The Skriker Actor Packet

hopes to prevent it from harming any more people. The simple division of Lily
and Josie into Kind and Unkind Girls is complicated however by the fact that
the end results of their adventures in the Underworld are disturbingly
similar....at the end of the play, Lily’s mouth becomes associated, not with
flowers and jewels, but with the contaminated food that is more fearsome and
dangerous than the toads Josie spewed out of her mouth after she refused the
Derelict Woman’s request” !Cousin, “Owning” 198".
While most folk and fairy tales function on the just#world theory where good
deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished, the way these stories unfold in
the Skriker suggests that all glamour and good will rot away. Josie, lured into
the underworld, enchanted by the dancing and festivities, later becomes a
servant of the underworld, on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor in front
of the Skriker. Similarly, although Lily enters the Underworld thinking she will
sacrifice herself to save her baby, falls victim to the same illusion of magic that
the Skriker o$ers and is pulled into the nightmarish future. Instead of
receiving fates that correspond to their individual actions and intentions, Lily
and Josie are instead both punished for the sins and damages of the collective
past. In a sense, they are both heroines damned from the beginning, and
perhaps are better di$erentiated by their view of the world !and Skriker" ##
whether it is kind or unkind.
“Each of them %Josie and Lily& becomes fascinated by the Skriker...but their
separate understandings of what the Skriker is are very di$erent: Josie
instinctively grasps the malevolence that results from the damage it has
su$ered, while Lily sees in most of its manifestations ## ...simply people in need
of love. ...While the Skriker acts literally as a vampire toward Josie %sipping
both her blood and memories of life in the upper world&, it leeches emotionally
on Lily, demanding love from her in each of its guises” !Cousin, “Owning” 196".
The fu! versions of these tales "including The Green Lady and
Diamonds and Toads# wi! be available to check out in th$
rehearsal room.