Imagine that ‘Base Details’ is going to be adapted for stage. Write a four- paragraph stage treatment detailing the following:
1. The stage setting: backdrop, lighting, scenery and props.
2. The characters: who are the characters? How should they speak/act? Concentrate particularly on the Major – what is he doing, how does he look, how does he walk and act? What costumes will the characters wear?
3. The sound eff ects: what sound eff ects will the audience hear? How will they be created?
4. A voiceover: will there be a voiceover? Will the poem be recited as is or adapted and added to with made-up dialogue or both? What will the closing scene look like?
Use the mind map to help you write your treatment.
CLOSING MOMENTS How will the stage
adaptation end? Will the Major walk off stage?
BACKDROP The sky lit up with
fl ares? World War I poster?
CHARACTERS
Who? Where? The Major/soldiers
COSTUMES
Describe what the Major and soldiers will wear – what colour are their uniforms? How do their shoes look – rain- soaked or shiny black? Is anyone wearing medals or ribbons?
SOUND EFFECTS
Clink of cutlery in restaurant? Chatting and
laughter? Heavy machinegun
fi re? Sounds of battle and death?
‘BASE DETAILS’
Refer specifi cally to the line ‘I’d toddle safely home and die – in bed.’
VOICEOVER
Will the voiceover recite the poem in between the action on stage? Will the Major recite the poem or will it be a separate narrator observing the action, or a soldier aff ected by the actions and words of the Major? Decide how best the satire should be displayed – by the ignorant Major, by a passive narrator, by an angry solider? Note the alliteration (‘guzzling’ and ‘gulping’), the rhythm and the rhyme of the poem.
