Portora Royal School, which is a 'special' school in performing arts terms, impelling it to provide a wide range of extracurricular opportunities for its students in return for a major arts award it received last year, is presenting next week, Haiwatha', based on Henry Longfellow's epic of that name.
There are three evening public performances, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 6th-8th February, at 7.30.
LYRICAL STANZAS
There are few readers unfamiliar with the delightful lyrical stanzas of Longfellow's masterpiece that focuses on the oral traditions of the Mohican Indians who, we are told, inhabited, 'the forests and the praries, the great lakes of the Northland, the land of the Ojibways and the Dacotahs, the mountains, moors and fenlands where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gab , feeds among the reeds and the rushes'.
The poem is set in the twilight years of this most dignified and spiritually-focused member of the original American tribes, and is entitled, 'The Song of Hiawatha'.
Frank McHugh, who is a drama teacher at the school, and is in charge of the marketing of the performance, explained that the Portora's production is based on that of the Royal National Theatre, but adapted by its Portora producer, Caroline Peel.
IMPORTANT PROJECT
"We have a cast of 140, most of whom are Year 9. It represents a very important project for the specialist arts bid, with the pupils choosing either drama, dance, art and music. For instance, the 70 cast members from Year 8 are part of the chorus.
"The Year 9 pupils have been working on this since November and, obviously, more now. In fact, the entire cast will be out for the next two weeks, so it's a big commitment on them to really focus on the creative and the performing arts".
Caroline Peel, the Head of the Performing Arts at Portora, confirmed that, and spoke about her input.
"Yes, the script was too long, so I cut it down to an hour and 10 from two and half hours. It's very physical theatre where movement is as important as story telling and, instead of the one story teller, we have nine.
EVERY PUPIL
"The unique thing about this is that every pupil in Years 1,2 and 3 are involved. They've done the artwork. The music is very improvised, but it's starting to pull together. Would you believe, there's a movie in the second-half? What we've done is superimposed the children on, 'The Last of the Mohicans'.
"It's unbelievable to work with 140 children at the one time. Unlike ordinary drama, where you've just got the one thing happening and everything else stops, here the singing, the music, the drama and the dance are going on at the same time".
She was assisted in the production by Jeanne Munroe (music), Dylan Quinn, assisted by Helen Gibson, a drama teacher at the school (dance), all under the watchful eye of Sally Reece, the director.
WIGWAM
A commanding wigwam forms the centrepiece of the production for which the costumes were specially made by Caroline Peel's mother, Mena Clendenning who lives in Lurgan, and not from any old cloth either.
"They're made from sheets my mother got as a wedding present 50 years ago, so you can imagine the quality, and she passed them on to me. I thought I would make use of them for, 'Haiwatha' because I liked the colour".
Tickets are available at the school (tel 66322658) for the public performnces. Seats are unreserved.
