Hansel and Gretel Performance

The Story from the Symbolists: At the beginning we cut right to when
the witch has the children captive. Hansel and Gretel (Played by
Anthony and Greta) quickly dispose of the witch in the oven, which
they used the SLU elevator to symbolize (Which was a pretty good
idea), The rest of the story fallows the siblings has they try to make it
home with their golden goose. The motivation for Gretel is that needs
to bring back her brother without him wasting all their money in the
goose. But the conflict for the siblings is that they keep encountering
silver tonged salesmen that try to pawn of their wares for the goose.
The best part for me was the continuous moving stage as we traveled
the halls of Noble, which reminded me of the Oscar winning film
Birdman where the movie never stopped as it was made to look like
it was filmed in one shot.

I believe the elevator was the strongest supporter of symbolism for the
symbolists. In the beginning of the play we got to se the witch get
disposed of in the elevator which represented the oven, and in the end
of the play the elevator was the welcoming home of the two children.
Although I would say that was their strongest use of symbolism, they
could have made it a little better. If they started the play on the top
floor, the elevator could have represented the oven and the witches

decent to hell. And when the children got to the end of the play, the
elevator could have represented their home and the rise to a higher
status. Also I was confused on what

Hensel and Gretels symbolism was. Because the actors gave them
similar clothes for a reason, unless it was to show how close they are
to each other.
For the message of the symbolists play, I believe they were showing
how that no matter what happens, you need to keep moving forward
and never look back. Hansel and Gretels goal is to make it home and
use the goose to better their financial situation, but along the way they
are tempted multiple times into giving it up. So they had to keep their
head down and had to learn how to block out all the distractions on the
path to their goal. Also with us being forced to fallow them instead of
sitting in chairs and watching the scenes play out, we partially
experienced their journey and their struggle with blocking out the
temptations.

For the Expressionists, our story started when the parents ditched the
children in the woods. Afterwards we watch Gretel as she wonders
through the woods till she comes across the witch house. We didnt
show the candy part of the house because we wanted to keep the
nightmarish feel to it. Breaking into the witchs house, Gretel and her

stuffed brother find a table full of food, and here is where the climax to
the story starts. While Gretel starts gorging herself on the feast before
her eyes, The Witch/Stepmother steals her brother away from her and
decapitates him. This results with Gretel losing it and chasing the Witch
around the room and slamming her to the floor, before finishing her off
with the knife on the table. The motivation for Gretel was to survive
the woods with her brother, and when her brother was killed, Gretel
lost her need for survival.

For me personally, I think our greatest supporter of expressionism in

our play was the writing. To reflect expressionist plays we kept dialog
minimal, with action being played out through acting and action
through the narrator. Also I made sure that whenever we had dialog, it
was expressive and short as possible. Noah did a great job of carrying
the entire play just through his narration, which is key for an
expressionist play. While the rest of us had to focus hard on action
through movement and action rather than lines, which was fun to do.
A big factor in this play was the set. Minimal and nightmarish thanks to
our work with the lights, the stage was set to bring the scary woods
and witch hut to life. What I like about the set and the narration over
dialog was that Noah and Alec were actors without having to act. Noah
carried us through narration, while Alec had to be on point to deliver
the vision we pictured for our stage.

The message of our play was watching Gretel overcome all. Although
she was played by 20 something Weezie, she was always pictured and
played to be a small girl. And sometimes in the Hansel and Gretel
stories, Hansel is the one leading Gretel to the safety. Or it requires
the two of them to outsmart the witch and overcome evil and
starvation. But in our play Hansel was useless just like his father. This
required Gretel to do more and it made her character arc more well
rounded when the one time she let her guard down, the witch kills her
brother. And she finishes her arc as a character growing up and facing
the world when she kills the Witch.

Dadaism what happened: Kind of hard to describe what happened,

which is good for Dadaism. The actors recreated Hansel and Gretel by
randomly drawing scenes for their story. Each scene was loosely based
of H&G, but enough to see it there. We had the witch chasing the kids
around the music room, Hansel lighting a campfire outside, and the
mom and dad telling the kids they are going to abandoned them in the
woods, which they were fine with. And the finishing touch to the great
(and hilarious) story is that all the characters gather to sing a song
about a duck. There is not much more I can add, it was great to watch,
but hard to pinpoint the story.

This group did a hell of a job when it came to displaying the ism.
From the Cheetos, the song at the end, dragging us throughout the
house, and lighting things on fire, there are so many good choices for
best depiction of the ism. But what I thought was the most creative
and most absurd by far was the drawing of the scenes. Just how all but
one of the actors decided to lie on the floor in a plank position, then
the play would continue because of a random draw, and the actors
would scream the number of the scene is genius. Just how the actors
had to do the play out of order because of a random draw screams
Dada to me. Also how they did this all in onezies (however you spell
that) and had Cheetos thrown at them is insane, but perfect.

Message of the play: Everything is pointless and art is dead.