Act II Scene I: Her Parents’ Difficult Decision
from The Forgotten Kingdom

Note

In this video demonstration, the sand animation is a single, continuous video.However, in the stage production, the video is cut into 32 shorter segments. Each segment is triggered by the projections operator, once a particular moment in the musical score or script is reached. The segment plays and then holds, until the next cue. Each new segment picks up at the exact frame as the segment preceding it, to create the illusion of a single, smoothly flowing video, similar to the one you see below. This theatrical projections treatment results in unity and synchronization of projections and live performance while enabling variation in the pacing and delivery of each performance, like a play in which actors vary their delivery night-to night.

About this scene

Late 1930s, same Mediterranean village after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

 When the woman was a girl, her parents decided to remain in their village, despite imminent signs of danger. Her family had made it through other challenges before this one, bolstering her parents’ confidence that this time too would turn out alright. To assuage their daughter’s fears, they acted out stories of difficulties with happy endings.

Background

This scene portrays the feeling of listening to the headlines and hoping, beyond rationality, that one’s child will somehow make it through such dark times undamaged.

This scene poses a question about how we interpret the world around us: the maps we make in our minds to make sense of unfolding events. 

Like early explorers’ charts, these cognitive maps have some known points of land, and a lot of unknown, blank spots. We often fill in these undrawn spaces according to what we already know. 

In this case, the parents create a map that is full of optimism, even though the actual landmarks are unsettling. Both because the past has generally turned out well for them and also because they want so badly for their story to end with a golden “happy-ever-after,” they make a mental map that, in retrospect, is blindingly bright.

Sand Roles in the Performance

The Forgotten Kingdom — Sand Stories consists of 6 Sand Stories and 13 Digital Set Pieces. There are two acts and an interval. 

Related: Sand roles in the show