A Study Guide by Marguerite O'hara

A STUDY GUIDE BY MARGUERITE O’HARA http://www.metromagazine.com.au ISBN: 978-1-74295-462-2 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au A STUDY GUIDE This is a journey of passion, self-discovery and redemption. Loyalties will be tested and tempers frayed. Do they have the right stuff? Overview Taking on the Chocolate Frog is a documentary series of three one-hour episodes that follows a group of ex-criminals and individuals with troubled pasts as they reinvent themselves as actors on the stage. Performing a play by one of Australia’s award-winning playwrights, Jim McNeil, can the cast take on The Chocolate Frog and succeed? The group will be chal- 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION lenged to stage the play in front of theatre critics, an A-list audience, family and friends inside the very place where the play was written. Guided by actor, agent and drama coach Grant Thompson, the series follows the remarkable journey of a group of people with troubled pasts to stay the course and perform on stage. Following the emotional journey of Grant and his cast, the series also illustrates the story of award-winning playwright McNeil, who was also one of Australia’s most violent criminals from the 1960s. 2 Curriculum Relevance The introduction to the Drama section of the National Curriculum for The Arts includes the following rationale for the importance of Drama as part of the Arts curriculum: Drama is a collaborative art, combining physical, ver- bal, visual and aural dimensions. In drama students will experience theatre and develop an understanding of the performer/audience relationship. The play The Chocolate Frog Learning in drama can be both process and performance. Students will combine the elements of drama to Jim McNeil’s play The Chocolate Frog explores what hap- make, present and respond to representations of human pens when two older prison inmates accuse a younger situations, characters, behaviour and relationships. newcomer of colluding with police. In prison vernacular, ‘Chocolate Frog’ is rhyming slang for ‘dog’, which is one In presenting drama they will learn, as actors, to use who violates the informal ‘laws’ of prison society. body and gesture, voice and language through interpre- tation and rehearsal processes as well as production and The two older prison inmates assume the mantle of power performance. In responding, students will learn about in a mock trial and ‘try’ the younger for his suspected how drama contributes to personal, social and cultural crime. A towel suffices for the judge’s wig, an iron bedstead identity. They will study the diversity of purposes, forms for his bar of justice and a wooden chair for the dock. and styles in drama and theatre, both contemporary and 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION from other times, places and cultural contexts. McNeil wrote the play to illustrate to those who knew nothing of prison life that prison values are just faithful From The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: reflections of some of society’s own attitudes. The Arts – Drama 3 Taking on the Chocolate Frog clearly demonstrates why Drama is so valuable in learning. We hear a lot about ‘journeys’ on reality-TV programs, whether they are journeys in cooking competitions such as My Kitchen Rules or MasterChef, or singing and performance shows such as The Voice, The X Factor or Australia’s Got Talent. How ‘real’ many of these often care- fully constructed programs are is open to question. They all tend to share some common factors which include emotional backstories for the contestants, twists and turns and a drawn-out finale, revealing the sometimes predictable winner of the contest. Ben Elton’s 2006 satirical novel Chart Throb makes clear just how highly engineered and far from reality most of these shows have become. Their principal aim, as with most television drama, is to entertain. Audiences today seem to like competitive shows about winners and losers, whether the topic is cooking, singing, dancing, trekking the wilderness or losing weight. While this documentary series Taking on the Chocolate cooperating within a group of individuals and being able Frog shares some of the characteristics of ‘reality televi- to imaginatively enter into a character are qualities that are sion’ – such as backstories of the participants, several sur- tested. In observing drama coach Grant Thompson training prising twists and turns, personalities and a real cliffhanger his students, we learn about the challenges and rewards finale – it is very different in the way it presents the journeys for those who can stay the course from audition to perfor- of the participants. It is more in the style of an observational mance. There are also interesting insights offered into the documentary where the audience are privy to the best and different skills required to act in film and television, and on worst of the experience of the participants. stage to a live audience. While not all members of the group can have starring roles For students of Legal Studies and Criminology, Taking on in a play with just three characters, everyone involved in the the Chocolate Frog offers insights into the lives of peo- group has an opportunity to perform for an audience and ple who have spent time in jail but are now outside and show their strengths. This is not simply about winners and attempting to turn their lives around. Staying out of jail losers as everyone has a chance to develop and demon- requires development skills – such as acting, where people strate the skills they have learnt along the way. can express their insights, reflect on their lives and engage directly with the lives of others. As more than half of those who have spent time in jail in Australia will reoffend, programs such as the one Grant Students of Psychology will find the series offers many Thompson embarks on with his group of ex-crims and insights into how individuals who have often been dam- others at risk have been shown to make a real difference to aged through violent and dysfunctional childhoods, abuse recidivism rates. of alcohol and drugs, and resorting to violence as a way of managing conflict can be assisted to literally ‘turn their With a cast of extraordinary and colourful characters, this lives around’, generally with ongoing family and community is a hugely entertaining account of determination, commit- support. ment and overcoming adversity and setbacks along the way, told with humour and pathos. For Media Arts students, the series offers insights into how to construct a series about a process leading to a per- The program contains strong language and is rich in the formance where each episode opens up more about the colourful idiom of people who have spent time in a jail characters and their lives, the author of the play, the coach environment. and the learning process in which they are involved. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION Taking on the Chocolate Frog is suitable for middle, senior For students of English, the series shows how a narrative and tertiary students across a number of curriculum areas. can be constructed to tell a story that is suspenseful, funny, sad and uplifting by turns. Students can explore the many Drama students could gain insights and understandings of elements, scenes and personalities to observe how the the complex processes involved in staging a play. Patience, story is layered and developed. 4 STUDENT ACTIVITY • What aspects of prison life might reflect society’s own attitudes, as Jim McNeil wanted to show through his plays? How might the stresses of daily living be com- Pre-viewing questions for discussion pounded when people are locked up with others? • What are the main purposes of imprisonment for those • What part do you think abuse of alcohol and other who break the law in our society? drugs plays in criminal behaviour? • How important do you consider these factors – retribu- • How might prisons unwittingly encourage bullying and tion, incapacitation and deterrence – in determining violence as ways to solve problems? the length of a jail term for a person found guilty of a criminal offence? • Can you envisage alternative ways of punishing those convicted of crimes that don’t involve shutting people • What are the essential differences between crimes away from society for long stretches? against people, crimes against property and so-called ‘white-collar crimes’? Are these distinctions useful? • What do you think imprisonment generally achieves for perpetrators, victims, family members and society? • How can locking people up with others of the same sex, who have also been imprisoned for law-breaking, change behaviours? • What percentage of prisoners are likely to learn enough skills and alternative ways to resolve conflicts while in prison to enable them to live differently after serving their sentences? • What kind of programs, both within and after time spent in jail, might offer individuals the best chance of not 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION reoffending? • How important do you think education and skill development are in giving people opportunities to change the course of their lives and become valued members of society? 5 About Jim McNeil Society – a small group of inmates who joined together to debate, write and paint. Here he wrote The Chocolate Frog, Considered one of Australia’s most violent criminals of the and the group first performed the play for a small audience 1960s, Jim McNeil spent most of his adult life in prison. He of visitors. wrote the Australian Writers’ Guild award-winning play The Chocolate Frog, having never set foot in a theatre. Among the audience of visitors was veteran theatre actor and director Malcolm Robertson, who was so moved by Born in Melbourne in 1935, the youngest child of a the performance that he spent the subsequent months working-class family, stories abound of McNeil’s childhood conducting weekly workshops with the group.

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