Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices by Neil Gaiman Page A
Authors: Neil Gaiman
Tags: neil gaiman
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rising. Moreover, we are witnessing,
especially in America, children using guns on other children and
teachers in schools or on the streets. There are also incidents of
youngsters haphazardly hacking unsuspecting people to death for
their credit cards, possessions, or some small amount of money.
Very little remorse is shown. In fact, feelings or compassion for
the victims appear to be absent.
Perhaps I am reading too much into Gaiman’s
play, but I cannot help but asking why he has rewritten the
traditional “ Snow White ” tale to depict a young girl as a
monstrosity, as an unremorseful vampire. Is he asking whether the
young today have become parasitical and destructive, and if so, who
is to blame?
Yes, who is to blame for the situation in his
play? Who is to blame for the many violent acts that young people
are committing in American society? Why all the mutilation and
self-mutilation? Are we giving birth to monsters? Why do the father
and the stepmother appear to be so helpless? Gaiman does not
provide any easy answers. His Snow White appears to be cruel and
sadistic, but we are not certain whether she was born this way, or
whether her early traumatic experience of her mother’s death has
driven her to suck the blood from the world that produced and
“abandoned” her. The father has absolutely no control over his
daughter. Only the stepmother, through her use of black magic, can
contain her for a while. In the end, however, the girl triumphs
over her. But is it a triumph? Is a world that will be ruled by a
cold-blooded killer a happy kingdom? Will Gaiman’s killer Snow
White reproduce a daughter even more fierce and ruthless than her
mother?
This exquisite reproduction of Gaiman’s play
by Biting Dog Press is particularly artful and appropriate in the
manner in which it brings out the key disturbing questions of the
story through unusual design, typography, and images. George
Walker’s wood engravings are haunting and capture the mood of the
play. The indelible traces of torment and a world gone awry can be
scanned in his illustrations and throughout the entire conception
of this unusual book. After reading Gaiman’s Snow Glass
Apples , nobody will ever be able to view Disney’s Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs and recall it with a happy heart. There is
another story to be told about Snow White, and Gaiman has told it
well.
Professor Jack Zipes
Department of German
205 Folwell Hall
9 Pleasant Street S. E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
QUEEN
SOLDIER
KING
PEASANT
SOLDIER
PRINCESS
ARCHBISHOP
WINEBEARER
COURTIERS
HUNTSMAN
LORD OF THE FAIR
FRIAR
JENNA THE QUEEN’S MAIDSERVANT
PRINCE
SFX: THE WAIL OF COLD WIND. THE FEET OF
SOLDIERS COME DOWN A STONE STAIRWAY. AN IRON DOOR IS UNLOCKED AND
OPENED WITH A CLANG.
SFX: INSIDE A CELL, FEET CRUNCHING ON STRAW,
THE QUEEN BACKING AWAY …
QUEEN
Don’t touch—don’t you try to touch me—
SOLDIER
Get her legs. You two, get her arms. And
up!
EXT: THE WINTER FEAST.
A low hubbub, the wail of the wind.
PEASANT
Here they come!
ASSORTED PEASANTS
– Look at her! She’s coming!
– Nothing to be scared of!
–Naked as a jaybird!
–Evil as a demon!
–Witch!
–Monster!
–Murderess!
SOLDIER
That’s where she’s going! You! Open that
door!
SFX: THE KILN DOOR IS OPENED, AND THEN
SLAMMED WITH A DULL BOOM.
INT: FURNACE
The furnace—a big oven or kiln: there is a
slight echo in here. We can barely hear outside the sound of the
people at the winter feast. This is the place from which the queen
is talking to us any flashbacks are in the ambient sound of the
places we are, while the queen’s narration is explicitly from the
furnace. She is talking to us in the language of fairy tales—a
precise, accurate, ever -so -slightly archaic language. She is
telling us her last story. A confessional. She is talking
quietly.
QUEEN—INTIMATE
I do not know what manner of thing she
especially in America, children using guns on other children and
teachers in schools or on the streets. There are also incidents of
youngsters haphazardly hacking unsuspecting people to death for
their credit cards, possessions, or some small amount of money.
Very little remorse is shown. In fact, feelings or compassion for
the victims appear to be absent.
Perhaps I am reading too much into Gaiman’s
play, but I cannot help but asking why he has rewritten the
traditional “ Snow White ” tale to depict a young girl as a
monstrosity, as an unremorseful vampire. Is he asking whether the
young today have become parasitical and destructive, and if so, who
is to blame?
Yes, who is to blame for the situation in his
play? Who is to blame for the many violent acts that young people
are committing in American society? Why all the mutilation and
self-mutilation? Are we giving birth to monsters? Why do the father
and the stepmother appear to be so helpless? Gaiman does not
provide any easy answers. His Snow White appears to be cruel and
sadistic, but we are not certain whether she was born this way, or
whether her early traumatic experience of her mother’s death has
driven her to suck the blood from the world that produced and
“abandoned” her. The father has absolutely no control over his
daughter. Only the stepmother, through her use of black magic, can
contain her for a while. In the end, however, the girl triumphs
over her. But is it a triumph? Is a world that will be ruled by a
cold-blooded killer a happy kingdom? Will Gaiman’s killer Snow
White reproduce a daughter even more fierce and ruthless than her
mother?
This exquisite reproduction of Gaiman’s play
by Biting Dog Press is particularly artful and appropriate in the
manner in which it brings out the key disturbing questions of the
story through unusual design, typography, and images. George
Walker’s wood engravings are haunting and capture the mood of the
play. The indelible traces of torment and a world gone awry can be
scanned in his illustrations and throughout the entire conception
of this unusual book. After reading Gaiman’s Snow Glass
Apples , nobody will ever be able to view Disney’s Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs and recall it with a happy heart. There is
another story to be told about Snow White, and Gaiman has told it
well.
Professor Jack Zipes
Department of German
205 Folwell Hall
9 Pleasant Street S. E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
QUEEN
SOLDIER
KING
PEASANT
SOLDIER
PRINCESS
ARCHBISHOP
WINEBEARER
COURTIERS
HUNTSMAN
LORD OF THE FAIR
FRIAR
JENNA THE QUEEN’S MAIDSERVANT
PRINCE
SFX: THE WAIL OF COLD WIND. THE FEET OF
SOLDIERS COME DOWN A STONE STAIRWAY. AN IRON DOOR IS UNLOCKED AND
OPENED WITH A CLANG.
SFX: INSIDE A CELL, FEET CRUNCHING ON STRAW,
THE QUEEN BACKING AWAY …
QUEEN
Don’t touch—don’t you try to touch me—
SOLDIER
Get her legs. You two, get her arms. And
up!
EXT: THE WINTER FEAST.
A low hubbub, the wail of the wind.
PEASANT
Here they come!
ASSORTED PEASANTS
– Look at her! She’s coming!
– Nothing to be scared of!
–Naked as a jaybird!
–Evil as a demon!
–Witch!
–Monster!
–Murderess!
SOLDIER
That’s where she’s going! You! Open that
door!
SFX: THE KILN DOOR IS OPENED, AND THEN
SLAMMED WITH A DULL BOOM.
INT: FURNACE
The furnace—a big oven or kiln: there is a
slight echo in here. We can barely hear outside the sound of the
people at the winter feast. This is the place from which the queen
is talking to us any flashbacks are in the ambient sound of the
places we are, while the queen’s narration is explicitly from the
furnace. She is talking to us in the language of fairy tales—a
precise, accurate, ever -so -slightly archaic language. She is
telling us her last story. A confessional. She is talking
quietly.
QUEEN—INTIMATE
I do not know what manner of thing she
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