What would ‘The Shining’ look like retold by poets and writers? On 15th October we found out at the first event for Film Nite. All of the performers were given a section of the film, The Shining, and all channelled the strangeness in different, experimental ways. Jasmine Chatfield and Jack Nicholls hosted and they asked us of Stirred to respond to a short section of The Shining. The full line up was:
ZACH RODDIS + LENNI SANDERS + JOE COOPER + JASMINE CHATFIELD + JACK NICHOLLS + BECCA AUDRA SMITH + ANNA PERCY + EMILY INGLE
Anna Percy and myself worked on our section by responding to Wendy Torrence, what her role is as the frightened woman in the film, trying to bring a feminist twist or at least an investigation into what makes the character of Wendy tick. Fear, as it turns out. In particular Anna found an extract of Wendy’s dialogue where she literally says variants of, ‘Stay away from me’, four times in a row, the rest of it is denial and screaming. So we mixed this with Wendy Darling of Peter Pan, using Wendy’s Story which I found online here. You can download the pdf of this piece here: Wendy’s Story and you can also hear us perform it in this short extract from our set below, sorry for the shiningness of our faces!
Here is Anna reading her found poem:
Here is our piece that was included in the chapbook of the night:
Wendy bird is crying again.
Wendy is being lied to again, she can taste it.
She checks for the flavour with questions.
Nobody told her a tongue could lie to you
she spits when the iron comes and it is clear
ANYTHING THERE ANYTHING THERE AT ALL
WAS THERE ARE YOU SURE IT WAS THE RIGHT
ROOM ANYTHING THERE
What were you thinking, taking your family away for winter like a squirrel with nuts, look at your harvest now. Your eyes are weeping willows full of birds who couldn’t fly. Even as she smashes the plates the birds are failing to take flight from the shards
WHAT ABOUT SOMEBODY DID THIS THAT TO HIM
TO ME SOMEBODY DID THAT
Wendy once you rule out your version of what happened there’s only one possible explanation for this. You can’t trust the words that he gives. She can’t rely on the version that came between sleeping and waking
ONLY ONE EXPLANATION
YOURE TEPID MEAT IN HOT WATER
NOBODYS LOOKING FOR YOUR CORPSE IN THE SHOWER
WHAT ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE NOW
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Plus check out some of Lenni Sanders closing the night, prepare yourselves:
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