The von Trapped Family

SVPA 3rd Year Graduation Production

The von Trapped Family

Written by Stella Kent
Directed by Peter Hammond
Co director Tash McCulloch

Annexe Theatre 20th - 23rd October at 7.00PM.
Bookings: 6324 4450 (Mon - Thurs 8.30AM - 4.00PM)

In The Sound of Music the von Trapps are portrayed as the happiest family in the world. The von Trapped Family, however, explores the darker side of the family spoken of by the real von Trapp children in their later years. Sweet postulant nun Maria actually had an explosive temper, whereas their father Georg - portrayed by Hollywood as a stern martinet - was in fact a loving, gentle father.
Act One of Trapped stands back to back with the events in Salzburg portrayed in The Sound of Music; Act Two depicts the family's life in America. The play shows how Maria's initiative and will-power save the family particularly after the bank crash of 1932 and later when the family, fleeing from Hitler, arrive as refugees in America. But these very qualities which save the family, also trap them.

Maria isolates the children, desperate to keep them both as the voices for the family choir which provides their income, and to work from dawn to dusk on their farm. Thus one daughter, Ingrid, is in her forties before she even enters a grocery store and another, Renata, is forced to elope when Maria locks her up.

Set against some of the most shattering events of the twentieth century and dealing with issues of invasion and exile, Trapped is nonetheless the story of a family whose courage, determination, and resourcefulness were in many ways even more remarkable than those depicted by the musical.

Act One is set in Europe between the late 1920s and 1938.
Act Two is set in the US between 1938 and 1948, with the final scene in Hollywood 1964. To suggest the various locales which include the von Trapps' homes in Salzburg and Vermont, a mountain slope, performance venues, a garden, Ellis Island and a bus, and in line with the do-it-yourself quality of the family, it is suggested that the basis of any set is nine simple wooden stools or chairs which the actors themselves move into various permutations.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• SVPA
• UTAS
• Tasmania
• Performing Arts
• Theatre
• Play
• Stella Kent
• Peter Hammond

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