.
My stage would be extremely simple. One set would be for the outside of Nanny and Koro's house and the beach, which would, be shown by the ground being yellow and a palm tree. My second set would be their house's living room and their bedroom, which would be divided by a vertical wall at the center of the stage. My last set would be the ocean for where the whale's few scenes take place. It would have nothing on it, except for a blue backdrop at the back of the stage.
These are some of my ideas about my staging of The Whale Rider and the changes I would need to make to turn the novel into a play centered on the family dynamics.

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