Living The Dream...

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nocry gathering in harstad an instant theatre performance postscript harstad - norway - 10 participants - 19.08.10

a brief prologue �Lets create a new play & then act it out�; encouraged the storygather to the audience...

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Living The Dream "

a folktale - the princess & the crow

(page 1 - 4)

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Living The Dream "

It was almost the middle-of-the-day again & The Princess was in bed sleeping off the effects of the night before. Outside the castle tower window it was a lovely spring day with the sun shining. As usual she had been out all night long until six o’clock in the morning & was now only beginning to rouse herself out of bed with, as usual, a pretty awful headache.

Princess Pia was eighteen years old & lived in a shiny silver & grey, medium sized, castle that had many decorative turrets & towers. Her bedroom was at the top of one & it was usual for her to rise with a bad head after a good night out. So when, in her dreamy stupor, she reached for the bell-pull & pulled it in the middle-of-the-day people in the castle all knew what that signalled.

A large piece of Chocolate Cake please!

After a night-out-on-the-town that was all The Princess could think about, eating something. It was the best & perhaps the only thing she could think of eating when feeling the way she often did in the mornings. She knew, once she pulled that bell, it would summon someone to bring exactly what she needed. Confident her wishes would soon be fulfilled she fell back to sleep again & somewhere inbetween Princess Pia had this waking dream.

It was autumn time & outside the castle the leaves were changing their colour. Her bedroom window was half open window when suddenly a Crow perched on the window sill & began to speak to her. The Crow told her that it had been sent to deliver a message from the neighbouring king & the message was this: Your neighbour, The Fat King, wishes to marry you because you are so young & beautiful. He knows that you do not like him but he has a proposition to make (The Princess actually detested this king, so much so it made her feel physically ill & want to throw-up or, as Pia preferred to say, “puke!”). If you agree to be his wife he will give you great treasures & “as much gold as there are leaves on the trees”. The Fat King awaits your decision with anticipation...& then The Crow flew from her window.

Just then Princess Piia woke-up to the sound of Prince Charles, her sixteen year old brother, knocking on her bedroom door. He had heard the bell, knew his sister had been out all night & had decided to bring her the cake himself to find out how she was.

The Princess begged her brother to enter &, with great excitement, insisted he listen to what had happened in her waking dream. Wasn’t it amazing? It must mean that it would happen & she was had thought about it already so much & decided already how she will reply to The King’s marriage Proposal. “Oh Charles” she said; “My dream will come true, I’m going to be Queen!” (page 2 - 4)

Prince Charles was very surprised by her attitude and tried, in vain, to calm her down saying that her dream was just that, a dream, & that it couldn’t possibly become true, or be any kind of prediction, especially because that very same King had just died the day before.

He said he was sorry & that it was clearly not meant to be & perhaps she ought to calm down & eat her chocolate cake & where, by-the-way, had she been last night & with whom, why & doing what?

Princess Pia ignored her bothers questions & thought about what he had just told her. The news was desperately disappointing as she had felt so sure that this dream would happen, because it had seemed so real. Even though she really, really couldn’t stand The Fat King she had really loved the idea of the power she would have as Queen, as well as all the treasures. She had already prepared herself to learn to love him knowing that she would own as much gold as there are leaves on the trees.

“Oh bother!” she cried to her brother & stamped on the chocolate cake left on the floor, she had been in too much of a rush to eat it.

What with her night out the night before & awakening with a bad headache & then discovering her dream would not be coming true stepping on her favourite chocolate cake was the last straw. Now she would not have her cake or even eat it. This made her very, very upset & for the sake of this story we will not repeat the many swear words she used, perhaps it is enough to say that she lost her temper & began to swear a lot! When all of a sudden, in through her window, appeared the very same Crow that had visited her window in her dream & it was really able to speak, yet this time it simply said to her;

“Now that’s my kind of language!”

Shocked, surprised & afraid of The Crow all the poor Prince Charles could do was scream, he didn’t believe in dreams or that animals could speak. It was all too much for him. It was also then, observing her brother’s reaction, that Princess Pia remembered something else. She was reminded of a young man, a cute boy even; she had once played with, the son of The Fat King, Prince Timothy. Now what had become of him? Some said that The King had ordered him to be hidden away & protected from publicity, that he still lived somewhere in the great black castle. What if he would marry her? He was now King. Shouldn’t he fulfill his father’s proposal, even if it had only been made in a dream, & make her desire to become a Queen come true?

Surely this was meant to be thought Pia, first the dream, then The Crow & then The King passing away so suddenly, it was all too much of a coincidence. The Princesses made her mind up there & then. Prince Timothy must be found & persuaded to marry her & make her Queen.

Immediately she insisted that The Crow go to The Black Castle & fnid the young prince, wherever he was hidden, & demand that he keep his father’s promise & marry her. The Crow must not forget the promises, the princess took great pains to coach The Crow in exactly what to say to make sure that The Prince understood the marriage agreement & be prepared to give her great treasures as well as, as much gold as there are leaves on the trees. The Princess made The Crow promise to do this all politely, cute even, & to particularly highlight the need for The Prince to deliver on the promise of plenty of gold. (page 3 - 4)

By now the weather had changed dramatically, there was a storm building. It was raining hard as the crow set off towards the neighbouring King’s Great Castle & straight into the black castles kitchens.

The Castle had great walls of thick stone but The Crow knew that The Prince was hidden somewhere deep in The Dungeons. In fact, as we will discover, The Crow knew more than he was admitting.

Cleverly The Crow hid under the cover of a serving tray & went down to the cellar with the prince’s meal in the dumb waiter.

Immediately the crow jumped out & surprised Prince Timothy. He was, like Pia, eighteen years old, but Timothy had never been allowed to grow up properly being kept in the dungeon. Even though he was now a young man he was still playing with his toy soldiers, wooden horses & wearing a pink ballet tutu. The Crow appearing out of his meal tray frightened him immensely. The Crow was equally shocked to see the sad state The Prince was in & understood he was not ready to become King. The crow decided to change the message he had been sent to bring. It had been his plan all along to help The Princesses dreams come true. So here’s what The Crow told The Prince: Princess Pia accepts your fathers proposal of marriage & demands that you honour it immediately & marry her in his place, that you must keep his promises of treasures & gold. However, should you prefer not to take your place as King or make Princess Pia your Queen then you have but one way to escape this contract & its commitments honourably. You must give The Princess the great treasures & “as much gold as there are leaves on the trees”. What is your decision Prince Timothy?

The poor Prince looked very innocent, uncomfortable & bewildered. Marry a Princess, why? Become a King, what for? Why should I worry? I’m happy living down here he thought. Go ahead, he said to The Crow; “take whatever treasures you like & give The Princess as much gold as there are leaves on the trees, those things matter little to me.”

The Crow did as he was bid & left The Boy Prince playing happily with all his toys. That wasn’t the only “Happy Ending” to the story either. There were to be many. The Crow took enough treasure to pay for his own plastic surgery & transformed itself into a Prince & then, with the riches, went to see The Princess. It was love-at-first-sight for Pia. It was actually everything she had dreamed of, this was the reason she went out at night, looking for her Prince. So much so that she forgot all about really having as much gold as there are leaves on the trees.

The Crow was very happy to have found love by helping The Princess discover hers & by helping her dreams come true. He was proud he had found a way to get-the-girl through his own ideas & enterprise & was very happy to know that Prince Timothy was also pleased with his happy ending as well. The Crow & Princess Pia were married & everyone lived happily ever after while the sun came out to shine again.

A Moral May Be: If beauty is “only skin deep” might courage be found by “living our dreams”?

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