Cute Idea #3: The En Route Event
This is different from a whacky transportation scene. When an actor is transitioning from one location to another, funny events can happen:
Class, Becky is going through the forest. Does she go by automatic toilet or by toad, class? That’s right, class, she goes by toad (that is the whacky transportation scene). But class, watch! A big gorilla crosses her path (this is the en route event)!
In order to create the “event”, at this point you ask a student to roll a basketball across the room in front of Becky to represent the gorilla. But, before going to the next idea, detail the appearance of the gorilla/basketball. A few minutes of questioning produces a big white gorilla with an absurdly large nose with three nostrils in a bad mood because it’s Monday.
So the gorilla is an unexpected event, an “En Route Event”, which only occurs between locations.
When the gorilla crosses the path, you can ask the class how the actor responds to this event:
Class, is Becky afraid or is she happy? That’s right, class, Becky is afraid.
Now you have the option to create a dialogue or monologue based on the scene.
(Always keep in mind, when you think of how you structure stories, the great value of dialogues in stories. They give opportunities for meaningful verbal output in class, and for moving between 1st, 2nd and 3rd person points of view.)
So, recognizing the gorilla crossing Becky’s path as an opportunity for dialogue, instead of going on with the story and missing the chance, you ask Becky:
Becky, are you afraid?
Yes, I am afraid.
Becky, tell the gorilla that you are afraid!
(If the actor balks, you always have the Susie Gross “jump-in-behind-the-actor” option to say the words for the actor, who lip synchs them. However, a good actor will jump on the chance they have at this point in the story, milking it for laughs, as long as you make your sentences simple enough. When they do so, remember to heap the praise on not just for the language but also for the acting.)
Becky says:
Big gorilla, I am afraid!
Next, give the gorilla a voice. This is best done by a student, perhaps the one who rolled the basketball across Becky’s path to get the event started. What does the gorilla say? Does it growl? Does it insult Becky? How does it respond to Becky’s expression of fear?
A possibility:
I scare people!
You could develop this dialogue or leave it alone, depending on the energy. Learn to fabricate language based on what is happening in a story and not on “having” to teach certains words from a list.
One option amidst dialogue is to ask one or both of the characters to speak their internal dialogue in monologue form. What are they thinking?
I scare you? Really? I am happy! Grr!
Becky next could speak her thoughts:
Oh! There is a big gorilla growling at me at 7:10 a.m. in the forest and?I have been walking for a very long time. I am afraid! What should I do…etc.
If you have the discipline to stay on a scene longer, without rushing through, you can bring the class in, giving valuable repetitions in 1st and 2nd plural forms:
Class, are you afraid or is Becky afraid?
Perhaps (a well-trained advanced) class can answer in the Toy Story 2 alien voices of the little green martians:
Nous n’avons pas peur. Le grand gorille blanc nous protège!
(We are not afraid. The big white gorilla protects us!)
The En Route Event is really just an excuse to set up different verbal points of view very nicely through dialogue/monologue. The expression “We are not afraid!” could become a T-shirt phrase.
Moving into various points of view is difficult in storytelling, and the En Route Event allows ample opportunity for practice in this area. Truly, some of the best moments in stories happen when you stop the story and encourage the actors to briefly speak to one another.