CHAPTER THREE A Sketch of the Events in the U.S. Narnia Playworld
“Performances ... may seem to be recollections of the past, but they are actually conjunctions whose center can be located not in any single time or mood but only in the whole bundle, the full and complex interrelations among times and moods.” -- Schechner (1985, p. 55) In this chapter I sketch the events in the implementation of this playworld. I give an overall trajectory of the events and show the ways in which phenomena constituting perezhivanie made themselves manifested on a frequent basis, and I provide a necessary context for the three, following more-detailed analyses. This overview of the playworld also provides a description of the interweaving and interdependence of the many instances of perezhivanie that this playworld makes visible: It highlights the fractal nature of perezhivanies within perezhivanie. In constructing the following narrative I rely primarily on field notes, although I correlate all of our forms of data. I illustrate this narrative using paintings by the children of and in response to the playworld. These illustrations and my style of writing augment the emotional tone of the events as I have reconstructed them. The paintings do not always portray the literal event or object that is present at the point in the narrative at which they are inserted. However, the entire content of this narrative is taken from field notes and “unaltered” audio and video footage unless otherwise noted.
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