The shrinking Land of Kalku

On our last meeting the creative team told the rest of the Golden Travellers the story for the play at Chiswick house.

The story is about the land of Kalku which starts to shrink after the oldest member of the land dies, the rest of the dwellers then lose their faith in life thus causing the magic tree (need to think of a name for it) that provides everything they need to survive to die which then causes the land to shrink, pushing the dwellers into the human world. Once out in the human world members of different tribes are forced to come together to try and save Kalku. They are given clues by the elders of the tribes and so go on a journey together. On their way they meet Milky Magician, Kenneth the sad Caterpillar, The queen of the Water Nymphs, The Sphinx and the tree tricksters who give them tasks to do in order to gain pieces of a puzzle that they need to solve. While all of this is happeing the tree tricksters pop up now and again reiking havok and playing pranks on the protagonists while they try and complete the tasks. They also capture Hapu (one of the main characters) when he decides that he doesn't want to work together with the rest of the tribes and leaves to try and save Kalku by himself.

The rest of the tribes people, when they get to the magic tree, discover that Hapu has been imprisoned and have to try and let him free. Hapu refuses to apologise so the tricksters go to roast him on a barbeque (maybe) when they are stopped by the rest of the tribes people when they say that they want to abolish the tribes and live togehher happily and peacefully and that they don't mind that people die, they accept that there is a circle of life. The tricksters are touched by this and let Hapu go. They then get to complete the puzzle causing the tree to regain life and the world returns to it's normal size. They then celebrate by having a party.

For me, the story is about forgetting differences and learning to work together. As the schools we have been working in are vastly multi-cultural, we saw fit to make this a theme in the story so that perhaps the children take away from it and begin intergrating more with their class mates and thus when growing up take a more intergrated approach to their lives. The story is also about belief and faith, where faith is lost but regained and shows that if you keep faith then good things might happen.

I think that the play will work well when all put together as the children will be taken on a journey with the characters and will also give them a chance (in the second show) to be with their parents on this journey and also perhaps make parents see that culture shouldn't be something that keeps us seperate but something that brings us togehter.