5.2: Fill in the Gaps
Now that we have found all of our “known” information from our text we must fill in the gaps. There are some blaring questions that we must ask ourselves concerning the information found within our text. Below are some of the questions raised during our table work.
- Who is the Farmer?
- Why is the farmer building a scarecrow?
- Who is the unknown Munchkin?
- How does the scarecrow come to life?
- Where is the farm?
- Why are the crows not scared of the scarecrow?
- Why does the Farmer disappear?
- Why does the unknown Munchkin disappear?
Now we could very easily just take the paragraphs straight out of the book, stage it, slap on a narrator and let that be that. Here are a few problems with this approach. First of all the length. If we were to stage the few paragraphs from the book as is, the play would only be twenty minutes long at best. Remember we need to fill forty five minutes to an hour. Secondly, there are too many gaps in this story as is. This is evident by reviewing the questions listed above. Our challenge is to now fill in gaps with information that makes sense when used in combination with the information discovered in the paragraphs from where we are working. However, there is still another problem we face when adding additional information. It is important to maintain some kind of continuity from within the greater world of the literature. That means we have to do our best to use material found within the canon of literature about the Wizard of Oz written by Frank Baum. Luckily Mr. Baum wrote numerous books revolving around the world of Oz. It is just a matter of sifting through these books to find appropriate information to use to help fill in our gaps.
The two questions that stuck out in most of our student ensemble minds seemed to be
- Why does the farmer build the scarecrow?
- How does the scarecrow come to life?
The obvious answer to the first question would be that the farmer merely wants to build a scarecrow to safeguard his corn fields from those pesky crows.This may seem to be the logical answer to this question. However, the stakes don’t seem high enough for this action. The building of a scarecrow to just scare crows seem mundane and not strong enough to carry an hour long play. Although not specifically found within the Oz books, the ensemble decided that the Farmer was lonely and wanted a companion. This seemed like a good idea until a member of the student ensemble brought up the fact that the idea sounds too much like the premise of the story of Pinocchio . Good thing this issue was brought up because the answer then solved another one of our questions, Who is the unknown Munchkin? One ensemble member asked, “ What if there were two farmers, a husband and a wife? ”. Another ensemble member then asked, “ What if this husband and wife cannot have children? ” This made sense. Now we didn’t find anything within the books that resembled this situation. However, the story of a wife and husband not having the ability to have children is a sort of universal story and would within our world. So then and there the ensemble made the choice of a wife and husband who are Munchkin corn farmers who cannot have children of their own answer the questions
- Why does the Farmer build the scarecrow?
- Who is the unknown Munchkin?
Now on to what I think was the most challenging question to answer. How does the scarecrow come to life? Nowhere within our text does it state exactly how the scarecrow came to life. We know that the Farmer built the Scarecrow and we know the Scarecrow was aware of himself being built. But, from where did the Scarecrow’s awareness derive? The answer had to lay in magic somehow. We know that magic exists within the land of Oz but from where? We’re aware that there are several witches that live in Oz in the surrounding areas of Munchkinland. Could a witch have enchanted our Scarecrow? How could that have happened? All we get from the chapter is that the Farmer started to build the Scarecrow and that’s it. There is no mention of any witch at all. We do know that the Farmer uses paint to paint on the facial feature of the Scarecrow? What if this paint has something to do with the bringing to life this inanimate object? Could the paint been enchanted by a witch? That means that the paint needed to be procured by the two farmers somewhere as they do not possess any magical abilities.. From where do they get the paint and how is it enchanted. It would be easy to say that this “magical” paint came from one of the witches who dwell nearby. It would be far more interesting if the justification for using magical paint to animate the Scarecrow ere found within the world of Oz. It just so happens that a witch named, Mombi, ruled over a part of Oz called Gilkinland. She was a terrible person, worse than the Wicked Witch of the West. Mobi had a child slave named Tip. Tip discovered a magic powder that could bring inanimate objects to life. Mombi of course takes this magic powder from Tip and animates a creature named Jack Pumpkin head. Why couldn’t this same powder animate our Scarecrow? Well as a matter of fact that just may be the case. In doing further research we found that there is a theory that this very same powder used by the witch Mombi is the life source of the character Scarecrow. What a coincidence!
Armed with this new information the ensemble decided to go ahead to use these details to help fill in a couple of the larger gaps in our story. They decided that there would be two farmers Mazey and Cornelius. They are unable to have children. They go to Mombi the witch to get help from her, even though she is not the most trustworthy person in Oz. Mazey and Cornelius are desperate. Mombi gives them paint that has been mixed with the magic powder. The couple would need to build a boy out of whatever material they have handy and use the “magic” paint in the creation of their child. Mombi warns them however, that the paint can only be used once. If the paint is used for other reasons Mombi will not be happy and the two farmers would pay a price. Of course Mombi knows that the paint will be used more than once. It is part of her plan to ultimately enslave the two farmers. This will become the core of our story although this direction raises some new questions.
- How does the paint get misused and by whom?
- What actually happens to the two farmers if and when the paint gets misused?
- What kind of pact is made between to farmers and the witch?
- Are we staying true to the world of Oz with this direction?
- Can this information be inserted into the material at hand seamlessly without going too rogue with Frank Baum’s story?