Children’s theater, OCU plan all-girl production of ‘Lord of the Flies’
When she isn’t blowing into a conch shell, Hailey Hart is arguing passionately for decent shelters, set bedtimes and staying “a bit civilized” on an uncivilized island.
Her character is known as Massachusetts, but if you’ve read the classic novel “Lord of the Flies,” her resemblance to original, ill-fated chief Ralph quickly becomes undeniable.
“Let’s be honest, if we were stranded on an island, I don’t know what I would do,” Hart said during a break in rehearsals. “You don’t know. And I think that’s gonna scare people almost when they leave, that like, ‘Wow, that was real and I don’t know how I would react.’”
The Oklahoma City University senior is part of a new all-female stage version of William Golding’s familiar 1954 story that will be performed Thursday through Saturday at OCU’s Burg Theatre. A co-production with TheatreOCU, the unusual adaptation is opening Oklahoma Children’s Theatre’s 2017-18 season.
“It’s interesting working with OCU because we’re able to do subject matter that we’re not normally able to do ... that is a little more mature, which is really good for our older audiences,” said Nathan Benfall, Oklahoma Children’s Theatre program director.
Reaching children
Although it is housed on the OCU campus in a former church now known as the Children's Center for the Arts, Oklahoma Children's Theatre is an independent nonprofit with the
mission of providing quality live theater and interactive educational experiences for young audiences.
What started asa program at Stage Center in downtown Oklahoma City in the 1970s became a stand-alone nonprofit in December 1986.
“We’re about introducing kids into the arts,” Benfall said.
Along with the co-production of “Lord of the Flies,” Oklahoma Children’s Theatre is planning an eclectic season with titles tailored for youngsters of all ages. While “Lord of the Flies” is recommended for audiences 12 and older, the season will continue Nov. 27-Dec. 17 with the all-ages show “Junie B in Jingle Bells Batman Smells.” Adapted from Barbara Park’s popular Junie B Jones book series, the show has become the theater’s annual Christmas tradition, Benfall said.
The participation play “Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz,” set for Feb. 23-March 7, is written specifically for 3- and 4-year-olds, an especially demanding and honest audience.
The folk story “Pecos Bill and the Ghost Stampede,” playing March 22-April, and the traditional fairy tale "Pinocchio," set for April 20-May 4, are intended to engage youngsters 5 and older with fantastical narratives.
While the theater primarily presents plays for preschoolers and grade-schoolers, Benfall said every few years, the organization stages titles aimed at middle school and high school students, like “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “Jackie & Me" and the current production of “Lord of the Flies.”
National consciousness
“Lord of the Flies” director Kate Brennan, an OCU assistant professor of voice and acting, said the all-female co-production was decided on last spring, months before it was announced that filmmakers Scott McGeheeandDavid Siegelhad made a deal atWarner Brosto write and direct a new version all-girl version of the savage story of youngsters stranded on a desert island. “Even when William Golding wrote the book he said this is specifically for a bunch of little boys that are trapped on an island … so what we’re running into is how do we justify? Because in our minds, I think we can agree, that if a bunch of women were on an island we would create a utopia with colorcoded chore lists, so I’m asking all of our cast members to really bring all of their perspectives," she said.
The film announcement drew widespread scorn online, and Hart said she could understand the frustrations that two men had beenchosen to make the movie. “I think that a woman needs to be the head of a project like that, especially whenever you’re breaking a mold like we are with this show and with this story. Whenever the story is so heavily violent between certain characters, I think that you need to handle it with a sensitivity of how women would act differently in those circumstances," she said.
Although similar all-female adaptations of “Lord of the Flies” have swapped in schoolgirls for the schoolboysin Golding’s original novel, Brennan said her version centers on a group of pageant contestants whose plane has crashed on an uninhabited island.
“It’s still young adults, and essentially we wanted to tip our hat to our Oklahoma City University’s long tradition of having very successful pageant candidates,” Brennan said. “Once these pageant girls aren’t being fed information about how they are to behave and what society dictates to them, they struggle to find out on their own, ‘Who am I? Who am I without the construct of society?’ It has been difficult at times, but we’re really trying to make really threedimensional characters.”
Brennan said her cast is working
word-for-word from the Nigel Williams’ “Lord of the Flies” adaptation.
Only the names have changed, with the states the contestants represent swapping in for the boys’ names. The one exception is the ill-fated character Piggy, who in this all-girl version is an intern working as a stage manager on the pageant rather than one of the competitors.
“I’m automatically kind of an outsider, which I think helps justify it, too. Because in the book, it’s just like, ‘Oh, they just don’t like it because he’s kind of a chubby kid who’s annoying.’ In this it’s like, ‘No, it’s because you’re not one of us,’ ” said OCU senior Alex Speight, who is playing Piggy.
“Something that Kate has kind of worked with is the idea that these people were just in a plane crash and the trauma that comes with being in a plane crash. … There’s times when I think that all of them are mean girls, and