ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY AND
THE INTENTION OF THE PLAY
What did we want to say about the environment? Each of us has a very complicated relationship with the world around us. We need things, and without these things we couldn't live. We need to grow food, we need to build houses, we need to dispose of our garbage and waste somehow. We need to be able to move from place to place by some means other than walking. We need some comforts, some pleasures--some toys. And, finally, we need to know that we are safe from danger.
Every time we grow and build--and so on--we change the environment a little. We dig a garden or chop down a tree. These are little things in a big world, perfectly reasonable, coming from each of us. Unfortunately, there are a lot of us, and when we all make these reasonable requests, all at once, the earth becomes overloaded with requests, and it is damaged. Too much food grown in too short a time, too many trees cut down, too much garbage, too many cars--and even too many toys. The reasonable requests, all added up, become large, ugly, and damaging.
That is what our story is about. A plot synopsis follows. But briefly, the magic fish is the environment, the people the fisherman meets and tries to help represent these small, reasonable requests--and the puppets represent the monsters we create when the "reasonable request" gets out of hand. The fisherman, of course, is you. And he does not find a solution to this problem at the end of the story. He goes off in search of the solution.
Every time we grow and build--and so on--we change the environment a little. We dig a garden or chop down a tree. These are little things in a big world, perfectly reasonable, coming from each of us. Unfortunately, there are a lot of us, and when we all make these reasonable requests, all at once, the earth becomes overloaded with requests, and it is damaged. Too much food grown in too short a time, too many trees cut down, too much garbage, too many cars--and even too many toys. The reasonable requests, all added up, become large, ugly, and damaging.
That is what our story is about. A plot synopsis follows. But briefly, the magic fish is the environment, the people the fisherman meets and tries to help represent these small, reasonable requests--and the puppets represent the monsters we create when the "reasonable request" gets out of hand. The fisherman, of course, is you. And he does not find a solution to this problem at the end of the story. He goes off in search of the solution.