The Persians Entire First Folio
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First Folio Teacher Curriculum Guide The Persians by Aeschylus new version by Ellen McLaughlin directed by Ethan McSweeny April 4—May 21, 2006 First Folio Teacher Curriculum Guide Table of Contents Page Number Welcome to the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production ofThe Persians by Aeschylus! A Brief History of the Audience…………………….1 Each season, the Shakespeare Theatre Company presents five plays by William Shakespeare and About the Playwright other classic playwrights. The Education On Aeschylus..….……………………..………………………3 Department continues to work to deepen The History of Greek Drama….……………………….4 understanding, appreciation and connection to classic theatre in learners of all ages. One About the Play approach is the publication ofFirst Folio: Teacher Synopsis of The Persians…………...……………………6 Curriculum Guides. The Persian Wars….……………………..…………..……..7 Rise & Fall—Timeline of the Persian In the 2005•06 season, the Education Empire………………………..…………………………9 Department will publishFirst Folio: Teacher The Body Politic……………………….........................11 Curriculum Guides for our productions ofOthello, Interview with the Adaptor: The Comedy of Errors, Don Juan, The Persians Ellen McLaughlin……………………………...13 and Love’s Labor’s Lost. The Guides provide information and activities to help students form Classroom Connections a personal connection to the play before • Before the Performance…………………...………15 attending the production at the Shakespeare Choral Performance Activity Theatre Company. First Folio guides are full of Timeline of Recent History—Compare to material about the playwrights, their world and Athens and Persia the plays they penned. Also included are Who Writes History? Recording World approaches to explore the plays and Events productions in the classroom before and after Why Do This Play Today? the performance. First Folio is designed as a Performance in Aeschylus’ Time resource both for teachers and students. Blame vs. Responsibility The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Education Department provides an array of School, • After the Performance………………………………16 Community, Training and Audience Enrichment Write a Story from the Enemy’s programs. A full listing of our programs is Perspective available on our website at The Role of the Audience ShakespeareTheatre.org or in our Education Responsible Leadership Programs Brochure. If you would like more Political Theatre information on how you can participate in other Director’s Vision—What Would Your Play Shakespeare Theatre Company programs, Be Like? please call the Education Hotline at Comparing Translations and Adaptations 202.547.5688. Suggested Reading Enjoy the show! The Persians Resource List…………………………...17 A Brief History of the Audience I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. — Peter Brook, The Empty Space The nature of the audience has changed throughout history, evolving from a participatory crowd to a group of people sitting behind an imaginary line, silently observing the performers. The audience is continually growing and changing. There has always been a need for human beings to communicate their wants, needs, perceptions and disagreements to others. This need to communicate is the foundation of art and the foundation of theatre’s relationship to its audience. In the Beginning unfortunately ended with what the Christians called Theatre began as ritual, with tribal dances and“morally inappropriate” dancing mimes, violent festivals celebrating the harvest, marriages, gods, war spectator sports such as gladiator fights, and the and basically any other event that warranted a party. public executions for which the Romans were famous. People all over the world congregated in villages. It The Romans loved violence, and the audience was a was a participatory kind of theatre. The performers lively crowd. Because theatre was free, it was enjoyed would be joined by the villagers who believed that by people of every social class. They were vocal, their lives depended on a successful celebration for enjoyed hissing bad actors off the stage, and loved to the harvest to be plentiful or the battle victorious.watch criminals meet large ferocious animals, and, Sometimes these festivals would last for days, and the soon after, enjoyed watching those same criminals village proved tireless in their ability to celebrate.meet their death. Many of these types of festivals survive today in the folk history of areas such as Scandinavia, Asia, Greece The Far East and other countries throughout Europe. In Asia, theatre developed in much the same way it has elsewhere, through agricultural festivals and It’s Greek to Me religious worship. The Chinese and Japanese The first recorded plays come from the Greeks (fourth audiences have always been tireless, mainly because and fifth centuries B.C.E.) Their form of theatre began their theatre forms, such as the Japanese “Kabuki” and in much the same way previous forms did. It “Noh” plays and Chinese operas, could last anywhere stemmed from the celebration of the wine harvest from one to three days, beginning between six and and the gods who brought citizens a fruitful harvest— nine in the morning! In China, the audience was specifically Dionysus, the god of wine. Spectators had separated; the higher classes sat closer to the action of a great deal of respect for their gods, and thousands the play, and the lower classes, generally a louder, would flock to the theatre to experience a full day of more talkative bunch, would be placed in stalls at the celebration. The day of drama and song made for a back. The audience expected a superior performance, lively crowd. Staff•bearers patrolled the aisles to keep and, if it lacked in any way, the audience could stop the rowdies under control. While theatre was free, the production and insist on a different one. In Japan, your seat was determined by your station in life. The theatre began with all•day rice festivals and temple rich had cushioned seats at the front, while theplays sponsored by priests. These evolved into “street peasants, artisans and women were forced to take performances” where the performers led the audience seats at the back. In the later years, after a full day of on a trip through the village. In theatre houses, the drink, Greek audiences were not above showingupper classes sat in constructed boxes, and women in disapproval at a less•than•spectacular performance. disguise (it was not considered proper for a Stones were thrown, as well as other sloppy objects, respectable woman to be seen at the theatre) and hissing was popular, and loud groaningslower of classes would stand below with the “inspector” discontent could usher any actor into standingearly on a high platform in the middle, keeping a retirement. strict eye on everyone. The Romans, or the Inspiration for Gladiator A Couple of Hundred Years without Art The Romans took the idea of “spectator” an inch or so Tolerance took a holiday during the period of further. Their theatre (first through third centuriesEuropean history known as the Dark Ages. During this B.C.E.) developed in much the same way as thetime period, culture of all kinds went on hiatus—most Greeks, with comedy, tragedy and festivals, butespecially that frivolous, godless display of lewd and licentious behavior known as theatre. Fortunately it 1 reemerged, with some severe restrictions, during the screaming over the din of the audience. Theatre Middle Ages. companies still existed on the patronage of the very wealthy and often performed plays exclusively in the Pageant Wagons salons of the rich, famous and powerful. A few Western theatre further developed from the Greek hundred years later, opera composer Richard Wagner and Roman traditions through the Middle Ages with figured out that to focus the audience’s attention “Mystery Plays” sponsored by the church. Organized away from themselves and onto the stage, the lights theatre was frowned upon, as it was a place for needed to be off—forcing the audience to watch the congregation of the lower classes, encouragingperformance. Since that time the audience has taken disease and immoral behavior. Church leaders would its cue that the performance is about to begin from allow performances of bible scenes, however, for the the lights overhead beginning to dim. This small people who could not read. These productionsadjustment in lighting effectively erected a permanent moved to different locations much like traveling the barrier between the action onstage and the audience. “stations of the cross.” To spread the good word to the broadest section of the population, these plays Freud—Tell Me about Your Mother left the confines of the church building and began to While dimming the house lights has drastically travel on what were known as “pageant wagons.”changed the overall aesthetic of theatre, another These wagons held one entire location, and a series modern movement has had even greater impact on of wagons hooked together permitted a company to theatre in the 20th century. Psycho•analysis—id, ego, tell an entire story just about anywhere. Troupes of super•ego and subconscious desires—made theatre actors would roam the countryside setting up make• more introspective in its search for truth. Twentieth• shift theatres in inns, pubs, public squares—prettycentury theatre•goers spend a great deal of time much anywhere they could park. pondering the psychological motivations of characters. There is now an imaginary wall, called the Within This Wooden O “fourth wall,” separating the performers and the During Shakespeare’s era—the Elizabethan period— audience. It affects how we view the performance theatre companies were awarded status andand how actors portray characters—we can observe privilege based on patronage from wealthythe people onstage as they relate their problems, fears landholders or the royal family. With patronage came and desires without them noticing us at all. money, so the companies began building theatres.