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Director’s notes/ Description
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS a modern version of Jonathan Swift’s satire.
SYNOPSIS of the TNT production.
The play with a play:
His crew mutinies and forces him overboard – they do not wish to be respectable traders but pirates and have total contempt for any human values. They threaten a sailor who tries to defend Gulliver.
Gulliver is left swimming in the ocean and lands, exhausted on a beach in an unknown land: Lilliput.
Lilliput is inhabited by small people who cannot believe a great giant has landed on their island. They call parliament to discuss the matter. They tie down the giant and consider killing him but when Gulliver wakes up and breaks free they scatter in terror. Swift (and TNT) parody parliament and self-serving politicians without moral scruples who love the sound of their own voices.
The ministers of Lilliput try to persuade Gulliver to join they attacking their deadly enemies –the Brobdignags. The only reason they hate them is that they eat their eggs from the bottom, while in Lilliput they eat them from the top. When Gulliver says he eats his eggs from the top he is told he can join the ruling party and is made an admiral.
Gulliver reluctantly agrees but refuses to hurt anyone in Brobdignag. The Lilliputians start to become suspicious of the Giant, if he will not kill their enemies he must be a traitor. They hatch a plot to kill Gulliver by setting him on fire with the hot air from their speeches. The plan seems to work but in fact there is so much hot air they set fire to the parliament. They call on Gulliver to help and he puts out the fire by urinating on the ministers. They are angry and shocked at this affront to their dignity. They exile Gullliver who is anyway sick of their pettiness and swims to Brobdignag.
In Brobdignag he expects to be met by more little people but instead is almost killed by a huge wasp, then a giant woman appears – it is Gulliver who is tiny now. The girl and her father sells onions. The girl captures Gulliver and ties him up, first they force him to sell onions with them but when they see that people are more interested in their tiny captive than onions they start to exhibit Gulliver for money. They care nothing for Gulliver’s feelings or dignity.
An aristocrat from the court arrives to see the new attraction. He loves Gulliver and offers to take him to court to show the Queen. The girl is delighted but drives a hard financial bargain. She then cruelly sends her father away – he can have no part of her triumph or profit.
The Royal Court of Brobdignag is in fact a giant bank. The aristocratic banker persuades the girl to take a million ducats of credit rather than 800 ducats of gold. Then Gulliver is presented to the Queen – a giant coin of the Queen’s head. This is the figure that rules Brobdignag. Gulliver is humiliated and forced to perform for the Queen but seizes his chance to escape on wings of giant banknotes – he soars away. The girl is left horribly in debt without her “asset”: tiny Gulliver.
Gulliver flies on and lands in the sea, he almost drowns until he is rescued by a flying island – the island is piloted by a scientist and his servant. The scientist is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he has to be hit by the servant to pull him back to reality every few minutes.
The servant takes Gulliver aboard and they fly to the academy of the kingdom, called Laputa – a land rules by science and philosophy. The servant explains that the scientist are maintained by ignorant people below who feed them in exchange for horoscopes and other superstitions. Gulliver questions why people need horoscopes if they are plainly nonsense and is told it is to fill the empty space in people’s heads and stop them considering the ethics of science.
Gulliver arrives at the academy. He finds scientists involved in useless experiments such as spinning carpets from spiders webs and inventing electric toothbrushes. He questions the scientists and forces them to reveal their true secret – they intend to merge a mushroom with a cloud and create a bomb that will destroy the whole world. Gulliver is appalled and breaks up the academy racing away into space – they ignorant hail him as a liberator and beg him to lead them – but he refuses – rejecting even the love of women as corrupt he is starting to hate humanity for the ignorance, foolishness and immorality.
Gulliver passes through space and lands back on earth in a beautiful field – he worships nature without humans – praising the simple virtue of a flower. Then he sees disgusting ape-like humans being whipped by an intelligent horse. The proto-humans are Yahoos and he has landed in the kingdom of the “noble” horses or Houyhnhnms. The horse is amazed to meet Gulliver – the horse has never met a rational Yahoo-human before – or one who wears clothes. He invites Gulliver to his barn-house and shares food with him. The horse explains that the Yahoos are truly disgusting – very like the humanity that Gulliver now despises. Gulliver sleeps – happy to have found such an ordered world free from human control. But his hosts are playing a trick – they release a Yahoo woman into Gulliver’s room. She tries to kiss Gulliver – Gulliver wakes and tries to escape the attentions of the disgusting Yahoo – but it is clear the Yahoo is attracted to Gulliver. This proves that Gulliver is indeed a Yahoo. The Horse Police have been watching and they arrest Gulliver.
Gulliver is accused of being a Yahoo – but he trial is more important than that – it also concerns the final solution of the Yahoo problem – the Horses have decided that Yahoos are so terrible they all must die – and only Gulliver will be spared and sent into exile. Gulliver begs to stay but his request is refused. He is given a Yahoo skin to cover himself and sent away. Gulliver is in despair – he wanted to live forever among the “noble” horses. Swift reveres his parody cleverly.
In the final scene poor Gulliver is forced to re-enter the human world but is quite mad, convinced that horses are superior to humans. The Showman treats his captive with cruelty throughout the story and tries to take the sting out of the satire – at the end of the performance the actors rebel and take Gulliver away, treating him at last with kindness. The showman is helpless. His story and Gulliver’s travels are over.
Paul Stebbings TNT theatre
