HEARTBREAK HOUSE by George Bernard Shaw Directed by John Going
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2006—2007 SEASON HEARTBREAK HOUSE by George Bernard Shaw Directed by John Going CONTENTS 2 The 411 3 A/S/L & HTH 4 FYI 5 RBTL 6IRL 7 F2F 8 SWDYT? STUDY GUIDES ARE SUPPORTED BY A GENEROUS GRANT FROM CITIGROUP MISSOURI ARTS COUNCIL MIHYAP: TOP TEN WAYS TO STAY CONNECTED AT THE REP At The Rep, we know that life moves fast— 10. TBA Ushers will seat your school or class as a group, okay, really fast. so even if you are dying to mingle with the group from the But we also know all girls school that just walked in the door, stick with your that some things friends until you have been shown your section in the are worth slowing down for. We believe that live theatre is theatre. one of those pit stops worth making and are excited that 9. SITD The house lights will dim immediately before the you are going to stop by for a show. To help you get the performance begins and then go dark. Fight off that oh-so- most bang for your buck, we have put together immature urge to whisper, giggle like a grade schooler, or WU? @ THE REP—an IM guide that will give you yell at this time and during any other blackouts in the show. everything you need to know to get at the top of your 8. SED Before the performance begins, turn off all cell theatergoing game—fast. You’ll find character descriptions phones, pagers, beepers and watch alarms. If you need to (A/S/L), a plot summary (FYI), biographical information text, talk, or dial back during intermission, please make sure on the playwright (F2F), historical context (B4U), and to click off before the show resumes. other bits and pieces (HTH). Most importantly, we’ll have 7. TMI Not to sound like your mom, but “if you need to some ideas about what this all means IRL, anyway. go now, you needed to go then.” Leaving the theatre during the performance is disruptive, so take care of any personal needs before the show starts. 6. RTM When you arrive at the theatre, read the production program. It’s like a deluxe version of liner notes and a free souvenir, all in one. 5. P-ZA? NW! Though your ability to eat ten slices at one The Teacher’s sitting may impress your friends, no one wants to listen to Lounge you chew, slurp, or smack, so please leave all food, drink, and gum outside the theatre. In an effort to make our educational materials more accessible to 4. TLK-2-U-L-8-R We know that you will be dying to discuss what you see onstage with your friends, but please students and easier for educators to incorporate into wait until intermission. Any talking—even whispering— is the classroom, we have adopted a new, more student- very distracting for both the actors onstage and the audience oriented format. We hope that you will circulate this seated around you. guide among your students in the weeks preceding your visit to The Rep, encouraging them to browse it before 3. LOL Without you, we really wouldn’t have a show. It’s and after class and as time allows, using it as a launch your job to laugh when a scene is funny or maybe even shed point for both pre- and post-performance discussions. a tear or two in a tender moment. However, since you are not the audience at The Jerry Springer Show please refrain You may also want to visit our website, www.repstl.org from inappropriate responses such as talking, whistling, for additional information regarding the production making catcalls or singing along with the performers. elements, such as scenery, costumes, and lighting. Any materials, either from this guide, or from our 2. SOP While it’s great that you want a celeb picture of website may be reproduced for use in the class- your day at The Rep, the theatre is off-limits to the room. As always, we appreciate your paparazzi. Flash photography interrupts the performance and making live theatre a part of your class- along with videorecording is prohibited by Actors Equity rules. You can sneak a peek at production photos on our room experience and welcome your website, www.repstl.org. feedback and questions. 1. LLTA Let the actors know that you respect their work Show Me Standards: CA 2, 5, 6, 7; FA 5; SS 2, 6 by remaining for the curtain call at the end of the and Illinois Learning Standards: 1, 2, 4, 5, 18, 25, 27. performance. Show your appreciation through applause. Young, proper singer ELLIE DUNN gets Hesione’s husband, HECTOR HUSHABYE, much more than she bargained for when she likes to invent wild stories about his life goes to the country for a weekend with a which may come back to haunt him. friend. Kind but naïve, Ellie’s father, MAZZINI NURSE GUINESS is more a member of the DUNN, wishes only the best for his family than a servant, and like everyone daughter and supports her choice of a else, may have a little mischief up her husband. sleeve. ALFRED “BOSS” MANGAN seems cold Eccentric inventor and sea captain, and business-like, but may just have a heart CAPTAIN SHOTOVER has a unique house, underneath his cruel exterior. family and philosophy of life. Lady Utterword’s foolish brother-in-law, Long absent from her bohemian family, RANDALL UTTERWORD, tries to behave LADY UTTERWORD has been thrown properly but harbors a powerful passion for back into the life she tried to escape in his brother’s wife. her visit home. Shocking in her beauty and behavior, HESIONE HUSHABYE is the hostess of this strange weekend party. BOHEMIAN: A person SOCIALISM: Any of SIREN: One of a group of with artistic or literary various theories or systems sea nymphs who by their interests who disregards of social organization in sweet singing lured conventional standards of which the means of mariners to destruction on behavior. producing and distributing the rocks surrounding their goods is owned collectively island; a woman considered PURITAN: A member of a or by a centralized to be seductive and group of English government that often beautiful. Protestants who in the plans and controls the 16th and 17th centuries TRISTAN AND ISOLDE: economy. advocated strict religious A medieval romance discipline along with FABIAN SOCIETY: legend. After swallowing a simplification of the A group dedicated to the love potion the two fall in ceremonies and creeds of establishment of socialism love though she is the Church of England. in England. promised to someone else. He dies of despair after a CAPITALISM: An BOATSWAIN: A warrant battle wound and she, economic system in which officer or petty officer in finding him dead, dies of the means of production charge of a ship's rigging, grief. and distribution are anchors, cables and deck privately or corporately crew. PROVIDENCE: The care, owned and development is guardianship and control ALBERT MEDAL: A first proportionate to the exercised by a deity; divine class award for extreme or accumulation and direction. heroic daring in saving life reinvestment of profits at sea. gained in a free market. 3 HEARTBREAK HOUSE is subtitled “A the lack of manners in the Shotover Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English household, she soon finds a connection with Themes,” and is often compared to The Cherry the courtly mannered Hector. Finally, Lady Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Like Chekhov’s Utterword’s brother-in-law, Randall Utterword, play, it is a haunting, bittersweet look at an arrives quite uninvited. He carries a torch for affluent, ineffectual society on the brink of Lady Utterword and instantly becomes jealous profound social change. In pre-World War I of the handsome Hector. England, Miss Ellie Dunn, a poor but proper THE EVER-CHANGING romantic young lady, arrives for a weekend visit at the combinations and shifting relationships of home of the eccentric inventor and retired sea- these characters provide the impetus for a captain, Shotover. Upon her arrival, she series of debates—both social and discovers that the rules and manners of society psychological—on mysticism, capitalism, do not apply here. Shotover’s house, a morality and the nature of love. Ellie is fantastical country estate replicated like a systematically stripped of her romantic ship, permeates an ambience of unrealized illusions, but also comes to realize the ambitions and unrequited love. Ellie has been inadequacy of emotional cynicism. In the invited by Shotover’s daughter, Hesione end, she renounces Mangan and instead Hushabye, to Hesione’s weekend house party decides to marry the eccentric 80-year-old along with a bizarre collection of characters. Captain Shotover, hoping that together they What Ellie doesn’t realize is that she has been can define a new world of creative values. summoned so that Hesione can help the young lady “re-think” her impending marriage to THE PLAY CONCLUDES with an explosion stuffy Boss Mangan, a middle-aged of bombs on the horizon which Hesione and industrialist. Hesione will go to any length to Ellie find thrilling “like Beethoven.” But stop the loveless match—she even tries to woo Shotover sees them as “the hand of God,” Mangan for herself, and succeeds. Yet financial and warns: “The judgement has come. Courage security proves more important to Ellie than will not save you; but it will show that your love and loyalty. She remains resolved to marry souls are still alive.” Mangan, despite the fact that she is in love with someone else: a handsome and mysterious stranger.