Kitten AUDITIONS

The University of Notre Dame's third year Communications students are making a short film entitled "Kitten".

We are currently seeking actors for the two main roles:

Norman Middling: a 75 year old man
Rosalie Middling: his elderly wife

Auditions will be held at the Notre Dame Performing Arts Centre within the next two weeks.

For more information, a copy of the script, or to book an audition time - please contact Suzanne Barton via email:

sbarton@nd.edu.au

Please find below the story action statement, synopsis and rationale.

STORY ACTION STATEMENT:

Kitten is a dark comedic critique of the human struggle to attain a culturally determined representation of perfection. Norman Middling is an elderly man who finds himself surrounded by images that equate beauty with youth. He lives in a comfortable house with his wife and cat, surrounded by all the memories that he has collected throughout his life. His life is littered with beautiful relationships and memories. But in comparison to these socially constructed images of beauty, Norm fails to appreciate what is beautiful about his existence. He notices only the wrinkles on his wifeÂ’s face, and the grey in her hair. In contrast to the glossy photos of models in magazines and the elegant woman in the wrinkle cream advert, his life is a dusty sepia photograph. In NormÂ’s eyes, his existence appears drab and colourless.

This is a story about an old man who secretly gives his wife cat medication in an effort to make her young again. It is a reflection on the negative effect a culturally determined perception of beauty can have on a society, when the image of beauty indoctrinated into its members becomes impossibly perfect, and dangerously unattainable. For women in our society, beauty is equated with a youthful, flawless appearance, and in attempting to impose this image on his elderly wife, Norm destroys the emotional beauty that already existed in their relationship.

SYNOPSIS:

Norman Middling is an elderly man in awe of perfection and intrigued by the exceptional and extraordinary. He has lived a sheltered life with small town boundaries, and his sense of reality is limited and faltering. This is the story of his obsession with the idealistic images of beauty he sees represented on television and in his wifeÂ’s magazines. He barely manages to supress the shadows of disgust that creep across his face when he looks at RosesÂ’ wrinkled skin. In front of the TV, at the kitchen table, even as he buries their dead cat in the middle of the night, all Norm sees is the decay of old age infecting her body like a disease.

Rose is a durable woman with a fragile heart, who is tiring in the face of her husbandÂ’s obsessive dissatisfaction. Strong but stifled, she keeps bottles of pills next to the tea bags in the kitchen. One evening, while Rose sleeps open mouthed and hideous in the armchair next to him, Norm sees a TV commercial for a revolutionary new cream that slows down the ageing process in cats. To keep your kitten cute, all you need is $59.95 and proof of ownership.
Norm resurrects his decomposing cat and sends away its dirt encrusted collar with a cheque. He receives the medication in the mail almost immediately, and empties the tube into RosesÂ’ night cream. The next morning she is transformed into the epitome of youth and beauty Norm remembers from their wedding day. He dresses Rose in her old wedding gown of crumbling yellowed lace, and dances around the lounge room with her.

Norm tires and Rose sits him down. As he mumbles, eyes closed and incoherent, Rose fetches his pills. When she returns, we see her true appearance. Rose is old and unchanged, her youth merely an invention of NormÂ’s disintegrating mind. Rose holds the cat in her arms, and as Norm hums the bridal waltz, tears soak her wrinkled cheeks. This is a gray film coiled around a core of twisted humour. It is an insight into the deluded paranoia of an AlzheimerÂ’s patient as his dying mind becomes obsessed with the damaging images of unattainable beauty that permeate the homes of standard suburbia.

This film has a two-fold purpose:

1.
To portray how media representations of beauty effect the evaluative criteria of self worth in susceptible minds

2.
As a sensitive portrayal of AlzheimerÂ’s Disease. That is, to give filmic representation to: Symptoms incorporated in the disease of which people generally have limited knowledge. The experience of the victim
The multifaceted effects of the disease on all areas of life: emotions- anger and paranoia, personality changes, physicality, intellect, coordination, mental capabilities, FEAR and INSECURITY, Alzheimer sufferers as people with a terminal illness- not just as forgetful, annoying pensioners. The fact AlzheimerÂ’s is a terminal illness in which the victim experiences two deaths- first of the mind, and then of the body.

RATIONALE/PURPOSE:

Humans need beauty in their lives. Beautiful paintings, beautiful music, beautiful scenery. We derive pleasure from beholding that which is beautiful.
Beauty inspires awe. Cultivates joy. Beauty nourishes the mind and nurtures the heart. Human life flourishes in the presence of beauty. It is essential for our existence.
Consequently, people will always strive for beauty. We want to live in beautiful houses, drive beautiful cars and wear beautiful clothes.

People are motivated by more than just desire- we need beauty, and the increasing popularity of plastic surgery, weight loss programs and bizarre beauty products is testament to the fact that people will go to expensive and often dangerous extremes to fill that need. It may be part of human nature to appreciate beauty, but how healthy is this behaviour, when we are not encouraged to see the existing beauty in our lives, but instead strive for the impossibly perfect, unattainable image of beauty perpetuated in our appearance-obsessed society. If you are not young, if you are not a size 8, if your skin is not flawless, if your hair is not shiny, then you are not beautiful.

Thank you for your interest in our production, we hope to hear from you soon.