BABAR
BASED ON THE
BY JEAN DE
FIRST BOOK
BRUNHOFF
In a world where everything is subject to the passing of time,
art alone is both subject to time and yet victorious over it'. Andre Malraux
Study Guide
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Dear Teachers:
Everyone seems to know the story of BABAR. We all remember the colorful images
of Babar getting his clothes at the tailor, Arthur, Celeste, the wedding, the
rhinoceros, old Cornelius. These books were our special stories from childhood.
Babar the Elephant is a French children's fictional character who first appeared in
L’histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff in 1931 and enjoyed immediate success. An
English language version, entitled The Story of Babar, appeared in 1933 in Britain
and also in the United States. The book is based on a tale that Brunhoff's wife,
Cecile, had invented for their children and tells of a young elephant called Babar
who leaves the forest when his mother dies, visits a big city, and returns to bring the
benefits of civilization to his fellow elephants. He becomes king of the elephant
kingdom, then has children and teaches them valuable lessons.
Jean de Brunhoff loved his family. He was a painter by trade which was why the
illustrations tell so much about his stories. He made the first six Babar stories and
died very early in 1937, around the age of 40. His son Laurent de Brunhoff, also a
writer and illustrator, carried on the series from 1946 onwards and new stories are
still coming out regularly.
Turning the story of Babar into a play meant examining all the little things that
bring sweetness to this story and giving it that very special rhythm that is unique in
to them. I decided that it was best to try to keep the story as close to the original for
the little ones and just told the first book, ‘The Story of Babar”. We open our play
in India(not specified in book) and gave ourselves permission to add lots of ‘in
betweeners’. We keep the story in order so that when your students are reading it
they will be following the play as well.
Music plays a very strong role in this production and we drew from classical music
from India, France and songs were written for this show by Kirk Elliott, a Toronto
composer. A cast of three actors play the many characters that the play offers.
We hope that your students will enjoy this classic story as told by little red theatre.
Thank you for inviting us to your school.
Jody Terio,
Artistic Director
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SETTING FOR OUR TALE
little red theatre makes MIXED media productions using strong visuals,
lots of colour, lots of layers and many quick changes. We set our opening
and closing sequences of the play in India and
decided to use the word’ forest’ in this play
rather than ‘jungle’. As one can see in the
landscape of Babar, there are (purple)
mountains in the background.
Because of its size and range of latitude,
topography, and climate, India is home to a
great diversity of ecoregions, ranging from
permanent ice and snow to tropical rainforests.
The Himalaya, which runs across India's northern tier, is the boundary
between two of the Earth's great ecozones — the Palearctic, which covers
most of temperate-to-arctic Eurasia, and Indomalaya, which covers most
of the Indian subcontinent and extends into Indochina, Sundaland
(Malaysia and western Indonesia) and the Philippines.
India's unique topography, terrain, climate and vegetation, brings out
natural diversity that cannot be witnessed anywhere else in the world.
One such variation is also present in India's wild forested regions.
We chose to set our play in the east section of India which enjoys mostly
tropical weather. The tropical forests in India's east present a total
contrast with the pine and coniferous woodland of the Western
Himalayas. The natural cover of India varies with high altitudes and these
evergreen forests are bounded with high alpine meadows nearer to the
snowline and temperate forests of short stout trees in the lower
elevations. Semi-evergreen rain forest is more extensive than the
evergreen formation partly because evergreen forests tend to degrade to
semi-evergreen with human interference. There are substantial
differences in both the flora and fauna between the three major rain
forest regions.
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Yes, by the way, Indian forests are disappearing and so are the elephants
in India.
The Indian Elephant is one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian
elephant, and native to mainland Asia. Since 1986 it has been listed as
endangered by IUCN as the population has declined by at least 50% over
the last three generations, estimated to be 60–75 years. The species is
pre-eminently threatened by habitat loss, degradation and
fragmentation. Indian elephants are native to India where populations
are restricted to four general areas:
in the Northwest — at the foot of the Himalayas in Uttaranchal and Uttar
Pradesh, ranging
from
Katarniaghat
Wildlife
Sanctuary to the
Yamuna River;
in the Northeast
— from the
eastern border of
Nepal in northern
West Bengal
through western
Assam along the
Himalaya
foothills as far as
the Mishmi Hills,
extending into
eastern Arunachal Pradesh, the plains of upper Assam, and the foothills
of Nagaland, to the Garo Hills of Meghalaya through the Khasi Hills, to
parts of the lower Brahmaputra plains and Karbi Plateau; isolated herds
occur in Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, and in the Barak Valley districts of
Assam
Artistic Vision for the play BABAR
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Babar is a complelling story remembered dearly from my childhood. I read those books many
times because they were available in the local library in my small town and was probably 6 and
7 years old. I always found them quite enchanting.
In 2009 I was researching which authors/painters/composers that had gone into public domain
as it is difficult to get the rights to these stories when they are still in the hands of the author or
his family estate. So I was particularly thrilled on one Saturday morning to see that Jean De
Brunhoff’s creation of Babar had become a public property and immediatley know that I
wanted to make it into a touring play for schools.
MUSIC:
I listened to the version that Poulenc created of the story but his music is not in public
domain and I also found it a bit unapproachable for children at this time. So after making a
decision to set the play in India (in the book the location is unnamed) I asked Kirk Elliott
who is well known in Toronto for his versatility with many world music styles and skills at
playing world instruments, to help me to put together a great soundtrack.
Kirk used a musical instrument called a SITAR to create that beautiful indian sound for the
first and last sections of the play where Babar is in India
The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music.
It derives its resonance from sympathetic strings, a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating
chamber.
Some of the music that we use in the show is classical andEuropean and is played when
Babar is in Paris. These compositions could be listened to by your class if you can track
down recordings of them.
Joseph Haydn - Trumpet Concerto in E flat.
Claude Debussy - From the Petite Suite series: En Bateau, Ballet
Gabriel Fauré - From Masques et Bergamasques: Ouverture
MASKS:
I employed Pamela Schuller www.stonemasque.com
to make the elephant headdresses. This is a little blurb on her website which describes her
work:
“The masks and projects use a simple, light and strong papier mache technique. This is an
excellent medium with which to explore colour, texture and form, and allows for highly expressive,
evocative and dynamic designs. The lightness and durability of the masks makes them ideal for
use in dance, theatre and parades. The moisture absorbency of the materials are greatly appreciated
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by anyone wearing them for extended periods. Wearable face masks, which are papier-mached from
Pamela's collection of face casts, are particularly comfortable.”
PAPER MACHE RECIPE:
This no-cook paper mache paste recipe is a good one to make with kids because it is easy to
make and does not require heat.
Materials Needed:
Water
Flour
Instructions:
To make this paper mache paste, simply mix together 1 part flour to 2 parts water. You will
want it to be the consistency of thick glue, but you also want it to be runny and not thick
like paste. Add more water or flour as necessary. Mix well to remove any lumps.
A few helpful tips I have read in regards to using this paste are:
If you live in an area with high humidity, add a few tablespoons of salt to help prevent mold.
If you don't like the smell of the glue mixture you can add a few sprinkles of cinnamon or
cinnamon to sweeten it up!
PUPPETS:
Nell Coleman, a puppet maker also living in Toronto was employed to make soft sculpture
life sized puppets for the Old Lady (whom we called Madame) and her granddaughter
Juliette (not a character in the book but a great foil for Babar). She sculpted their faces using
soft sculpture techniques and they are all made of cotton muslin and stuffing.
STORY LINE:
I wrote the play over a few months and do not change the story but I do a lot of ‘filling in the
blanks”. For instance we take Babar on a journey from India to France on his walk and we
take him throught he many countries that he is travelling through. In the book he walks a
bit and shows up in Paris!! There is a wide array of characters and an interesting range of
situations for Babar and children who read the book after seeing the play will find it
interesting to see what we added from the book and perhaps a discussion of why might be
useful for those budding writers in your class.
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MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT the play BABAR:
How did you make the shadow play?
Our large grey screen is covered with fabric that you can only see through when
there is a light shining on it. From the back where you can’t see we use a regular
high watt lightbulb, nothin’ fancy. We build our scenery inside the frame so when
the light goes on in the back and the lights go off in the front suddenly you can
see the scenery. We do this quickly to have that ‘ooh’ effect!! The scenery is
carved out of a material called ‘coreplast” which is like cardboard only plastic
and it is VERY durable. The little elephant and the car as well are also cut from
coreplast and a stick is taped to them so an actor can walk them across the set.
How long did it take you to make this theatre play?
I wrote the play slowly over a period of about 3 months. I had to think about it a
lot because I wanted to tell a good story but because we come to you in schools
we could only bring 3 actors in the van and they have to do everything. So I have
to do some thinking before I can write each section.
The composer took about 3 weeks to write and record all the music.
The actors were with the director for 1 week learning their lines and where to
move on stage. This is called ‘blocking’. They had the script and the music
ahead of time so they could learn the script and music before coming to
rehearsal.
There were 2 people who made our sets, Jason Brown and Scott Preboy. In total
they also spent about 3 weeks building the sets.
How old are the actors?
The general age of actors who work for little red theatre is between 22 - 30!! They
come out of university or college (usually from a drama program) and work for a
few years in non-equity theatres like little red theatre.
How did they change so fast?
During the writing of the play I was thinking about how fast the actor can change
characters before making a new entrance as another character. When the
costume maker is designing their clothes she/he is also considering how fast
they need to change. During the rehearsals the actors practice their changes a
lot so that they get used to them during the show. We use a lot of velcro in place
of buttons and elastic around necks and arms so that it takes just a little time to
get in and out of the garments. And our motto is:Our motto is:
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Practice Practice Practice!
Also the other actors on stage are distracting you so you sometimes think that
the actor walked off and 2 seconds later came back on. Not so!!
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When you are reading the first book, they refer to this animal:
DROMEDARY:
The dromedary (pronounced /?dr?m?d??ri/ or /?dr?m?dri/) or Arabian camel (Camelus
dromedarius) is a large even-toed ungulate with one hump on its back. Its native range is unclear,
but it was probably the Arabian Peninsula. The domesticated form occurs widely in North Africa
and the Middle East.
ELEPHANT TIDBITS:
Elephants enjoy wading in water, whether in rivers or muddy waterholes. There's no better way
of cooling down those huge bodies in the heat of the day.
When you think elephant, you probably think trunk. An adult elephant's trunk is about seven feet
(two meters) long! It's actually an elongated nose and upper lip. Like most noses, trunks are for
smelling. But they're also for touching and grasping.
Elephants need massive quantities of food about 300–350 lb a day. The diet of elephants
includes roots, bark, grass, leaves, berries, seedpods, and other fruits. Elephants will uproot trees
to obtain tasty treats from the top, or delicately pluck a single berry from a branch. Elephants
never roam far from water, and will travel great distances in search of it. They may drink up to
50 gal (189 l) of water a day, and after drinking their fill, will splash themselves with water and
mud, wash their young, and sometimes just frolic, tossing and squirting water about while their
young splash, play, and roll in the mud.
Read more: Elephant - Habitat And Food - Water, Elephants, Day, and Mud - JRank Articles
http://science.jrank.org/pages/2425/Elephant-Habitat-food.html#ixzz1iDmCbST9
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/african-elephant/
SEE BELOW FOR:
A STUDENT WORKSHEET
A PICTURE OF BABAR FOR YOUR STUDENTS TO CUT OUT AND MAKE!
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WORKSHEET FOR STUDENTS
NAME: _______________________
GRADE:_______________
BABAR
1.
What are some of the messages in this story?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
2.
Why is it important for Babar to go back to his forest in India?
______________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
3.
What was your favourite part of the play and why?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
4.
Draw a picture of your favourite scene in the play in the box below.
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5.
If you could write your own play, what would it be about?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
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We love to see your students’ impressions!! Send in your pictures and
worksheets to:
little red theatre
25 beaty avenue
toronto m6k 3b3
Jody Terio
Artistic Director
Audio CD of many of little red theatre’s plays are available
through the little red theatre website:
www.littleredtheatre.on.ca
4 Titles are available at the present time:
THE SNOW QUEEN
THE NAME OF THE TREE
THE NIGHTINGALE
THE UGLY DUCKLING
ABOUT LITTLE RED THEATRE:
Little red theatre was established in 1988 with the mandate of bringing professional
level theatre productions to young people. The company was founded by Jody Terio,
who has remained as Artistic Director since the organization’s inception. Little Red
Theatre produces multi-media performances of puppetry, music, dance and theatre, and
tours productions, workshops, and summer events throughout the City of Toronto and
surrounding areas. Productions are aimed at a Kindergarten through Grade 8
constituency and are presented at schools, libraries and special venues.
Since 1992, Little Red Theatre has been a non-profit registered charity and has financed
its productions through performance fees and charitable donations. The lion’s share of
revenues are earned, but additional funds are required to upgrade productions, increase
artistic fees, and improve marketing efforts.
Each year, Little Red Theatre strives to create original work inspired by new works of
visual art, great fairy tales and stories, and issues that children struggle with. Little Red
Theatre performances are full theatre productions with an emphasis on high quality
costumes, sets, visuals and great sound. We have 27 shows in our repertoire!!
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