Artistic Discoveries in European Schoolyards

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Frost damage

Frost damage
is a play for children of about 12 years old, to be played by two actors in classrooms. It is based on biographical data of the youth of a man who is now about 60-years old, living in the north of The Netherlands.
The play is situated around an old-fashioned coalfired stove, in the back of the classroom somewhere up North in the ‘60’s. Associations of warmth, a family life, possibilities of warmth people can give to each other. Some scenes are located in the classroom, other scenes in a cowhouse, a factory and so on.

`Mother and I’ is a story of not being wanted and of neglect.
Eric is born to a mother who didn’t tell anybody that she was pregnant. The boy is born in a cowhouse. When the farmer finds his housekeeper he doesn’t know whether the bucket with water she took with her, was meant to wash or to drown the baby.
The mother is sent to town. Her hobby is acting. She always takes Eric to rehearsals. When he is 7 years old, he plays Hansel in the Christmas pantomime Hansel and Gretel. His mothers corrects him if he calls him mother, because she is playing the witch: I’m a stranger to you.
Eric tries to win the attention and love of a female teacher by buying her flowers, but she doesn’t see the signs of a neglected boy. Eric is becoming a nasty pupil, often punished.
Eric is very often alone at home. He makes up stories being a popular train driver who is bringing everybody home safely. He imagines being a hero: a knight, or a detective, or a rich boy giving presents to everybody. Eric finds the key of the blanket factory in which his mother has started to work, and finds the wage money of several people.
His mother is suspected, being one of three persons having a key for the factory. She denies it of course. Although there is no evidence, she punishes Eric when the police is gone, locking him up in a coal bunker, and beating him. She doesn’t notice that the boy wants her attention.

An actor and a actress are acting scenes from this life. Not a funny story, not a nice life. They discuss the possibilities of solving the problem of the boy. Is there no end to children being unhappy?

What happens during the break

Short scenes written for the PLATFORM 11+ Final production FACE ME Time of Transition

30 Schoolyard Nano-Plays

Written for the PLATFORM 11+ Final production FACE ME Time of Transition