My Mother Medea

MY MOTHER MEDEA

TEACHER RESOURCE PACK MY MOTHER MEDEA FROM 31 JAN - 5 MAR 2017 FOR STUDENTS IN YEARS 9 - 13

By Holger Schober Translated by David Tushingham Directed by Justin Audibert

WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO ADAPT WHEN WE’RE NOT WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Born to megastar parents, teenagers Eriopis and Polyxenos have a lot to live up to – and a lot to feel angry about. Their father Jason betrayed their mother, they’ve had to leave Europe, they’re displaced, they’re alienated and now they’re on their own.

But they’re fed up of being ‘the foreign kids’. They’ve had enough. They sit at the front of the class in their new school and spit out the story of who they really are to anyone who’ll listen.

This punchy, modern play by Austrian playwright Holger Schober offers a completely new angle on the age-old Greek myth of Jason and Medea, retelling their story through their children’s eyes.

The audience sit at school desks as the new kids take centre stage and their story unravels.

Contains strong language.

Page 2 TEACHER RESOURCES CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION p.4

MAKING THE PLAY: INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR p.5

THE CAST p.8

DRAMA ACTIVITIES p.9

• Sequence One: The Chorus - Exile p10 • Sequence Two: Children of Heroes p.13 • Sequence Three: Jason and Medea p.15 • Resources p.19 onwards

Page 3 TEACHER RESOURCES INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the teacher resources for My Mother Medea by Holger Schober (with translation by David Tushingham). This contemporary new play, written specifically for young audiences and directed by Justin Audibert, looks at the classic Greek story of Jason and Medea from the perspective of their children, Eriopis and Polyxenos.

Arriving at yet another new school, Eriopis and Polyxenos, children of this famous mother and father, stand at the front of the class ready to meet their peers. The play will frame the audience as students in the class where the teenagers have arrived. Angry and confrontational, Eriopis doesn’t appear to want to try to fit in:

‘We’re here, before we were somewhere else and eventually we’ll be somewhere different again. That’s how the world works. We’re not looking for anything in common, we’re not looking for friends… we don’t need any ‘let’s all be nice to the foreign kids’. We’re us, you’re you. End of.’

They have been asked to introduce themselves, but what should they say about who they are and why they are here? Homeless, migrants, always on the move, this is their seventh new school in three years. They have never really settled anywhere, always living their lives in the shadow of their parents who are caught up in their own drama.

Their father is Jason, the hero who led the Argonauts in one of the most audacious adventures of all time, and their mother is Medea, who fell in love with Jason and betrayed her home and family for love. But that was many years ago. Jason and Medea have now separated and Jason has a new wife.

As the play unfolds we find out more about the kind of parents they are; how their lives have dominated their children’s. My Mother Medea highlights the emotional cost to these two young people and the ways in which each of them processes and deals with their circumstances differently.

My Mother Medea is a contemporary response to the great mythic story of a family tearing itself apart.

The Drama activities in this pack are designed to be adaptable for use across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. They could be used as a simple way in to investigate some of the key themes before and after your visit to enrich the experience of seeing the play. Or they could be developed as a whole scheme of work exploring the play’s form and content to support work in Key Stage 3, GCSE and A-Level Drama and Theatre Studies.

The activities use Euripides’ Medea as a way of contextualising and developing responses to this new play, exploring the classic Greek Tragedy and its relevance to a contemporary young audience.

There will be a free teacher CPD session at the Unicorn on Thu 29 Sep 2016 from 4.30 to 7pm, which will include the opportunity to meet the play’s director, Justin Audibert.

To find out more about the CPD or book your place, [email protected] .

Page 4 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN AUDIBERT - DIRECTOR

WHY DID YOU WANT TO DIRECT ‘MY MOTHER MEDEA’?

The thing that I really loved about it was that it tells a story that we all know a little bit about, but from a perspective that none of us have any idea about. So people know about Jason and the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece and about Medea, the wife who helps him and that he abandons. And the part that people know about the children is that they are killed, but nobody ever sees the story from their perspective - what is it like to grow up when your mum and dad are mega famous, when you’ve got to live up to their heroism, their legacy and all that that entails? That’s what I was really interested in, living in the shadow of your parents, which we all do I suppose in a way.

The female protagonist, Eriopis, is so strong and powerful, she’s the one who really drives the story, whereas the brother Polyxenos is much meeker and milder and on the surface his insecurities are much more present. What the play does brilliantly is show how if you present a really big and confident facade, underneath it you can still have all the doubts and fears that the play examines.

I suppose what the play’s about is the difference between what we appear to be and what we actually are. That is pretty relatable for most people.

WHAT ARE THE THEMES IN THE PLAY THAT YOU THINK WILL CONNECT WITH THE AUDIENCE?

This is a familial play; it’s about being in a family and what that means. It’s about your relationship to your parents. And if your parents are seen to be great people, what it’s like to have to live up to their great standards. In the play it’s really clear that Jason doesn’t think Eriopis and Polyxenos are worthy to be his children and the reason he thinks this is because of the mistakes he’s made in his own life, the way he’s lived his life. They have to deal with the consequences of the displacement of his anger.

The feeling you get quite strongly in the play is that Eriopis and Polyxenos don’t have any love from their parents. Even Medea, who was probably quite a good mother at the start, is now suffering from alcoholism. They are abandoned kids who have to deal with things for themselves and they do this in two completely different ways; one is an extrovert and the other is an introvert. But they are both really vulnerable; the play doesn’t show one way of dealing with it, it shows you two different ways that the young people deal with abandonment.

Any young person can relate to the idea of being dropped in a situation where you don’t know anyone - there are two responses, one to try and hide and make yourself as small as possible, and the other one is to try and play the big cheese or the bully. We can all relate to that whatever our age; being made to meet people and being made to try and fit in, trying to find where you fit, trying to find your tribe and often you get it horribly wrong.

They have been here before, this is the seventh school in six years, they’ve been kicked from pillar

Page 5 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES to post, they’ve been called names, abused, beaten up and their reputation seems to precede them wherever they go.

Polyxenos has tried to avoid attention and hide from it, while Eriopis has gone, ‘well if the spotlight is going to be on me I might just stand there and bring it on’.

I think their sense of deprivation is emotional not physical, not that they haven’t suffered physical hardship, I think they have, but overwhelmingly it’s an emotional hardship that they’ve suffered. There is that sense of rootlessness and what it means if you’ve never had a home? There are two big problems, the first one is trust; can you trust other people? They both have huge issues around trust or any kind of attachment.

The other big issue with that rootlessness is not having a sense of security. Interestingly one thing they have is their family name, their family histories. But that’s a big negative; they hate their family name and history. It’s so relatable for a young audience, like lots of people in society, who have to grow up without what you would call a nuclear family. When the makeup of your family is unorthodox in some way, how you then define yourself in the world is a really big question. Do you take on the things that are your family or do you totally reject them and try to forge your own path? That is at the heart of the play.

HOW DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT STAGE THE PIECE?

I’m very interested in the idea that it is immersive by nature. It should feel like you are there at Eriopis and Polyxenos’ first day at a new school. We’ve all been there when someone new is introduced to class and it gives Eriopis in particular a lot of room to keep the space between her and the audience very alive and really challenge and eyeball them. It is a situation that should make you feel quite vulnerable, but actually she totally owns and seizes the space; it should make the audiences feel uncomfortable in a good way. It is a kind of hyper-realism in a school environment. I’m very interested in the idea that for most of our audience they will leave school and the last thing that they will expect to find at the theatre is a school environment. But we don’t want them to know about the staging before they come.

How we sit people in this is something I’m interested in. Whether to sit people with people they know, in alphabetical order, or use a seating plan. Then every bit of the experience is like being in school.

I want the show to have a strong sound design. In my head right now I imagine we would take and amplify school sounds in some way. So you might hear the school bell but it is bigger, it is amplified. Or the noise of the corridor outside, kids getting called names, bleeding into the classroom. You remember that thing in school when whatever was going on on the other side of the door or in the corridor was more interesting, I’m quite interested in that. Hyper-realism; taking a school and painting it more vividly. Make it a David Lynch school: the David Lynch Academy.

The sound design will also enhance the play the more you as an audience get to know the characters; they’re really funny and really smart and enjoyable the more you get to know them. But you should also start to get more and more of a sense that something’s wrong, something’s not quite right. So the sound should be slightly disturbing and upsetting as you go through.

Page 6 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES

HOW DOES THE PLAY WORK IN TERMS OF UPDATING A STORY FROM CLASSICAL GREECE INTO SOMETHING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?

When I first read it some of the classical or mythological elements really jumped out at me and I wasn’t sure about them. But going back to the text it’s really cleverly done. You get to know the two characters and have empathy for them and they are funny and clever and they’ve made you laugh then bit by bit the slightly other worldly stuff - like the sword fight or the dragon - start to emerge.

As an audience, I think it would make me want to go away and find out more about the original story. That’s why it’s clever - even though you’ve warmed to the narrators you can tell they’re not entirely reliable, or at least there are bits of the story you don’t know. So while still liking them there is a part of you that thinks ‘I don’t think they are telling the truth’. I think people will recognise a bit of themselves in that, because when you’re a young person you tell your parents the truth but about seventy percent of the truth, or the truth but from your point of view. You manipulate it.

And the same happens in reverse with parents telling lies or part truths to their children. There is a day when you realise your parents are people. Unfortunately for Eriopis and Polyxenos they’ve had to realise it really early on in their lives. Realising your parents are normal, mortal, fallible, people and unreliable in their own way.

Page 7 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES THE CAST

STEPHANIE LEVI-JOHN

Stephanie trained at Identity Drama School of Acting. She previously played Esomo and Aguzami in the Unicorn Theatre’s production of How Nigeria Became: A Story and a Spear That Didn’t Work directed by Gbolahan Obisesan. Other credits include: Squadron 42 (Cloud Imperium); Pains of Youth (Omnibus Theatre); Closer (The Courtyard Theatre) and The Crucible (Theatro Technis).

LAWRENCE WALKER

Lawrence trained at Rose Bruford College and graduated in 2014. His professional theatre credits include: Wendy and Peter Pan (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Back Down (Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Roundhouse Camden and Latitude Festival). He is currently appearing on TV in the second series of Our Girl (BBC 1). His other TV credits include: Our Girl (series one), Casualty and Doctors. His film credits include: The ReZort which has recently premiered at the London FrightFest film festival

Page 8 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES DRAMA ACTIVITIES

These activities are designed to be adaptable for use across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 and offer a simple way to introduce some of the key themes before and after your visit to enrich the experience of seeing the play, or developed as a whole scheme of work which can support GCSE and A-Level Drama and Theatre Studies.

The activities use Euripides’ Medea as a way into this new play, exploring the classic Greek tragedy and its relevance to a contemporary young audience. The work will allow students to make connections between the ancient story and the contemporary world as it is threaded through this piece of new writing.

• Pre-show: An exploration of the role of the chorus in Greek theatre exploring the themes of home and exile and examining the way in which a chorus comments on and provides a distanced response to action on stage. Drama Strategies will include: Ensemble, chorus, movement, underscoring, script writing, improvisation.

• Pre-show: A drama looking at what it is to be the children of famous parents; the advantages and the drawbacks and what it feels like to be starting a new school, yet again, where nobody knows you. Drama strategies will include: still image, thought tracking, improvisation, text work.

• Pre and post-show: A devising sequence using text from Euripides’ Medea which explores the story of how Jason and Medea meet, marry and break up. This sequence will allow students to draw on their experience of seeing the play and how they see the impact of the parents’ actions on Eropis and Polyxenos. They’ll use these understandings to create their own short devised piece. Drama Strategies will include: Story Whoosh, still image, movement work, working in role, hot- seating, improvisation, devising, transitions and underscoring.

Page 9 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES SEQUENCE ONE: THE CHORUS - EXILE INTRODUCTION Sequence one uses text from both Euripides’ Medea and the contemporary play, My Mother Medea, to think about the role of the chorus and develop key skills needed for effective choral work. With a focus on questions of home, exile and refugees the work will connect to the opening of the play thematically and draw forward students own thoughts and feelings about home and exile. AIMS For the students to create a short choral performance piece, focusing on the role of the chorus and the skills needed to communicate meaning to an audience. STRATEGIES Still image, choral work, moving and speaking in unison, devising. RESOURCES Underscoring music, Chorus text (Resource A). TIME 1 x 1 hour session RUNNING THE ACTIVITY • Introduce the idea that you are going to explore some of the themes and characters that feature in the play My Mother Medea as a stimulus for students’ own creative drama work. • Discuss the way in which the stories from Greek myths have been told and retold many times, with different versions of the same events being emphasised by each new generation. • Explain that one of the themes playwright Holder Schober has chosen to focus on in My Mother Medea is that of home and exile, and that you are going to explore these themes through choral work. • Warm up with a game of ‘Follow the Leader’: make a circle and ask one student to leave the space then decide on someone who will lead the group in a series of movements, gradually changing from one to another. When the student returns they have to work out who is the leader. The group must attempt to move as one so that there is no one person apparently in charge.

• Ask students for the words they associate with the word home and the words exile and refugee and write them up on a big piece of paper or a white-board. • Now ask students to consider all the different reasons someone might leave their home permanently. Write these ideas up too. • Explain that at the beginning of the play we meet two young people who are exiles, refugees. They are not able to go back to the country they were born in and have been moved from place to place over the last months. The play is set in 2016 but draws on the story of Medea from classical Greece mythology and Euripides’ tragedy The Medea. Explain that you are going to use some of lines from the classical text and the new play, as a way of introducing themes in both.

Page 10 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES

• Read the description of a traditional Greek chorus and explain that you are going to look at the idea of chorus and the themes of belonging and exile. A Greek chorus is a group of performers who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action and on the actions and behaviour of characters in the play. The chorus in ancient Greece consisted of between twelve and fifty players, who danced, sang or spoke their lines in unison. • Start with a simple STOP/GO activity, asking students to move around the space, finding a group energy and pace. When you say STOP students should stop in a space on their own, with the whole group covering the whole room evenly. When you say GO they should move off again. • Work together as a group to really move as one; ask them to find a way to stop and start moving without any one person leading. Discuss what is needed to make this happen (discipline, listening and sensing the group, peripheral vision etc). • Establish a call and response exercise; now when you say STOP you will also add a number which has a response attached: 1: Move to the edge of the room. 2: Whole class cluster together into a group, make eye contact with teacher and move slowly as one towards him/her. 3: Move into a line facing towards ‘the audience’. 4: Stop, make eye contact with teacher from wherever they are and back slowly away, still keeping eye contact. 5: Stop where they are, when the teacher says ‘You have no city’ the students respond with ‘no friend to show you pity when you have suffered sufferings worse.’ • First establish each instruction and rehearse them a couple of times. With number 5 establish counting a beat in which to turn to face the audience and another beat before speaking the lines. • Now ask students to think about the activity in terms of performance. Split the group in two: ask one group to become the audience and the other to perform. Change the groups around. • Discuss: What did the audience see when watching the chorus work? When did the activity work well and can they identify why it worked? Did they begin to make any narrative readings of what they saw? • Together draw out the ingredients of successful chorus work from what you have seen: clear action, moving/speaking in unison and canon, synchronicity, acting as one, but also as individuals, representing the ‘community’, addressing the audience etc. • An alternative to this activity could be a game of Stop/Go which moves into the group collectively working for the moments where they stop and start moving, this could move into more complex ‘flocking’ work, including speaking a line of text in unison. • Now ask students to work in small groups to create four gestures they can perform together in unison based on some of the words they came up with earlier in relation to exile, for example: abandoned, vulnerable, discomfort, injustice/war, freedom, adventure, independence, fear. (These are some of the words offered by students during a trial run at our partner school). • Now ask them to work out how to transition from one image to the next. You could ask students to choose a piece of music they would like to underscore their sequence. • Introduce the elements of choral speaking; Unison – the whole group speaking as one; Solo – where individual actors take a line; Refrain – one actor speaks and the rest of the chorus answer; Antiphon – the chorus is divided into two (or more) and speak as distinct groups. • Practice these elements as a whole class, using a famililar piece of text. We used Wordsworth’s I wandered lonely as a Cloud. • Give students a piece of text (Resource A) and ask them to work with the text, using choral speaking and movement, to create a rehearsed piece. Remind them of the context within which

Page 11 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES

the chorus is speaking; Medea and her children have been exiled. Also remind students that a Chorus can be empathetic or comment critically on what is happening in a drama and they will need to make decisions about what they want their Chorus to communicate to the audience and how they will do that. • Chorus text (also at the back of the pack in the Resources): Escaped from a country that didn’t want them anymore. Here. To a country that wants them even less. They’re only here for a short time. Maybe they’ll be gone again by tomorrow. Why should they have to adapt to somewhere they’re not wanted in the first place?

They’re here, before they were somewhere else and eventually they’ll be somewhere different again. That’s how the world works. When they got here, they really thought it would get better. She promised them it would get better.

Oh land of my birth, oh my home. Never, never may I know exile. To be denied one’s native land is a misery beyond all others. You have no city, no friend to show you pity when you have suffered sufferings worst.

• When all groups have rehearsed their pieces, find a way to perform them as a whole piece. • Ask students if they can identify which is Euripides’ text and which is Schober’s (My Mother Medea). • Discuss what has been effective in their choral work and the challenges of performing as a chorus: What does choral work demand of the actor? What skills do they need in performance? • What attitudes or stance do we notice the chorus taking towards Medea and her children in these extracts?

Page 12 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES SEQUENCE TWO: CHILDREN OF HEROES INTRODUCTION These activities explore the opening of the play when we meet Eriopis and Polyxenos in the classroom for the first time and look at what it is to be the child of famous parents; the advantages and the drawbacks. Students will also imagine what it might feel like to be starting a new school where nobody knows you. AIMS For the students to engage with the characters Eriopis and Polyxenos and consider their circumstances at the opening of the play . STRATEGIES Still image, thought tracking, scene-making, hot-seating, improvisation. RESOURCES Images of celebrities and their babies/children (easily sourced online). Opening stage directions in My Mother Medea (in resources section of the pack). TIME 1 x 1 hour session RUNNING THE ACTIVITY • Explain that the play My Mother Medea starts with a brother and a sister who are about to start a new school; their seventh school in three years. They have been exiled from somewhere in Greece and they don’t know how long they will be here. • Ask students to find a space and show a still image of either the brother or sister getting ready for school on the morning they are due to start. Now move to an image of them with their hand on the door handle of the classroom, about to walk in. Ask half of the class to show their two images and the other to act as audience. Thought track some of the still images and hear a range of responses. • Now move students into groups of four or five. Ask them to create a still image of a group of students in the classroom, with the new student there, before the teacher has arrived. Ask the groups to work together to make a scene where each of them has one line of dialogue, excluding the new person, but also to decide what they are thinking but not saying. They should try to work for a range of responses from the individuals in the group. See the groups’ scenes and then when they are finished hear the thoughts of each character too (including the thoughts of the new student). • Now explain that the brother and sister in the play are famous in their own country, and maybe even worldwide. We are going to look at what it might be like to be the children of people who are very famous. • Look at the images of famous parents and their children and discuss what the advantages and drawbacks might be for the children. Write these ideas up.

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• Explain that Medea is from a royal family and is very powerful. She is known to have a fiery temperament. And that Jason is known for his physical prowess and for being very confident and well travelled. • Read the following lines of text from the children in My Mother Medea: P: Our father is a hero! We are the children of a hero. We’ve got heroic genes. We are heroes. E: He’s dragged us halfway round the world. He’s left us with all kinds of strangers while he had to do his ‘heroic deeds’. He was always away and when he was there he was still away.

• Now ask students to work in groups of four to create a family photograph of Medea, Jason and the two children. Ask them to imagine it’s a glossy photoshoot for a magazine that needs to show the public face of the family. Choose where this photograph taken - is it in the home? In which setting? What are they wearing and how are they positioned? They can choose how old the children are. • Once they have taken up the image, ask students to create a caption that would appear under the photo in a magazine. After they have shown their images, the groups can give further detail about the setting and location of the image. Ask the class to think about what the family want us to understand about them and what they want to convey to the world though the image. • Now in pairs, ask students to create a short scene between one of the parents and one of the children, that shows a moment when the child didn’t live up to the parent’s expectations. Share the scenes and discuss to what extent what they have shown is to do with the status of these particular parents, or whether it’s a more universal dynamic. • Finally give the students the stage directions from the opening of the play, ask them to create quick images of what they think this opening might look like. What kind of questions do they have about Eriopis and Polyxenos? What do they want to find out when they come and see the play?

Page 14 MY MOTHER MEDEA - RESOURCES SEQUENCE THREE: JASON AND MEDEA AIMS To create a short devised piece which shows what happens between Medea and Jason and the impact this has on their children, Eriopis and Polyxenos. The work will use Euripides’ text as a stimulus for students’ own ideas. The work is intended to be completed after the students have seen the play so that they can incorporate their responses into their final pieces. STRATEGIES Story whoosh, still image, text work, paired improvisation, listening hand, cross-cutting, direct address, hot-seating, teacher-in-role. RESOURCES Story Whoosh script (Resource B), Euripides text extracts (Resources C - H).

TIME 3 x 1 hour sessions RUNNING THE ACTIVITY - SESSION ONE • Run a ‘Story Whoosh’ telling the story of Jason and the Argonauts (Resource B). If you would rather move more quickly to the devising work you could tell them the story of Jason and Medea using Resource B to give you the main points of story. The key point to make is that Medea betrayed her father and her country for love; she chose to help Jason and leave her home, her family and her country to go with him. • Explain that some years have passed and Jason and Medea are now living in Corinth and have two children, now about nine and eleven years old. But Jason has decided to leave Medea and marry the King of Corinth’s daughter, Glauce. • Working in pairs, ask students to read the Nurse’s speech from Euripides’ Medea (Resource C) and then create a still picture showing Medea and the Nurse in that moment.

Nurse From the moment her husband’s criminal behaviour came home to her, she has remained where she lies, all thought of food dismissed, surrendering herself to anguish and melting each passing hour with tears, not raising an eye or turning her face from the ground. All she does is occasionally turn her white neck away to speak bitter words to herself ‘O Father dear, my country, my home, I have betrayed you all in coming here.’

• Now ask students to add one line of dialogue for each character. They could use a line from the text extract, or they can write their own. • See the moments and reflect on what you see and what they show about Medea and the Nurse’s relationship to her. • Choose one of the images and recreate it, taking on the role of the Nurse yourself. Ask students what questions they might have for the Nurse about what has happened and what the Nurse

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might think and feel about what has happened. Answer in-role as the Nurse, being guided by their questions. • Some things you might draw on in the in-role conversation:

Jason is going to marry the King of Corinth’s daughter, this will give him status and power. Medea feels wronged; he married her, promising to be with her forever. Without Medea, Jason would not be the hero he is today; she gave up everything to help him and to be with him, betraying her father and country. She can’t go back there. It was she who gave Jason a potion so that he could be protected against the fire breathing bulls, it was she who put a potion into the eyes of the serpent that was guarding the Golden Fleece, sending it to sleep so Jason could steal the fleece. She is a powerful woman, brave and determined; the Nurse has never seen her like this. She betrayed her father and her country, Colchis, so can never go home to her family there. Remember to use the text to inform your in-role work.

• When students feel they understand enough of Medea’s situation and have more sense of the kind of woman she is, move the drama forward by thinking about possible future actions; ask them for advice about how you, the Nurse, can help Medea at this point, or what you could do about the situation - you are worried that she isn’t eating, is lying there doing nothing. If the students haven’t brought this up already talk about the children and how the situation is affecting them. Try to explore practical steps as well as ways to address her emotional state. Ask for suggestions of what to do and what to say, keeping the range of possible approaches open. • Working in pairs, ask students to improvise what happens next, making decisions drawing on the role play. See some of these improvisations. • Create a ‘role on the wall’ outline for Medea, Jason and the Nurse. On the insides of the role shapes write what you know about the characters, around the outside write questions you have, or things you sense may be true but don’t yet know.

SESSION TWO

• Remind the class about what you know so far about Medea, Jason and the Nurse. • Working in pairs give students Medea’s speech (Resource D), ask them to read it and create an image of Jason and Medea in that moment, then bring their image to life choosing one key line they have chosen to add from the text.

Medea You owe your life to me, as they all know, those brave men of Greece who boarded the Argo as your shipmates, when you were sent to master with the yoke the bulls that breathed fire and to sow the field of death. And there was the serpent that kept sleepless watch over the Golden Fleece, enfolding it within its sinuous coils – this creature’s death I caused and so lifted up the torch that lit your way out of peril. I betrayed my own father, my own family to come here with you. All of this I have done for you and yet you have betrayed me, you unfeeling monster; you have taken a new wife, though we have children of our own. For if you still had no sons, it would be something I could forgive, this desire you have for a new bride.

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• Teacher narration – explain how the King of Corinth, Creon, has insisted that Medea and the children are banished from Corinth. Read Creon’s speech (Resource E) revealing why he doesn’t trust her and wants her gone from his kingdom:

Creon I fear you in case you do irreparable damage to my daughter… your husband’s desire for you is gone and the loss vexes you. I hear you are making threats; so my informants tell me, to do some harm to the three of us, my daughter, her new husband and myself who gave away the bride. And so I will protect myself against this before anything happens to me. Better for me to be hateful now in your eyes than to be talked round by you and regret it bitterly in the future.

• In their pairs give students the next piece of text (Resource F) and again ask them to create the next moment in the story of Jason and Medea’s separation. Start by creating a still image of Jason and Medea and bring that to life using one line from Jason that you feel will have the most impact on Medea in that moment.

Jason I will not debate the rest of this business with you. But if you want to accept any sum of money from me to help you or our children on the journey from here, just say; I am ready to provide it with ungrudging hand and to send tokens of introduction to those who owe me favours and will open their homes to you. If you refuse this offer you are mad, my lady; give up this anger and you will find things more to your advantage.

• Now ask students to improvise a short scene between Medea and someone she can confide in about her meeting with Jason: this could be the Nurse or a friend. When students have had a chance to improvise the scene use the ‘listening hand’ to go around the room and hear some of the conversations between Medea and her confidante. • Give students Resource G to create the final moment in their sequence - where Medea asks Jason for forgiveness. Ask students to think about how Medea has moved from the first moment we explored with the Nurse and where she is now and to make clear decisions in terms of physicality, movement and text which will communicate these moments in her story. You may want to give them the opportunity to use more text, write some of their own dialogue or create scenes that are purely movement based.

Medea Jason, I ask your forgiveness for what I said earlier. It is reasonable that you should be tolerant of my moods; we two have many memories of love once shared. I had words with myself and did not spare my own feelings: ‘What a perverse creature I am! Why do I madly resent those who have my best interests at heart?’… Shall I not give up my anger? What is the matter with me? Are the Gods not generous? Do I not have children? Have I forgotten that I am in exile and in need of friends?… I will do as you say; I will take you at your word. A woman is a soft creature, made for weeping.

• Finish the session by asking for volunteers to be Jason and Medea in the hot seat and then the rest of the class can ask them questions. You can question them both at the same time, however imagine they are not in the same space at the same time – they are answering alone, it is not a conversation between the two of them at this stage.

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SESSION THREE AND FOUR

• In groups of 4 or 5, ask students to work together to create one devised piece which combines the moments they have been exploring together. They will need to negotiate which of their previous work to use and which to let go (hopefully they can incorporate some of everyone’s ideas). • The groups of 4 or 5 mean they can have someone playing Medea, Jason, the Nurse and the children in their work. • Having seen the play, ask them to think carefully about where the children are in each moment of their drama; they can utilise cross-cutting to show the parallel story of Eriopis and Polyxenos. • Ask them to script some text for the Nurse as direct address to the audience; she inhabits a chorus like role in Euripides’s Medea - she comments on the action and can report action that has taken place off stage - however she is close to Medea and not impartial. Ask students to think about what she chooses to say to the audience. • Ask groups to rehearse their whole piece, working on transitions and the role of the Nurse’s direct address.

• Extension: You could choose to remove the Nurse’s text and replace that with a more distanced chorus (also present in Euripides’ play). The Chorus could be made up of citizens of Corinth and could add moral and political commentary. • You could remove all the text from the moments of action and extend the physical language of the piece. Add some music to underscore and decide on a number of beats for each moment of drama and a number of beats for each transition. • Return to you role on the wall and see if there is anything you want to add which reflects the development of your understanding.

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RESOURCE A

CHORUS TEXT

Escaped from a country that didn’t want them anymore. Here. To a country that wants them even less. They’re only here for a short time. Maybe they’ll be gone again by tomorrow. Why should they have to adapt to somewhere they’re not wanted in the first place?

OPENING STAGE DIRECTIONS FOR ‘MY MOTHER MEDEA’

E and P enter. They sit down in front of the class. E is wearing expensive sunglasses and a designer dress. She’s far too provocatively dressed for her age (Madonna’s daughter Lourdes is her role model). P is a nerd in an expensive suit. On the outside he is equipped with all the attributes of wealth and power but he can’t hide the fact that he’s a loser who happened to luck out and be born into the right family – or the wrong family, depending on how you look at it. P is uncertain, he doesn’t like being in front of so many people. He only really speaks directly to his sister and avoids eye contact with the class. E is self-confident and enjoys having people stare at her, at least that’s the impression she wants to give. She always addresses the class directly and flirts with individual class members. Both of them look at the class. The class look back.

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RESOURCE B - JASON AND MEDEA STORY WHOOSH

Bring a new person in to play each character in bold.

• Jason arrives in Iolcus to claim the crown from King Pelias. He demands the crown, but Pelias turns him down. • Pelias tells Jason if he can travel to Colchis and return with the Golden Fleece then he will give him the crown. Jason accepts the challenge and builds a great ship, the Argo. whoosh • Jason calls for other heroes from all over Greece to join him. Hundreds apply, he chooses the best to join him, including the great hero Heracles and together they set off rowing into the unknown. whoosh • Along the way there are many tests and adventures. The Argonauts save King Phineas, King of Thrace, from the horrific harpies - flying witches - who whenever the King sits down to eat come and fly over his food, sweeping down and defecating on it. Two of the Argonauts who can fly chase them off. King Phineas is so grateful he helps Jason, telling him that the Goddess Aphrodite will be his saviour. whoosh • The Argonauts row away in the Argo and they approach two great rocks in the middle of the sea at the mouth of the Bosphorus. The Argo needs to sail through these rocks, but the rocks always clash together when a ship tries to pass through. • The Argonauts trick the rocks by sending a bird through first. The rocks clash together and crush the bird, but when they spring open again the Argo sails through. whoosh • Finally they arrive at Colchis. Jason asks King Aeetes to give him the Golden Fleece; Aeetes refuses. The goddess Aphrodite, high up on Mount Olympus, sends her son Eros to shoot an arrow at the King’s daughter, Medea. Immediately Medea falls in love with Jason. • Medea pleads with her father and he agrees to set Jason a challenge to plough a field with two fire breathing bulls and then sow the field with dragon’s teeth. The King thinks it’s an impossible challenge, but he doesn’t bargain with his own daughter helping Jason. whoosh • Before the challenge, Medea gives Jason a special potion which he covers himself in. • When he faces the two fire breathing bulls, Jason is protected by Medea’s powerful potion so he is able to harness the bulls and plough the field. whoosh • When Jason has ploughed the field, he sows the dragon’s teeth, which immediately grow into great metal soldiers. • As they come towards him, Jason tricks the soldiers by throwing a rock into their midst. They turn on each other and fight amongst themselves until they are all dead. But King Aeetes still refuses to give him the fleece. whoosh • That night Medea and Jason sneak off to the temple where the Golden Fleece is guarded by a great dragon. Medea puts a potion into the eyes of the dragon and the dragon goes to sleep.

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• They steal the fleece and together they escape Colchis, rowing away on the Argo with the Golden Fleece. whoosh • King Aeetes is furious and sends a ship with his finest army to follow them. whoosh • The Argo lands on an island where Jason and Medea ask the King and Queen to help them escape Aeete’s army. • The King refuses at first, but the Queen, helped by Aphrodite the goddess of love, persuades the King to think again. He agrees that if Jason and Medea are married he will help them escape. whoosh • That night Jason and Medea are married and the next morning the King and Queen help them escape, leaving King Aeete’s army behind on the island, furious. whoosh • Jason, Medea and the Argonauts finally return to Iolcus with the Golden Fleece, triumphant. whoosh - the end

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RESOURCE C

RESOURCE D

RESOURCE E

RESOURCE F

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RESOURCE G

Text taken from: Euripides’ Medea and Other Plays, translated by John Davie, published by Penguin Books

Page 23 MY MOTHER MEDEA A Unicorn production

Resource pack written by Catherine Greenwood