Source : Créations In Vivo 1

by Ève Alexandre-Beaulieu & Stéphane Guertin

STUDY GUIDE

Charly in the Desert

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3

ABOUT THE SHOW 4Synopsis 4Creative team 4Lenght 4

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION 5Charly 5Inna 5The parents 6

EXTENDED SUMMARY 7

ABOUT MALI 9A brief history 9ID card 10

THEMES 11The blended family 11Cultural differences and integration into a new culture 11War and its consequences on populations 12

PUPPET THEATRE 14

ACTIVITIES 15Cultural differences 15If you were moving to another country… 15Create your own flag 17

ABOUT CRÉATIONS IN VIVO 22

Source : Créations In Vivo 2

INTRODUCTION Dear teachers,

Welcome to the study guide for Charly in the Desert, a show for children aged 5 to 9. In these few pages, our goal is to help you better prepare your students for this play.

Charly in the Desert focuses on the encounter between two children from different cultures who will have to learn to understand each other in order to better co-exist. It explores themes of tolerance, openness to others, cultural differences and blended families.

If you don’t have time to read the entire study guide, here are the sections we suggest you consult first:

• The detailed summary, which will give you a better understanding of the show (be careful not to reveal too much of the plot to your students!) => page 7.

• Discover more about the characters => pages 5 and 6.• Learn more about the themes of the show => pages 11 to 13.• Classroom activities => pages 15 and following.

The other sections are also relevant, but less essential if you are short on time.

We wish you and your students a beautiful experience at the theatre.

The Créations In Vivo’s team

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ABOUT THE SHOW

Charly in the Désert A Créations In Vivo’s productionFor children aged 5 to 9

Synopsis Charly’s family has suddenly changed. He only sees his father every other weekend and his mother’s new boyfriend from Mali just moved in, along with his daughter Inna. Charly’s relationship with his new step-sister is tense, to say the least. The day before they are set to leave on a camping trip, Charly gets locked in his room with Inna. Their parents have laid down the law: the two children must learn to live together, or else camping is cancelled. Charly and Inna will have to learn work and play together, stumbling upon a few cultural notions along the way…

Creative team Playwright: Ève Alexandre-Beaulieu et Stéphane GuertinDramaturg: Francois OuimetDirector: Gabrielle LalondeSet Designer: Andrée-Ève ArchambaultPuppet Designer: Sara SabourinLighting Designer: Tristan-Olivier BreidingSound Designer: Martin DawagneTranslator : Mishka LavigneStage Manager: Louisa Haché et Pascal Lemay

Cast: Sébastien Lajoie, Kiara-Lynn Néï et Chloé Tremblay

Lenght 55 minutes, no intermission

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CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

Charly Charly is a 9 years old Canadian boy. Charly is sensitive but possessive. He is also a big hockey fan. He often pictures himself on the ice with his NHL idols, like Carey Price. He has no biological brother and sister.

Charly’s parents just got divorced. He sees his father less and less and thinks his father isn’t interested in him anymore.

Charly finds it hard to accept that Youssou, his mother’s new husband of Malian origin, and his daughter Inna have moved into his house. Charly’s daily life is disrupted and he can’t understand Inna and Youssou’s culture, especially their language, which he doesn’t speak.

Inna Inna is an 11 years old girl of Malian origin. She has been in Canada with her father Youssou for almost two years. Her mother died of a disease, and the only thing she has left of her is an old ragdoll. Inna tends to give up easily. She can be authoritarian and disruptive.

In Mali, Inna lived through war, which left its mark on her. She’s adapting more or less easily to Canada, because there are many things she still doesn’t understand.

With her father, Inna often speaks Bambara, one of the most widely spoken languages in Mali .1

See the section "About Mali", pages 9 and 10, to find out more about Inna and Youssou’s country of origin.1

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Actor Sébastien Lajoie plays Charly.

Actress Kiara-Lynn Néï plays Inna.

The parents Inna’s father, Youssou, and Charly’s mother have been in a relationship for some time. Youssou and Inna have just moved in with Charly and his mother shortly before the play starts. We don’t see the parents but we hear Youssou talking through Charly’s bedroom door a few times. The parents are often mentioned during the show.

In the play, what characterizes them most is their desire to see their two children get along. Running out of ideas to make this happen, they end up locking Inna and Charly in Charly’s room, telling them that they’ll only be let once they become friends.

Together with Inna and Charly, they form a blended family .2

To learn more about the blended family, see the section on page 11.2

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EXTENDED SUMMARY

∆ Warning! ∆This section reveals key moments of the play: don’t show it to your students! It is used to make you better understand the show.

Charly is alone in his room, feeling angry. He is tired of sharing his life with his mother’s new husband, Youssou, and his step sister, Inna. The only thing that still makes him happy is that he still has his bedroom, a sanctuary where he can dream of becoming a professional hockey player!

We find out that Charly has stolen Inna’s ragdoll and hidden it in a shoebox. Suddenly, Inna enters the room, pushed in by Charly’s mother. The parents have that no one would go camping this weekend if the two kids can’t get along! Charly wants to run to his mother to complain, but the bedroom door is locked…

At first, the atmosphere is very tense between Charly and Inna. Mean things are said on both sides. Charly then decides a border should divide the room, and that him and Inna would each remain on their side.

This separation does not reduce the tension. Charly mocks Inna about her doll she can’t find, and Inna threatens to break Charly’s prized hockey stick, signed by Carey Price himself! Furious, Charly begins to throw things at Inna, who avoids them and returns the favor. This exchange, aggressive at first, gradually turns into a game.

Inna then turns the game into imagining adventures in a war refugee camp. She finds a slipper, which she calls Momo. Momo lost his brother – the other slipper – Azu, during the battle. Azu crossed the border onto Charly’s side of the room. Azu is alone, in the middle of the desert! Charly wants to join in Inna’s game, but she rejects Charly’s ideas and the tension between the two children returns…

Charly then realizes that, for Inna, war was more than just a game and that it’s something she has really lived through. He then tries to resume their game. At first reluctant to join in, Inna ends up getting back into the story of the desert expedition to rescue Azu.

For the first time, Charly and Inna begin to create the story and characters together. Little by little, they imagine a story together. The border then disappears, along with the tension between the two children. Inna tells Charly the story of the Harmattan, a legendary wind from the Sahara.

Gradually, the two children opened up to each other. Charly tells Inna that he feels abandoned by his father, who seems to be completely disinterested in him. Inna tells him

Source : Créations In Vivo 7

about the death of her mother and her ragdoll, the only souvenir she has of her mother and how stupide she feels for having lost it.

The game resumes and Inna brings in Charly’s ideas that she had rejected earlier. Accidently, Inna then finds the shoebox where her doll is hidden. Furious with Charly, she returns to her side of the border. Charly tells her to look in the box, which contains all of his treasures, including two hockey tickets. Charly explains to Inna that they were a gift from his father, but that he never went to the game because, on that day, his father had forgotten to pick him up… He then apologizes for taking her doll.

Reconciled, Charly and Inna find that they enjoy playing together and telling each other stories. They decide that they will tell each other more stories on the family camping trip that weekend.

Then they notice that the door is no longer locked…

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ABOUT MALI In Charly in the Desert, the characters of Inna and her father Youssou are from Mali. Discovery of this African country.3

A brief history Mali is a West African country. Two-thirds of the country is desert: the southern Sahara.

Throughout its history, Mali has been the cradle of three great empires: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire and the Songhaï Empire. These empires covered a large part of present-day Mali and its neighboring countries.

From 1892 to 1960, Mali was a colony of France. It became independent on September 22, 1960, after the dissolution of the Federation of Mali, which was composed of Senegal and Republic of Sudan.

A few years after its independence, Mali suffered under the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré before becoming a democratic regime in the early 1990s.

With 17.9 million citizens, the Malian population is made up of different ethnic groups, the main ones being the Bambaras, Bobos, Bozos, Dogons, Khassonkes, Malinke, Minianka, Fulani, Senufo, Soninke (or Sarakole), Sonrhaïs, Tuaregs and Toucouleurs.

French is the official language of Mali, but the majority of the population speaks one or more national language. Bambara is the most commonly used national language.

With an economy that is still mainly rural, Mali is one of the 48 least-developed countries (LDCs) in terms of socio-economic development.

Since 2012, Mali has been the target of Jihadist attacks and is facing civil unrest.

The information contained in this section are taken from various Wikipedia articles.3

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ID card Here are some highlights on Mali and Canada to compare these two countries.

Mali Canada Notes

Flag

Independence 1960 1867

In their modern forms, Canada and Mali are two very young countries. For example, Italy has been in existence for 476 years, China for more than 3,600 years, etc.

Population 17,9 millions 36,9 millions There are twice as many people in Canada.

Area 1,2 millions de Km2 10 millions de Km2 Mali is about the same size as Quebec.

Official languages

French French and EnglishIn both countries, there are many other languages spoken by the population.

Capital Bamako Ottawa

GDP (Gross domestic) per capita

2 400 $ 43 000 $GDP measures a country's economic wealth. On average, a Canadian is 18 times richer than a Malian.

Motto

« Un peuple, un but, une fois » (one

people, one goal, one faith)

"From sea to sea"

Main religions

Islam (90 %), Christianity (5 %),

Traditional religions (5 %).

Christianity (67 %), No religion (24 %),

Other religions (Islam, Hinduism,

Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism, 9 %)

Most of Malians practice their religion every day.

Source : Créations In Vivo 10

THEMES Several themes are discussed in Charly in the Desert, either through how the characters live, through the difficulties they encounter or through the stories they tell each other.

The blended family In Charly in the Desert, Charly, Inna and their parents form a blended family (also called stepfamily or reconstructed family):

A blended family, includes a couple of adults, married or not, and at least one child born of a previous union of one of the spouses. Children who live with their parents and half-siblings are also part of a blended family. 4

Most of the time, everyone lives under the same roof, but this is not always the case. The percentage of blended families is increasing.

In blended families, the adult couple decide how and where to live together and children usually only follow. This can make certain situations difficult:

Living together harmoniously is not self-evident for children who have neither the same experience nor the same education, and who only see each other intermittently. Unlike blood siblings, the link between [these half-brothers and half-sisters] is not filial, but elective: it is the child who chooses the intensity. 5

This is a bit like the situation Charly and Inna are experiencing: at the beginning of the show, their cohabitation is difficult, and the two don't appreciate each other. They have to get to know each other better in order to love each other.

Cultural differences and integration into a new culture At the beginning of the play, Charly enters his room furious and says:

All these weird smelling dinners; I can’t take it anymore! I hate peanut sauce over rice! Hey, peanut butter is for toast! It’s not rocket science.

As we can see, Charly has difficulty adapting to the changes the arrival of Youssou and Inna are causing in his house. In the same way, Inna discovers many things about her new country and sometimes she gets a little confused… Why is that? It’s because customs are not the same in Canada and Mali: it’s normal for Inna to put her peanut butter in her rice, but not for Charly!

According to INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques). Source: https://4

www.insee.fr/fr/metadonnees/definition/c1315.

Source: http://www.psychologies.com/Famille/Relations-familiales/Soeurs-Freres/Articles-et-Dossiers/Les-5

quasi-freres-et-soeurs.

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What can seem obvious to us is not necessarily obvious to a person who doesn’t come from the same country or who doesn’t have the same religion. And it’s often when confronted to a culture other than our own that we realize that whatever customs seem natural to us can be very different for someone else.

Here are some examples of cultural differences between Canada and other countries.

Saying "hello"In France, between close friends, you peck each other on the cheek, no matter if you are two men, two women, or a man and a woman. You also do it between a man and a woman, or between two women who don’t know each other very well. When meeting for the first time, you shake hands. In China, a slight bow of the head is enough. In Japan, a full bow of the torso is more common. In Canada, you shake hands when you don't know each other, and you hug close friends and family members.

Shoes In Canada, you often remove our shoes when coming inside. In France, this is not necessary. In Muslim countries, shoes are removed in religious places.

White clothesIn Christian culture, and therefore in most western countries, white is synonymous with purity, and women often wear a white dress on their wedding day. In Asia, on the other hand, it is the color of mourning and funerals.

On the roadIn Canada and most countries around the world, you drive on the right. However, in countries such as Great Britain, Australia or India, you drive on the left.

War and its consequences on populations In Charly in the Desert, children play war. For Charly, it’s just a game, but for Inna, it brings back unhappy memories. War has consequences for soldiers as well as for civilians, like Inna and her father.

For example, in Yemen, which is at war with Saudi Arabia, 18 million people (half of the Canadian population) is in need of humanitarian assistance, 3 million people are displaced (the equivalent of Toronto, Canada’s largest city) and tens of thousands have been killed or injured. In Syria, the territories where fighting is taking place have been reduced to rubble and the country’s main infrastructures (hospitals, schools) have been destroyed, which will have long-term consequences.

According to UNICEF, an estimated 250 million children in the world are growing up in conflict-zones. They may be exposed to different situations: being displaced and becoming

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refugees, losing their homes and all of their belongings, being separated from their parents, being recruited by armed groups and militias, and many other worse things…

To learn more about the impact of conflict on children: https://www.unicef.fr/dossier/enfants-et-conflits (in French only).

Source : Créations In Vivo 13

PUPPET THEATRE Charly in the Desert, it’s puppet theatre. The characters are represented by puppets manipulated by the actors.

Puppet theatre is a form of theatre that includes different kinds of inanimate dolls puppeteers manipulate to bring to life. Often, puppeteers also give voice to their puppets.

There are many different types of puppets, made with different materials. There are very simple types, like finger puppets, and others more complicated types to make or handle: in particular string marionettes, because strings can tangle very easily when we don’t know how to use them!

Puppet theatre has existed for more than 5,000 years and is an art found in many different cultures: in China, for example, many puppets are used during carnivals.

In Charly in the Desert, for the two main characters, frontal puppets are used. The actors place themselves behind the puppet to manipulate it. They are attached at the waist to their puppet, which means that their upper body is located behind the puppet and their legs extend the puppet (as shown in the photo below). Several other puppets make their appearance during the show, using different techniques.

If in Charly in the Desert, as is often the case in puppet theatre, we see the actors-manipulators, but it’s not a big deal: when the puppet comes to life, we forget the actor!

To learn more about puppet theatre: https://theatre.historymuseum.ca/narratives/details.php?language=english

Source : Créations In Vivo 14

ACTIVITIES

Cultural differences Each country has its own customs! Print the next page, and create small groups of 5 or 6 students. Each group will have to complete the table on page 16.

We chose Haiti as our example because it’s the country where Kiara-Lynn Néï, the actress who plays Inna, comes from.

Instructions:

Using the examples of Haiti and France, complete the chart by recording cultural particularities that are found in Canada and, if possible, for another country you know.

If you were moving to another country… Divide into groups of 3 or 4 students and ask them to think about the following question:

If you were moving to a country other than Canada, what customs would you try to maintain? Explain why and how you would do it.

Each group can then share their thoughts with the rest of the class.

This work can also be done in writing.

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Source : Créations In Vivo 16

Cultural differences

Themes Haïti France Canada Another country you know (be specific)

Meal • 1

We eat a lot in the morning (around 8 am)

and at lunch (around 2 pm or 3 pm), then again, a

little in the evening (around 7 pm or 8 pm).

We eat a little in the morning, but lunch (around

12 noon) and dinner (around 7:30 pm) have three or more courses: starter, mains, cheese,

dessert.

Meal • 2

Example of dishes we eat: In the morning: spaghetti with herring and sausage.

Lunch: rice. In the evening: grains with

milk.

Typical dishes: ratatouille, pot au feu, sauerkraut, quiche lorraine, crèpes, cassoulet, oysters, etc.

School • 1School starts at 8 am and

ends around 2 pm or 2:30 pm.

School starts at 8 am and ends at 4:30 pm. or 5 pm.

School • 2The majority of schools

are private. Co-ed schools are rare, and are often

public schools.

On Wednesday afternoons, there is no

school. This is the time to play sports.

School • 3All private schools have a uniform, including for gym

classes.There are between 20 and

30 students per class.

Sport • 1The most popular sport is soccer (known in Haïti as

"football").

Soccer (known in France as "football") is the most popular sport, especially among boys. Little girls

dance.

Sport • 2 Basketball is gaining in popularity.

Other popular sports are: rugby, tennis, skiing,

handball, pétanque, etc.

Family • 1

A household is made up of parents, children, and the servant who lives in

the home during the week.

A household is made up of parents and children.

Family • 2

January 1st, which celebrates Independence Day, is a great celebration

between family and friends. No Haitian in the

world would miss it.

Sunday is the day dedicated to family. Often, it starts with a very long

lunch: from noon to 4pm. We eat a lot there.

Create your own flag Using the templates below (next four pages), have your students create their own flag. You can show them the flag of Mali or other countries to inspire them.

Tell them to describe the country they create and the customs of its people. They can invent their own country and culture, or be inspired by what they know.

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NAME OF THE COUNTRY:

_____________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY AND THE CUSTOMS OF ITS CITIZENS:

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NAME OF THE COUNTRY:

_____________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY AND THE CUSTOMS OF ITS CITIZENS:

____________________________________________________________________________

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ABOUT CRÉATIONS IN VIVO

MandateCréations In Vivo is an arts organization dedicated to creating unique works that always combine two or more artistic disciplines. We try to explore along lesser-frequented creative paths. We want to work with versatile and well-equipped artists and we are also dedicated to offering training.

Mission• Create new works from texts, poems, aesthetic or artistic concepts.• Train emerging artists and young learners through the Artiste aux 4 coins

program.• Bring together artists and audience by creating unique moments of encounter

and exchange.

TeamStéphane Guertin • General manager and artistic directorSylvain Sabatié • Communications manager and assistant of the artistic directorVincent Poliquin-Simms • Event managerAndrée Rainville • Wardrobe managerCarolyne Hutt • Accountant

ContactCréations In Vivo255 Montréal RoadOttawa, ON  K1L 6C4

613 216-8660

www.creationsinvivo.com

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