The song ' Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' was originally written as a poem. It would be effective to use the original poem in our version of nation.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

BY JANE TAYLOR

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,

When he nothing shines upon,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny spark,

How could he see where to go,

If you did not twinkle so?

In the dark blue sky you keep,

Often through my curtains peep

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark

Lights the traveler in the dark,

Though I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Ideas for act 2

Scene 1 

• The stage directions say 'a year later' - to show this, everyone in the nation, will do repeated actions up on the stage to show time passing
• The God anchors will be given to audience members 
• Everyone in the cats will sing 'happy birthday' from wherever they are standing in the space 

Scene 2 

• Mau and Daphne are exploring the cave 
• We could through big, black sheets over the audience, then Mau and Daphne could climb under them to show the cave 
• The bodies in the cave should be rapped in dust sheets to show them being mummified

Scene 3

• The grandmother finds out her son is to be king 
• To show a change of scene, a table and chandelier should be bought on to the stage 
• The lights will be made brighter to show a completely different place 
• Gentlemen of the last resort will be dressed in different colour coats of have different colour umbrellas 

Scene 4

• Foxlip shoots Ataba 
• Foxlip and Polegrave should be hiding among the audience from the beginning of act 2 
• An umbrella from an audience member will be used as the gun

Scene 5

• Daphne takes Foxlip and Polegrave for tea 
• They sit down and a tipi is built around them ( made from brooms and mops etc) 
• When Foxlip drinks the beer, the ensemble will create a humming soundscape ,which gets louder and faster as he is dying 
• The song and his death will be made into a big ceremony 

Scene 6

• This scene is where Daphne has her trial 
• There should be members of the nation standing among the audience 
• Mau should be standing up on the balcony 

Scene 7 

• The raiders will walk up onto the stage 
• They will be drumming and chanting 

Scene 8

• there could be actors coughing in the audience to create a soundscape of the influenza outbreak 
• 'twinkle twinkle little star' can be sung by the nation- lyrics from the poem to add to the song

Scene 9

• Daphne's father will enter with several soldiers following him 
• Daphne's father should be standing on the balcony 
• the lights will dim when we comes in- show that he is confused/ struggling to see
• when he arrives the nation will be up on stage holding flags 

lyrics for 'South Australia'

The tribe sing this song in scene 10, as a celebration of being accepted onto the island. the stage directions read 'They sing as barrels of Sweet Judy food and rum are fetched. Tools are passed around'. In the scene have the ensemble are up on stage and the other half are on the floor between the audience. boxes are passed through the space and thrown up to the people standing on stage. 

In South Australia I was born, heave away, haul away

In South Australia, 'round Cape Horn, were bound for South Australia

Haul away your rolling king, heave away, haul away

Haul away, youll hear me sing, were bound for South Australia

As I walked out one morning fair, heave away, haul away

'Twas there I met Miss Nancy Blair, were bound for South Australia

There's just one thing that's on my mind, heave away, haul away

That's leaving Nancy Blair behind, were bound for South Australia

And as we wallop round Cape Horn, heave away, haul away

You'll wish to God you've never been born, were bound for South Australia

In South Australia I was born, heave away, haul away

In South Australia, 'round Cape Horn, were bound for South Australia

Research presentation

We got into groups and did some research into Polynesia and its culture. We then put all of our information into a prezi. Here is a link to it ...

https://prezi.com/embed/e9ssjnjgdyys/?bgcolor=ffffff&amp%3Block_to_path=0&amp%3Bautoplay=0&amp%3Bautohide_ctrls=0&amp%3Bfeatures=undefined&amp%3Btoken=undefined&amp%3Bdisabled_features=undefined

Ideas for act 1

Scene 1

•  a swarm of kids will enter through the building playing and messing around
• a group of the kids will approach the tree and birds will fly out 
• The children will become the birds and 'fly' off stage
• The balcony will then turn into the ship 
• The actors will all be on the balcony, then when they abandon ship they will run through the audience (chaos)

Scene 2 

• The Nation will enter from all different parts of the space - celebrating, singing, dancing 
• Mau should be dressed in all white (shows purity)
• Milton will be wearing very bright colours
• Locoha can wear black feathers around wrists and ankles 
• The tribal people should be bare foot, wearing flamboyant and over the top masks  

Scene 3

• The balcony will be the shipwreck 
• The stage will be the island and there will be sand on the stage 
• There will be two blue lights which will give the idea of the sea 
• Daphne will be standing up on the balcony holding a lantern
• Daphne will also be looking through a telescope and there will be a projection of what she sees on the wall

Scene 4

• Mau will be up on the stage and Daphne will approach him, walking through the audience
• they will have their first meeting up on the stage
• when Mau runs at her, both will retreat down into the audience
• Daphne will use an umbrella from an audience member as a gun

Scene 5 

• Scene 5 starts on the wreck of the ship
• Daphne and Mau have tea together 
• Daphne's grandmother turns into a bird - there will be a blackout and a puppet of a bird will appear to represent the transition of the grandmother turning into a bird 
• The interior of the ship will be below the balcony 

Scene 6

• Mau, Daphne and Milton are sending Robert's body off into the sea 
• The stage is the island and Roberts body will be sent off from the stage 
• People standing in the audience will carry the body along, as if they are the ocean 
• Locaha will be a collective of people 
• Use the push theatre company as inspiration for Locaha

Scene 7

• Cox enters at the back of the space and walks down through the audience towards the chief, who will be up on the stage
• Four radars will be standing behind the audience, drumming in unison 
• Cox will get dragged by the radars up onto the stage
• Cox shoots the chief and he will fall into the orchestra pit
• When cox says his monologue he will walk around the whole space 

Scene 8

• The night sky will be projected onto the walls and ceiling 
• There is a lot of nature in this scene - green umberellas will be used as tree tops 
• When Chale gives birth to twinkle she will be behind a lit up sheet, so the audience can only see her silhouette 

Scene 9

• A tipi will be created up on the stage and this will be where Chale gives birth
• The tipi will be made up of brooms, umbrellas etc ... 
• When Daphne sings 'twinkle twinkle little star' she will sing the first verse, then the ensemble will sing the chorus
• The song will show how Daphne is bringing her own culture to the nation 

Scene 10

• This scene is where Daphne and Mau suck milk from the pig 
• It will be a ritualised ceremony 
• Sow and piglets will be up on the stage 
• As Daphne and Mau travel to the sow, they will go through the audience

Scene 11

• Foxlip and Polegrave will be brought through the audience lead by a group of radars
• cox will come in through the double doors and go up onto the stage to look closer at the prisoners 
• the rest of the scene will be up on the stage 

Scene 12

• heavy rain - sound effects using rain sticks 
• Mau will be standing on the stage and Milo will be among the audience
• Ataba cuts his foot 
• the islanders will stand between the audience 

Scene 13 

• Mau, Milo, Pilo and Ataba are all on the boat
• moving in unison to show they are all rowing 
• Locaha will be up on the balcony 
• only hear the voice of Locaha 

Scene 14 

• Daphne will fall into the orchestra pit when she dies, then climb out when she goes into the under world 
• in this scene the actors should play with levels
• make the lighting dark and sinister  
• mysterious soundscape 

Scene 15 

• use puppets for the dream fish
• puppets on long sticks being controlled by people in the orchestra pit
• same lighting and soundscape as scene 14 

Scene 16 

• the whole of the nation will be standing up on the balcony watching over Mau and Daphne
• Mau and Daphne lying side by side under the balcony 
• their friends standing in a circle around them

Staging ideas

Scene 4 - The beach

Scene 4 is where Mau and Daphne meet for the first time. They struggle to understand each other and Daphne is wary of Mau. She gets frightened and produces a gun. She fires at him, but the gun hasn't got any bullets. They recover from the incident and Daphne apologies. She invites him for tea on the ship wreck. 

For this scene I thought that Daphne would walk through the audience, who would be sitting in traverse, and stop half way to observe Mau. Daphne speaks quietly to Milton about the boy she can see one the beach. When Mau, who will be on the stage, sees Daphne she can walk up there to be able to talk to him. They will have their interaction up on the stage, which will represent the beach. In the middle of the scene the stage direction says 'Mau stamps the ground in a ritual war chant and then charges forward', this will scare Daphne so both of them will run down off the stage and back into the audience. This will be when Daphne tries to shoot him, so she could get an every day object, such as an umbrella, off an audience member and use it as the gun. After the shooting, they will continue their interaction among the audience, until Daphne and Milton exit. At the end of the scene Mau talks to the grandfathers, who could be in the orchestra pit.

In our group we made a diagram of the stage and plotted the positions of the characters during the scene...

First impressions of the play

Nation is about a young girl, from Wiltshire, who finds herself washed up on an island called Polynesia, after being in a tsunami on the way to visiting her father.No one who was on the ship survived, so the girl is left alone. However she finds a boy on the island and meets his people. They form a strong friendship and together lead the Nation. 

The story of Nation is very spiritual. It includes elements of religion and science, and doesn't say that either one is right or wrong. The play is set in the Victorian era, but is ahead of its time because it has a female character who is very interested in the sciences, which was unusual for the time. In the play there is a lot of interaction with animals and nature is a big part of the story. Nature has power over the people, they cant fight natural disasters such as the tsunami. The play shows the contrast between two very different cultures, but it proves that people, however different, are able to unite and come together. 

When I first read the script I began to see that the dialogue between Mau and Daphne will be hard to execute in an effective way. When they first meet each other,they cant understand the others's language, but in the script they are both speaking English. When we devise this scene we will have to make it clear to the audience that they are supposed to be speaking different languages, by both actors using mime and finding creative and effective ways to show the audience their confusion and difficulty understanding each other. 

I also thought that the character Milton, who is a bird, could be a puppet. He has a lot of lines and is in many of the scenes, so the puppeteer could also be the voice of Milton, as well as controlling him. There is a balcony in the space where we will perform, so Milton will be able to fly down off the balcony, into the audience.