How Does Shaun Tan Use Music In The Red Tree

The Power of Music in Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree Play Adaptation

Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree, is a children’s picture book that tackles mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. The book’s ominous images are brought to life in Barking Geko’s 2011 theatre adaptation of The Red Tree. The production creates a dialogue between the original text that enables readers and audience members to understand further the inner workings of the unnamed main character’s mind. In order to achieve an empathetic response, Barking Geko has selected music, which “can evoke emotion. It can be used to summon an atmosphere, assist in shaping a scene, and convey the emotional development of a story” (Salas 13). Within the play, music is used as an effective tool,

217). By adding auditory elements, the audience is presented with information that helps to better understand what the girl faces both internally and externally. The connections between emotion and music forged by The Red Tree can aid children in developing empathy, and can lead them to use music as a tool “to help solve health issues” (Ivanovic 97). By interacting in the process of using music to understand internal feelings, The Red Tree has served as an educational tool for the children watching the play. Research suggests that music can be used “as a tool in affecting human behaviour in social life” (Cochrane et al. 147). In turn, the play’s musical adaptation emphasizes the importance of lyrical and instrumental music enabling the audience’s mood to be transformed from an outside perspective to an inside

Tan’s work makes use of the strange and unusual. For example, in the third opening of the book, a giant grey fish looms over the girl. When translated into the adaptation, the giant fish is also featured. However, due to the minimalist approach that Sheedy takes in terms of the set, the music fill in the gaps so the audience is aware that the fish is intended to be like a giant cloud of depression in which the main character cannot escape the shadow. Tan also use metaphor through the weather, monsters and imaginary worlds that the girl encounters. By pairing the metaphor with the appropriate music, the audience can easily interpret what is meant by the strange figures on set. For example, by the end of the play, the girl comes home to discover, “that the leaf has blossomed into a red tree, full of light and hope” (Pantaleo 58). As the tree emerges, a warm happy tune blankets the audience, evoking a sense of happiness and fulfillment. The music to arouses happy feelings, and suggests that the audience feels