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Swept Away by the Killer Ants
May. 16th, 2008 07:54 pmI wrote a play when I was 13 years old. It was inspired by the film Empire of the Ants [trailer] which I had recently watched on TV (it starred a young Joan Collins, who later went on to become famous in Dynasty). Because every film we watched in Brasil was dubbed in Portuguese, and their titles were usually different from the original, my play was called Ataque das Formigas Gigantes (Attack of the Giant Ants).
Did I type the play out on my Commodore Amiga 2000 and then print it out on my ribbon printer? Or was it written by hand because I still had my Sinclair ZX Spectrum at the time (which I only used for playing computer games that took forever and a day to load from their cassette tapes)? I can't remember. In any case, the play materialized on pieces of paper; I then quickly rounded up friends that lived in my building to play the characters and the ants.
It was hard getting those fickle actors to stick to their lines and be serious about the play. When it came time for the ants to attack and drag the girls away, they screamed in between fits of giggles. We rehearsed in a half-covered space more often used for hopscotch and the popular brasilian game "Kiss, Hug or Shake of Hand"[1] - it was very frustrating to live in a building that didn't accomodate theatre stages for such a budding director as myself.
After a few rehearsals, we decided to go ahead with our great press night opening. Unfortunately, a storm was approaching and we didn't have an audience. We had to run for cover from the whipping rain before the climatic finale.
I remembered all of this today in the Tube ride home. What triggered it was a passage in Margaret Atwood's memoir on writing, Negotiating with the Dead, where she mentions a novel she started as a seven-year-old, about an ant swept away on a raft. I wish I still had my play.
[1]"Kiss, Hug or Shake of Hand" (or "Beijo, Abraço our Aperto de Mão") is played in the following manner: one person is the leader while everyone else sits down. The leader selects someone - either randomly or not - and covers their eyes with his hand. With the other hand, he points at different people sitting down and asks the blinded individual "do you like this one?", "what about this one?" The blinded person says no until they think they have someone they like (usually helped by the leader squeezing the person's face with his hand). The leader asks "do you want a kiss, a hug or a shake of hand?" The person's wish has to then be satisfied. This game became very popular with us once we reached puberty.
Did I type the play out on my Commodore Amiga 2000 and then print it out on my ribbon printer? Or was it written by hand because I still had my Sinclair ZX Spectrum at the time (which I only used for playing computer games that took forever and a day to load from their cassette tapes)? I can't remember. In any case, the play materialized on pieces of paper; I then quickly rounded up friends that lived in my building to play the characters and the ants.
It was hard getting those fickle actors to stick to their lines and be serious about the play. When it came time for the ants to attack and drag the girls away, they screamed in between fits of giggles. We rehearsed in a half-covered space more often used for hopscotch and the popular brasilian game "Kiss, Hug or Shake of Hand"[1] - it was very frustrating to live in a building that didn't accomodate theatre stages for such a budding director as myself.
After a few rehearsals, we decided to go ahead with our great press night opening. Unfortunately, a storm was approaching and we didn't have an audience. We had to run for cover from the whipping rain before the climatic finale.
I remembered all of this today in the Tube ride home. What triggered it was a passage in Margaret Atwood's memoir on writing, Negotiating with the Dead, where she mentions a novel she started as a seven-year-old, about an ant swept away on a raft. I wish I still had my play.
[1]"Kiss, Hug or Shake of Hand" (or "Beijo, Abraço our Aperto de Mão") is played in the following manner: one person is the leader while everyone else sits down. The leader selects someone - either randomly or not - and covers their eyes with his hand. With the other hand, he points at different people sitting down and asks the blinded individual "do you like this one?", "what about this one?" The blinded person says no until they think they have someone they like (usually helped by the leader squeezing the person's face with his hand). The leader asks "do you want a kiss, a hug or a shake of hand?" The person's wish has to then be satisfied. This game became very popular with us once we reached puberty.
