Critical review of Operation Juniper Tree


“There's no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”
Maya Angelou

“I need to tell you this story, but I'm going to tell it through the Juniper Tree.”

Once Upon A Time … I wanted to tell a story. This was my objective in creating Operation Juniper Tree. Jo Blake Cave, a storyteller and theatre maker said “you tell a story because it’s the right story at the right time.” I have always loved reading and listening to fairy tales, but when I read the Juniper Tree I just knew that I wanted to tell it to an audience, the right story at the right time. It was through the devising of the piece that I could start to explore why I wanted to tell it. I have had a lot of inspiration and influence from various sources which link to the human need to share stories. I achieved my aim, I produced a piece of storytelling around the Juniper Tree and shared it with an audience.

My final performance was the retelling of Philip Pullman’s adaptation of the Grimm’s ‘The Juniper Tree’. I had a carefully marked out space with white lx tape, there was one large rectangle with a box of tissues placed in the centre and a smaller rectangle upstage right corner of the larger box with a small pile of dark red apples, these were both lit with a larger rectangle of light. The piece was framed with myself introducing the need to tell the story and ending with gratification of telling the story. I tell the story of the Juniper Tree through the various characters of the story. I used the tissues and the apples as props to embody various objects and people in the story.

I named my piece Operation Juniper Tree; the title took inspiration from the recent Police investigation Operation Yewtree. I watched the documentary Abused: The Untold Story (BBC) in which victims of Jimmy Saville shared their abuse stories. The program focused on how many of the victims kept their stories hidden because they didn’t think anyone would believe them. The documentary also showed the perspectives of other people involved, the parents and the partners of the victims, the journalists who had been told the stories. I was struck by how the weight of a story can affect people, how the story changed through the different perspectives of those involved and how precious it was to the teller. I used the idea of looking at the story through the different lenses of the characters in order to allow the audience to hear the tale through a witness, the abuser and the abused. I think this was one of the strongest parts of my piece. Moving between the characters allowed me to explore them in more depth, particularly the step mother and her evilness, but also elaborated on the metaphor within the tale of the Juniper tree and the boy’s mother being linked together. The most challenging part of multi rolling the characters was making sure the audience were clear in being able to tell who was telling the story, this was the reason for breaking the narrative to introduce them so the audience was clear on who was telling the story so as the story flowed. It was also challenging in making the characters different, although I tried working with physicality and voice to get clear differentiations I think this could have been pushed further, especially with the three witness accounts who retold their experience of hearing the bird song. Due to restrictions of ability in voice I think these were still similar and all had thick Leeds accents. However, I didn't feel I lost the audience and they were able to follow the story.

I had mapped out the world of the story with white lx tape, however, I think I should have used a rug instead. A Turkish rug, with an intricate pattern, would establish a more domestic environment for the inside of the house in which the story was set. I began the piece with an introduction as myself, a narrator before stepping into the story. I think the rug would have made this framing device clearer in intention. I had played with the idea of telling the story as a therapy device, I don't think this was made clear enough with the white tape. Whereas a carpet would have conveyed a more comfortable atmosphere. I think this would have also juxtaposed the evil the step mother character and her actions within the space making her scenes more jarring and uncomfortable for the audience.

A key moment of the final performance was a stylised weeping action that was repeated in the piece when weeping was key within the story. It was recurring image in the text which I thought was important to highlight, it linked back to the documentary and how people dealt with their emotion in telling the story. It struck me the inner conflict people had; the need to tell the story but struggling to find the words to tell it. The piece began with the weeping, as well as the beginning words, phrases being stuttered. This was an attempt to replicate the inner conflict I'd seen in the documentary. The weeping action was then repeated to punctuate the moments of weeping in the story. I think this helped in keeping the piece consistent with clear images being repeated keeping the audience focused with a key concept I had worked with; as the piece moved quickly through the character changes. However, I think the timing of the weeping didn’t work and broke the flow of the story, I felt this particularly the second time I did it during the description of the change in season/ pregnancy cycle. The text had a rhythm and the weeping broke the rhythm.

In the final performance of piece there was a problem with the use of the apples. I had established a clearly marked out space with the lx tape and the light, establishing the fantasy world of the story. I used an apple as a representation of the boy in the Juniper Tree and established a clear rule of the space of each character, for example I only entered the large tape rectangle when I was narrating or was the step mother. During the performance however, the apples kept rolling out of the space which broke the illusion of the special world of the story I had created. This was most prominent during the step mothers torment scene, when trying to destroy all the apples to represent the torment and fury of the step mother. I think the metaphor of the apple broke in the audiences mind and the image I had created of the boy being the apple lost its power because the apple became the object it was when rolling out the space and into the audience. The power of story telling is building the image up in the audiences mind and the destruction of the apples had been a successful action, which received good feedback from rehearsals, as making the scene with the step mother cooking the boy grotesque. The broken illusion lost some of the power and also energy of the step mother which I had built up in the scene. It made me panic in the performance and did not commit to the mothers torment and therefore the climax was lost, the torment needed to be there but it needed more energy and confidence. It was interesting to see how fragile the world, I had created, was and how much storytelling depends on the imaginations of the audience. Once the apples had crossed the barrier between the fantasy world of the story and into reality the magic of that bit of the story was lost.

However, one image that came from the final performance was after the step mothers torment. As part of the character of the Juniper Tree/ boys mother I had an established tree like stance which I returned to whenever portraying the character in the performance, the birth and rebirth of the boy we marked with my arms reaching above my head and clapping. It was in final clap, in which the boy is resurrected as a human boy, when due to the destruction of the apples my hands were covered in pieces and juices from the fruit. The action caused highlighted with a spray from the apple remains on my hands. As I had established a link between the fruit and the boy it created a strong final image.

“I’m glad I told this story, I've been wanting to tell it for a long time.”

The Juniper Tree is a beautiful story, it is rich in narrative and detail unlike most fairy tales, as Philip Pullman comments “For beauty, for horror, for perfection of form, this story has no equal. 198” I’m pleased with the form in which I presented the story it allowed me to portray some of the themes, I had felt as important, without taking away the ability for the audience to take what they wanted away from the story. I think that some moments needed to have been pushed further, especially the step mothers torment and the witnesses as previously mentioned. However, I very much enjoyed performing the story to an audience, I think that the story chose me as much as I chose it and is a the start of a repertoire I would like to continue to build. “What a privilege it is to tell this story.” (Philip Pullman 199)

Works Cited

Abused: The Untold Story. Dir. Olly Lambert. BBC. London. 11 April. 2016. Television.

Blake Cave, Jo. “Storyknowing: A Festival and Symposium of Storytelling and Theatre with Young People.” The International Centre for Arts and Narrative. York St John University, and York Theatre Royal, York, IN 22 April 2016. Keynote Address.

Pullman, Philip, Jacob Grimm, and Wilhem Grimm. “Grimm Tales: For Young and Old.” London: Penguin, 2012. Print.