Pamela Okoroafor and Duncan Barton on The Snow Queen
November 18, 2008
“I love the journey that Gerda goes on,” says Pamela Okoroafor. “She starts out as a very naïve little girl and by the end of the play she’s a woman, really, because even though she hasn’t grown that much in age, mentally and emotionally she has. A lot of her journey is really sophisticated – it’s not something a little girl would normally experience, so it’s nice to play that role and to give her some of those qualities that I have.”
Okoroafor is explaining what she likes about playing Gerda in forthcoming West Yorkshire Playhouse production The Snow Queen. Its other main character, Kai, will be portrayed by Duncan Barton, whose explanation of what he likes about Kai underlines fundamental similarities beneath seeming differences. “His journey is very different, of course,” he explains, “because it begins and then he’s frozen in the Snow Queen’s palace, so it’s a much quicker one, and is more about realisation than what’s he’s done. It’s got this really nice bit where he realises that his journey is done and that he’s becoming, maybe not a fully fledged adult, but growing up and realising that he’s made a mistake and learning a lot from it. Both of the kids grow.”
The adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale about a little girl’s expedition to melt her best friend’s heart after it is frozen by the cruel Snow Queen is a new one by multi-award-winning children’s playwright Mike Kenny. Since Kenny is York-based, he has been able to contribute to rehearsals in person each week. As Barton notes, “he gives us some great little speeches in which he gives us what he calls his ‘PhD version’. You’ve got to make it appealing for adults as well, so he gives meaning to The Snow Queen and tells us how it’s about the journey into adulthood.”
Their confidence in the production might also partly arise from the fact that it is to be directed by longstanding Kenny collaborator Gail McIntyre. The partnership’s most recent yield was Beauty and the Beast, at the WYP last Christmas, and Okoroafor believes that McIntyre is adept at giving precious substance to children’s theatre. “It’s a very sophisticated children’s show,” she tells me. “It’s not patronising at all to children, and I think that’s what’s great about Gail’s directing.”
A profoundly atmospheric tale, The Snow Queen will also include songs and soundscapes by musical director Ivan Stott. The songs, Barton says, are mandolin- and guitar-based, with “a couple of bits of electric violin, glockenspiel, tambourine or mandolin”, and Okoroafor is keen to stress their acute focus: “The songs really aid the storytelling. I don’t think any of the songs is just there to fill in a gap. I love the fact that it’s literally songs that are telling the story, so it doesn’t feel like we’ve turned The Snow Queen into a musical.”
The vividness that the music, along with the set and costumes, must cultivate accounts for much of The Snow Queen’s tendency to carve itself onto young memories. Barton tells me that, after hearing about the production, he instantly recalled “a picture from one of the books that my mum used to have of Kai wrapped in the Snow Queen’s blanket” that has “stayed with me since”. However, both he and Okoroafor are adamant that one facet of the tale must remain enigmatic: the Snow Queen herself. “I like that we haven’t gone down that route of giving her and actor and a physical being, because I think that that would really detract from the piece,” remarks Okoroafor. Similarly, Barton argues that to do this might dampen it for audiences. “It’s more about what’s in Kai’s head, the power of suggestion and him putting the pieces together in his mind. For children, as well, we want to let them fill in the puzzle in their heads.”
-Pamela Okoroafor and Duncan Barton were talking to Simon Walker
Comments
Got something to say?