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DRAMA & THEATRE STUDIES a Level Year 1 DRAMA & THEATRE STUDIES A Level Year 1 Preparation for study at Long Road Please complete all the tasks set in this booklet before beginning your A-Level course in September. 1 If you have any questions or issues, please email: Richard Smith: [email protected] Sarah Borley: [email protected] Have a great summer! We look forward to seeing you in September! The Drama Department J 2 Quick Guide to Eduqas A Level Drama & Theatre The course is examined over three Components: Component 1: Theatre Workshop Internally assessed ● You take part in the creation, development and performance of a piece with external of theatre based on a reinterpretation of an extract from a play text. moderation ● The piece must be developed using the techniques and working methods of either an influential theatre practitioner or a recognised theatre company. 20% ● You will produce: o A realisation of the performance or design of your A Level o A creative log. Component 2: Text in action ● Take part in the development and performance of two pieces of theatre based on a stimulus supplied by the board: Externally assessed 1. A devised piece using the techniques and working methods of by a visiting either an influential theatre practitioner or a recognised theatre examiner company (a different practitioner or company to that chosen for Component 1) 2. An extract from a text in a different style chosen by you. 40% ● You will realise your performance live for the visiting examiner. ● You will produce a process and evaluation report within one week of of your A Level completion of the practical work. Component 3: Text in performance (3 texts to study) ● Sections A and B: Two questions, based on two different texts: The Written exam Trojan Women (Euripides) and one other text to be confirmed. You will have clean copies of the books in the exam. 2h 30mins ● Section C: Questions based on an extract from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon, adapted by Simon Stephens). You won’t have the book in the exam, but you will know which extract 40% is to be used in advance. of your A Level ASSESSED: Final exam in May/June at the end of Year 2 3 Preparatory work for Component 3: Text in Performance Tutor: Sarah Borley Task 1: Please purchase the following text: The Trojan Woman by Euripides Translated by James Morwood (Oxford World’s Classics, ISBN: 978-0-19-953881-2) You must purchase this exact text, as specified by the Eduqas exam board, which can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trojan-Women-Oxford-Worlds- Classics/dp/0199538816/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=the+trojan+women&qid=158824 6238&sr=8-2 4 Task 2: Understanding the Greek myths and legends Before reading the set text, The Trojan Women, it is important that you understand the myths and stories that the play and characters are based upon. Please read STUDENT HANDOUT 1 which outlines the most important myths and tells the story of how the city of Troy fell to the Greeks. It is important to consider the involvement of Paris and Helen in the story and how their relationship caused so much destruction. Task 3: Know who’s who! Please read STUDENT HANDOUT 2 which introduces many of the names that you will see in the play, either as characters or names mentioned within speeches. Task 4: ReadinG the set text Please read The Trojan Women (pp.38-75) and its accompanying notes (pp.129-147). Use STUDENT HANDOUT 3 to help guide you through the different sections of the play. Task 5: Performance or design skills exploration Having read the play, complete one of the following: From an actor’s or director’s point of view: • Choose some dialogue (can be full lines or just single words) that you have engaged with and workshop how you would perform them or write down how you would direct an actor to perform (physically and vocally) them Or From a designer’s point of view: • Design a set for the play or design costumes for the characters in the play – you can use your own sketches or images from the internet or books 5 Student handout 1: UnderstandinG the myths behind the play Optional extension activity: • carry out further research into the Trojan War • watch the 2004 film Troy, starring Brad Pitt, to get an idea of the ancient Greek period, the setting and costumes 6 Student handout 2: Who’s who in the play The names in italics are not characters in the play but names mentioned as part of the story Hecuba Formerly the Queen of Troy Widow of King Priam She has 4 grown children: Paris, Hector, Cassandra and Polyxena Poseidon God of the sea Brother to Zeus Uncle to Athena Athena Goddess of wisdom, fertility, practical skills and prudent warfare. She has very destructive powers Poseidon’s niece Zeus’ daughter Also know as Pallas (Pallas Athena). Pallas was a friend who Athena accidentally killed. As a mark of honour to her friend, Athena took on her friend’s name Athena formulated the plans for fighting in Troy ‘through Pallas’ schemes, Epeius (a Greek soldier), fashioned a horse pregnant with arms … the Wooden Horse’ (p.38) but she is offended by the Greeks desecration of her temple in Troy and so plots with Poseidon to take revenge on them Talthybius A Greek herald who informs the Trojan women of their fates Cassandra Hecuba and Priam’s last surviving daughter She has the gift of prophecy, with all the frenzy that accompanies it, but is condemned as mad for her curse is that no one believes her prophecies Priestess of Apollo (whose advances she rejected thus her curse to utter prophecies but not be believed!) 7 Apollo God of light, poetry, music, healing and prophecy The son of Zeus Gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy but cursed her, condemning her as mad as no one believes her prophecies Andromache Hecuba’s daughter-in-law, widow of the Trojan prince, Hector Mother to Astyanax Astyanax Andromache and Hector’s son Hecuba’s grandson Menelaus King of Sparta Helen’s legitimate husband Brother of Agamemnon, a Greek General in the Trojan War Helen The most beautiful woman in the world In a relationship with Paris, son of Hecuba and Priam Helen was offered as a prize to Paris, son of Hecuba and Priam, by Aphrodite as a bribe for judging Aphrodite more beautiful than Athena and Hera. This set-in motion the events that led to the Trojan War (Helen is known as ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’) Menelaus’ wife Daughter of Zeus Sister to Castor, Pollux and Clytemnestra Chorus Trojan captive women Zeus Head of the gods His wife is called Hera Poseidon is his brother Has a son called Apollo, and daughters called Athena, Aphrodite and Helen 8 Priam King of Troy who is killed during the battle Hecuba’s husband Paris, Hector, Cassandra and Polyxena’s father Polyxena Youngest daughter of Hecuba and Priam She has been sacrificed to the gods, her throat is slit on the tomb of Achilles Agamemnon Greek General in the Trojan War Menelaus’ brother Clytemnestra’s (Helen’s sister) husband Odysseus King of Ithaca Greek General in the Trojan War, leader of the victorious Greek army Achilles A Greek hero and warrior who died during the Trojan War Neoptolemus Achilles’ son Optional extension activity: • search the internet and books to find images of these characters! 9 Student handout 3: section summaries Section Page and line Characters What do you think is happeninG in references present in the this section? section Prologue pp.38-41 Poseidon Poseidon opens the story and (the ‘before-word’, Lines 1-97 Athena establishes the setting and the opening of the Hecuba – introduces some background details. play) laying on the floor, Athena asks Poseidon to help her seemingly punish the Greek army by sending unaware of storms to wreck their ships on their the gods. voyage home from Troy. Poseidon agrees and the two gods decide the fate of the Greek army. Parados pp.41-45 Hecuba Hecuba laments the ruin of Troy, (the first entrance Lines 98-234 The Chorus blaming Helen for the Trojan War of the Chorus) and for her reversal of fortune: from Queen of Troy to Greek prisoner of war and slave. Her speech shows how much the women of Troy have suffered. First Episode pp.45-52 Hecuba Talthybius enters to tell Hecuba Lines 235-510 The Chorus what will befall her and the royal Talthybius Trojan women – each have been allocated as a slave to different members of the Greek army. The Trojan women have become the property of their victors, the Greeks. Casandra is brought from her tent. Her behaviour contrasts with Hecuba’s behaviour – Cassandra dances and sings a wedding song which reveals her prophecy that she and her Greek enslaver, Agamemnon, will be killed as soon as they arrive in Argos. No one believes Cassandra’s prophecy, instead regard her as mad, and she is taken away. First Choral Ode pp.52-54 Hecuba The chorus’ song recalls: Lines 511-576 The Chorus • how happy the women had been when they thought the war was over and how they 10 celebrated the Trojan Horse which they thought was a gift. They describe the arrival of the horse and the happy manner the Trojan citizens rushed to the gates in order to drag it inside the city to the temple of Athena, quoting the Trojan citizens’ joyful cheers • how Odysseus and his Greek army crept out of the horse and brought about the fall of the city Second Episode pp.54-61 Hecuba Andromache enters and tells Hecuba Lines 577-798 The Chorus that Polyxena has been killed as a Andromache sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek Astyanax warrior, Achilles.
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