In the play “The little pony by Paco Bezerra” Timmy is the child who is the target and victim of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. Following the events and actions in the play, audiences learn the plight of unique children right from their tender age. Timmy emerges as a victim of abuse by pupils at school, punishment – by his teacher, mother, and school administrator – and a child who feels ignored by parents. The audiences learn that a difference in sexual orientation causes the torture the ten-year-old Timmy experiences in the play. This essay centers on how verbal and non-verbal elements of the play reveal Timmy for understanding by the audiences. It seeks to answer the question of how the audiences learn the plight of unique children through the actions by the characters Irene and Daniel and their surroundings.
Verbal Elements
Throughout the play, Irene and Daniel engage in a conversation that targets to save their child from his unfavorable situation. Also, Irene and Daniel act in response to Timmy’s nasty experiences to show how the boy’s suffering impacts them. The parental dialogue and behavior throughout the play paints to the audiences an image of a lovely family. For example, the couple presents a romantic show at the start of the play (Bezerra 121). Also, Irene and Daniel jointly rear Timmy, e.g., they take turns taking Timmy to school. Nonetheless, the relationship retrogresses exponentially from the receipt of the news that Timmy is facing abuse at school.
All through, Daniel overtly declares to Irene his comfort in Timmy’s uniqueness. However, there are no clear indications as to how he believes his son is unique. Irene identifies to audiences the child’s uniqueness through her explanations to her naïve husband. She points out behaviors like cladding his cousins blouse, choice of bright colors – customary abnormal – and taste for prints. At one point, Irene tells her husband, “I’ve always been afraid that the child might be different, that he wasn’t……like the rest and…..” (Bezerra 172). This is blatant statement that Timmy is gay. She connects Timmy’s school experiences to the pink pony bag he carries. Irene explains that Timmy’s teacher and the school administrator do not want the bag in school. From these acts, audiences learn that the child’s sexual orientation is gay. Also, this sexual orientation is customary unacceptable; thus it is to blame for the boy’s ordeal. It is vivid that Daniel naively supports his son in the way he respects his choices and defends Timmy.
Irene tells Daniel that the boy neither speaks nor eats (Bezerra 166). The stay at home following suspension from school has a heavy toll on Timmy (Bezerra 168). In school, Irene had learned that Timmy dozed off in the rest room. Daniel explains the physical abuse Timmy faced in school (Bezerra 144). The school expelled him without attending to his version of the story. Also, Timmy bashes into a tree as he flees his assailants. The boy sleeps unresponsive to stimuli as the play comes to an end. Irene says to Daniel concerning the doctors’ report, “These are medical accounts of patients who’ve suffered something similar and who, without any real explanation, managed to wake up” (Bezerra 186). This directly means that Timmy is in a normal comma. It is the height of psychological disturbance – mental crash because he fell off asleep once (anti’s explanation). All these dialogues at different parts of the play portrays Timmy to audiences as a child who is at the height of physical, emotional, and mental torture and abuse. His welfare is materially impaired.
Non-verbal Element
The play includes diverse speechless actions and manipulation of the environment that describe Timmy to the audience. At the start of the play, the stage direction is as, “The sitting room is tiny…..smaller chairs barely fit” (Bezerra 113). This points to Timmy’s humble background. Also, the statements that parents take Timmy to school expounds the idea that Timmy hails from a humble background. Irene feels comfortable with a new school that is a walking distance (Bezerra 169). The audience would like to know if the parents are aware of their child’s cause of suffering. This desire is non-verbally satiated by Irene’s actions of staring and observing silence at different scenes. For instance, the stage direction reading, “Irene, still smiling, thinks about it” (Bezerra 121). This is vivid indication that Irene knows the issue at hand, as well revealed in the later scenes. An array of Irene’s silence to portray her knowledge of the boy’s difference in sexual orientation manifests on the several other text’s pages as stage directions.
Timmy has a whole papered wall of his room explaining what he feels. The drawings communicate non-verbally that the child is in a home where parents don’t hear him. Irene emphasizes this fact in a statement, “And we are the ones who stopped hearing him. That’s why he has started making those drawings” (Bezerra 176). Other forms of non-verbal communication that aid audiences to learn Timmy include dressing – Timmy wore a blouse – choice of suspiciously bright colors, association with the purple pony as his name for notebooks, and slamming door because his mother punished him.
The environment communicates as well. Irene and Daniel act in a bright room at first as a sign of a bright mood – no issues – as depicted in the visual play (Perrig 2018). As issues crop up and keep growing, the room’s brightness dims exponentially. Something is peculiar about the framed picture that hangs on the wall; develops a wound on the face (Bezerra 138), bleeds (Bezerra 139), develops horn (Bezerra 142), and mouth leaves the image (Bezerra 185). As the play comes to its end, the picture leaves the frame flying towards the rainbow – stage direction (Bezerra 190). The Editors (2022), elucidates the connection between LGBTQ and moon and rainbow colors. A stage direction reads, “On the wall, Timmy’s framed image sports a horn on its forehead. Daniel, nervous, paces around the room. The house has lot a bit of light and seems larger” (Bezerra 143). This is a combination of stage manipulation and body posture or movement to present to the audience the severity of issues encompassing Timmy.
Conclusion
This essay sought to answer the question of how Paco Bezerra’s play expresses the child (Timmy) onstage for audiences to know him. The essay describes that the play used a combination of stage directions, environment manipulation, characters’ none-verbal communication, and participants’ dialogue to present the child. Each device is adequately described. To the audience, Timmy is portrayed as a victim of physical, emotional, and mental abuse because of deliberately identifying as different regarding sexual orientation.
Works Cited
Bezerra, Paco. The little pony. Translated by Mario Peter Holt. Ediciones Antígona. 2018.
Perrig, Elias. “Vertebra Theatre The Little Pony“, https://www.pointsart.org/en/eventthe-little- pony. Accessed 18 October 2023.
The Editors, OprahDaily, The Editors, OprahDaily. “LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and Their Meanings – Oprah Daily.” Lifestyle Relationships, Oprah Daily, 2 June 2022, www.oprahdaily.com/life/relationships-love/g36332366/pride-flags-meanings/.
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