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Teacher Resources for Teachers Working with Students in Key Stage 3 & Above Hannah Resource Pack

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Teacher Resources for Teachers Working with Students in Key Stage 3 & Above Hannah Resource Pack 8 FEB - 9 MAR 2014 WRITTEN BY CHRIS THORPE HANNAH DIRECTED BY SIMON EVANS MARLOWE’S DR FAUSTUS RE-IMAGINED FOR A MODERN WORLD TEACHER RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH STUDENTS IN KEY STAGE 3 & ABOVE HANNAH RESOURCE PACK CONTENTS 2 Introduction SECTION ONE – CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND 3-4 A brief summary of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Chris Thorpe’s Hannah 5 The life of Christopher Marlowe 6-7 Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in context 8 Doctor Faustus - a timeline 9 Hannah - a timeline 10-12 Interview with writer Chris Thorpe 13 Images of the set from the designer Ben Stones 14-16 Interview with director Simon Evans SECTION TWO – PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES: A SCHEME OF WORK 17 Introduction to practical Drama sequences 18-22 Sequence A: Power and Powerlessness 23-26 Sequence B: Exploring Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus 27-36 Resources for Drama sequences PAGE 1 HANNAH RESOURCE PACK INTRODUCTION Welcome to the resources for the Unicorn Theatre’s production of Hannah by Chris Thorpe. Based on the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Hannah asks what happens when a young girl is offered unlimited power and what guides the decisions she makes when once she understands the implications of the power she holds. Marlowe’s classic story of a man who sells his soul to the devil for supernatural powers translates into a play for a contemporary audience that examines the choices and dilemmas facing us in the 21st Century; What are the things that tempt us, What are the things that hold us back? How could extraordinary power transform us? Writer Chris Thorpe talks about the questions at the heart of his play: What makes us good? Why don’t we go out and just do whatever we want? Because we don’t do that a lot of the time, the vast majority of us don’t do that. And it must be because we choose for ourselves. This pack aims to give teachers a deeper understanding of the play and the opportunity to see the potential for classroom work with students before and after their visit. The themes of power and powerlessness, control and choice are at the heart of both Marlowe’s original text and Chris Thorpe’s Hannah. Our drama activities start with the questions – when in life do you feel powerful and what do you have power over? When do you feel powerless? What would you give for more power? - and give students the chance to create, perform and reflect on their responses to those questions using text from both plays. This pack provides information to support critical and analytical understanding of the play. Through it we aim to provide insight into the process of making a new piece of contemporary theatre, and the roles of the creative team in the making of the play through interviews with writer Chris Thorpe, director Simon Evans and images from the design by Ben Stones. We have also included information about Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and material on the cultural, political and social context for both plays. The second section of the pack consists of a sequence of Drama activities which aim to deepen and extend student’s experience of seeing the play and enable an active exploration of the meaning, form and content of the play. Drama activities can be adapted for use across Key Stage 3, 4 and 5 and can be used as the basis for a scheme of work in Drama, English, RS and PSSE lessons. PAGE 2 HANNAH RESOURCE PACK CHRIS THORPE’S ‘HANNNAH’ A SUMMARY It’s a Saturday and Hannah lies in bed contemplating existence, her mother insists she get up and get on with her day, and gives her a list of chores to do – including cleaning out the pet lizard – while her mum is out at work. So here we have this ordinary girl Awake and dreaming, caught as you can see Between the need to sleep and the need to do, Confused, and trying hard like most of us To find a thread of sense and hold it tight In case it helps us find a way through life. Hannah and her mum are a family of two. Her mum is a busy, single mum; her time for her daughter squeezed by the pressures of a full time job. But her job isn’t just any job; she is a scientist trying her best to save the world. Hannah resents the time her mum spends at work, and the chores she has to do to keep the house ticking over. When her mum leaves she gets on with her jobs, but when it comes to cleaning out Dave the lizard’s tank she can’t find him – he’s escaped. Frustrated with her life and feeling powerless Hannah wishes she had control, the power to fix all that is wrong, to make things happen. At that moment Dave appears before her – not a lizard, not quite a man. Dave is Hannah’s pet but he is also an emissary from another world. Dave can grant Hannah powers beyond imagination. All Hannah has to do in return is give up her soul. When has her soul ever been of any use to her? Hannah makes the deal and with Dave’s help begins to see the possibilities these new powers give her. Hannah can travel the globe, she can create and destroy. We witness what that level of power feels like; to be the puppet master, to manipulate the world, to make things happen. But there are limits to this magic; Dave’s power cannot create the spark of life, of human consciousness, of the soul. When Hannah realises the extent and potential of her new powers she decides she wants to do something to make a difference in the world – but the rules of the game are not quite what she expected, the deal she has struck with Dave is more complex than she had anticipated and force her to confront where power lies. PAGE 3 HANNAH RESOURCE PACK MARLOWE’S ‘DR FAUSTUS’ A SUMMARY Doctor Faustus opens with the chorus introducing Faustus; son of humble parents and a brilliant scholar. Faustus is not satisfied with what he has; he has greater ambition and believes that he has reached the limits of human knowledge. Dismissing theology, philosophy, medicine and law, he craves more and sends for Valdes and Cornelius, two tutors who can teach him the arts of black magic. The chorus explains: And glutted now with learning’s golden gifts, He surfeits upon cursed necromancy; Nothing so sweet as magic is to him Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss. Using his new knowledge of magic, Faustus summons Mephistopheles, a servant of Lucifer’s, and tells him he wants to make a deal. He will trade his soul for 24 years of service from Mephistopheles. The Good Angel warns Faustus of what he is sacrificing in this deal and urges him to repent and return to God. The Bad Angel urges him on. Faustus agrees to the deal with Mephistopheles and signs his name in his blood. When he signs the words O man, fly appear branded on his arm. Mephistopheles answers all Faustus’ questions about the nature of the world, but he will not answer when asked who made the universe. Faustus has second thoughts on a number of occasions, but each time Mephistopheles offers him something; riches, a book of magic tricks, to distract him. Faustus travels the world with his new powers. In Rome he makes himself invisible and plays a series of tricks on the Pope. He travels through the courts of Europe where his fame spreads, Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and enemy of the Pope) asks Faustus to conjure Alexandra the Great which he does. As the years pass and he approaches the end of the 24 years, Faustus begins to dread his impending death. He conjures Helen of Troy to impress a group of scholars. When they learn of Faustus’ pact with Lucifer they are horrified and say they will pray for his soul. On the final night Faustus begs for mercy, but it is too late. At midnight a host of devils carry his soul off to hell. In the morning the scholars find the remains of his body and decide to hold a funeral for him. The Chorus’ last words are: Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practise more than heavenly power permits. PAGE 4 HANNAH RESOURCE PACK CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE 1564 - 1593 Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, two months before Shakespeare’s birth. He was educated at the Kings School in Canterbury and Oxford University, where he completed a BA in 1584 and an MA in 1587. In the late 1580s Marlowe moved to London where he became a hugely successful playwright, writing five plays between 1586 and his death in 1593. Marlowe’s plays were often subversive, challenging orthodox thinking through his ambitious and dynamic central characters. Marlowe was also the first writer to use blank verse, this vibrant and direct new way of writing was taken up by Shakespeare and others and was to become the dominant form for Elizabethan, and subsequently, Jacobean drama. Marlowe’s life was one of mystery, intrigue and rumour. He has a number of convictions to his name, spending time in gaol for his involvement in a fatal duel. He was accused by many of being an atheist; a freethinker who embraced the intellectual scepticism of the times.
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