Taming Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’

By Theresa Curry for The News Virginian
Published: October 22, 2008

It’s a jungle out there, with wolves and panthers, bears and tigers; a dazzling world in a village clearing baked by the sun.
“The Jungle Book,” presented by ShenanArts, follows a story that’s endured for more than 100 years. The original “Jungle Book,” by Rudyard Kipling, was published shortly before the end of the 19th century. It introduced Mowgli, the wolf-child, who was raised by animals.
Staging a play that takes place in the Indian jungle, and casting it with students is a challenge, said Keith Folsom who, with Kitty Sheets, directs “The Jungle Book.”
“Everything in it was unfamiliar to them,” Folsom said. “Even the sounds of the words in the songs, written in Hindi, were so different from anything the cast had ever heard.”
With the help of a cast member’s father, a native Indian was recruited to teach the chorus the correct pronunciation and rhythm for the words and music. Once recorded, the singers spent countless hours listening to the haunting Indian phrases, Folsom said.
The cadence of the songs, along with the graceful traditional dances and brilliant costumes, are a counterpoint to the dark law of the jungle, a graphic contrast that echoes the plot: civilization coming to terms with nature, Folsom said.
Kipling had a number of more serious subtexts when he wrote “The Jungle Book,” having to do with colonial life and the imposition of Victorian culture on people who had an ancient and rich culture of their own.
It’s the directorial debut for Folsom, a horticulturalist whose “real-life” job is as the owner of Springdale Water Gardens in Greenville. He’s put in a lot of hours as a stage manager, supporting his daughter’s interest in drama.
“I thought I’d like to try my hand at directing,” he said.
He relied on the experience of Kitty Sheets, co-director of “The Jungle Book” and a veteran director, to learn his new skill.
“There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye,” he said.
When directors volunteer for a ShenanArts production, they generally have an idea of the play they’d like to stage, and Sheets and Folsom agreed on a version of Kipling’s story.
“I imagine most of the cast members who tried out – if they were familiar with it at all – probably had been exposed to the Disney version,” he said. The animated version, a colossal hit for Disney, was more of a departure from Kipling’s work than the script the directors finally chose.
Then came the casting. The target audience for “The Jungle Book” is elementary and middle school children; the actors range in age from 5 (Mowgli as a small child) to 17.
Folsom said the actors come from Waynesboro, Staunton, Harrisonburg, Augusta and Rockingham counties. They were from a mix of backgrounds, he said, and from all the different public schools. Some are home schooled.
“Some of the students knew each other,” Folsom said. “They’d been in ShenanArts productions before.”
But for the most part, the students who reported to the first rehearsal were strangers to each other, from vastly different backgrounds. The diversity of the students is one of the factors that continues to draw Folsom to work with ShenanArts.
“Some of these kids do everything: sports, band, academics,” he said, “but others are not drawn to any of the conventional middle and high school activities. This gives them a chance to pursue their own interests, to shine at something different.”
An amazing thing happens when the lights go up in the first rehearsal, he said. “We have some kids who are quiet, maybe more studious or just more introverted than the kids who play team sports. We see them grow and become less self-conscious, much more confident.”
He sees kids who might be intimidated by peer pressure in other circumstances giving everything they’ve got to a song or a dance number. They learn to trust each other, to realize that they can put themselves in the place of a 19th-century Indian village girl and know that someone else is right there with them.
In his journey in “The Jungle Book,” Mowgli is abandoned by human parents, nurtured by wolves, threatened by a tiger, nearly eaten by a python, befriended by a bear, and loved by both humans and wolves. Folsom believes the journey of the students putting on this play is just as significant.
“We try to make them realize that each of them – whatever their part – is as important as someone in the leading role,” he said.
ShenanArts is in the old Gray’s IGA building in Verona, and is suitable for all ages, Folsom said.
Directed by Kitty Sheets and Keith Folsom, “The Jungle Book” runs for two weekends: Oct. 31, Nov. 1-2; Nov. 7-9. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m. Ticket prices are $8 for students, $12 general admission, and $15 for reserved seats.