Story Line
The ballet begins with a voice-over (by Jeremy Irons) describing how the Great Auk was very recently made extinct by man. The initial segment is set in a cafe, and several humans and penguins dance. Each subsequent segment prior to the conclusion shows an endangered species (or, in the case of the Rain Forest People, a culture). The Conclusion shows all the characters withstanding a downpour, and gathering on an ark-like boat.
The overall theme of the ballet is pro-environment, pro-conservation. The ballet seeks to make the audience more aware of endangered species.
Read more about this topic: Still Life At The Penguin Cafe
Famous quotes containing the words story and/or line:
“One story recounts that a Tennessean, after a single day in the then almost impenetrable tangle of cypress, briars, and canebreaks, pestered by myriads of mosquitoes, and bogged in the heavy gumbo mud, declared: “Arkansas is not part of the world for which Jesus Christ died—I want none of it.””
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Our job is now clear. All Americans must be prepared to make, on a 24 hour schedule, every war weapon possible and the war factory line will use men and materials which will bring, the war effort to every man, woman, and child in America. All one hundred thirty million of us will be needed to answer the sunrise stealth of the Sabbath Day Assassins.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)