Irene Elliot – DragonSong, the Play

Author: Irene Elliot (Based on a novel by Anne McCaffrey)

Genre: Play

Plot Outline: This play tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to continue doing what she loves, even against the wishes of her parents. Menolly runs away from home and the oppressive life in order to continue playing music and find her place on the world of Pern. Whilst alone she manages to bond to nine fire lizards – small draconic creatures – and after a harrowing experience, she finds out that sometimes, your luck can turn.

Characters: The thing that can be first noticed about each character in this play is their individuality. Whilst the cast isn’t huge, it isn’t exactly tiny either, with twelve named characters. The main character, Menolly, seems to be the part in all of us which feels as though they would do anything to accomplish their dream. Whilst not entirely ‘human’ in quality – she makes some decisions that no-one in their right mind would do – we as readers are still able to empathise with her, since we’ve all been in a similar position of wanting something that seems almost impossible to get.

Style: Perhaps strangely for a play as visual as this, the style of speech is rather plain. I personally feel as though a little more could have been done with one or two of the characters in terms of their lines. The stage directions tend to be rather vague in places, but I suppose that means a lot can be left up to the director to decide upon. The timeline of the play is straight forwards. There are no scenes within scenes, and there are no flashbacks or anything of that sort. With Dragonsong having such large visuals, this can only be considered a good thing.

Opinions: From the bias point of view of someone who has thoroughly read and enjoyed the novel that this play is based upon, I rather enjoyed it. For the most part it stayed true to the themes of the book, even if it didn’t – or rather, couldn’t – entirely follow the novel step by step. I was almost impressed with the depth of character that it allowed. Attempting to look at it from the point of view of someone who has never read a Pern novel before, I came to the conclusion that the play was able to more or less convey all the different terminologies well, apart from a couple that were more difficult to explain. As a read, I think because it’s based on a book, it would be less dull to view from cover to cover than other plays, and I believe that this only makes it more endearing as a piece of literature, and certainly as an item of interest to Anne McCaffrey fans.

Audience: All

2 Responses to “Irene Elliot – DragonSong, the Play”

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