Yerma − Learning Guide About This Guide ...............................................................1 Background Information ..................................................2 Teaching Information ........................................................3 Production Notes Key Design Elements ................................................5 Performance Style .....................................................9 Key Moments ...........................................................10 Adaptation Details & Plot Synopsis................................11 Find Out More...................................................................16 1 Yerma − Learning Guide About This learning guide supports the Young Vic’s production of Yerma, directed by Simon Stone, which opened on 29th July 2017 in London. Our packs are designed to support viewing the recording on the National Theatre Collection. This pack provides links to the UK school curriculum and other productions in the Collection. It also has a plot synopsis with timecodes to allow you to jump to specific sections of the play. Here you’ll also find all the information you need to enable you to study the production and write about it in detail. This includes notes about all of the key elements from performance style to design. You’ll also find pointers for further research. 1 Yerma − Learning Guide Background Information Recording Date – 31st August, 2017 Location – Young Vic, London Age Recommendation – 14+ Cast Her ........................................................................Billie Piper John ............................................................Brendan Cowell Mary ...........................................................Charlotte Randle Victor ...........................................................John MacMillan Helen .......................................................... Maureen Beattie Des ..............................................................Thalissa Teixeira Creative Team Direction ......................................................... Simon Stone Writer ................ Simon Stone (after Federico García Lorca) Design ............................................................ Lizzie Clachan Costumes ...................................................... Alice Babidge Light ......................................................James Farncombe Music and Sound ......................................... Stefan Gregory Video .....................................................Jack Henry James Casting ....................................................... Julia Horan CDG 2 Yerma − Learning Guide Teaching Information This production is particularly suitable for: • Drama and theatre students exploring contemporary or reimagined versions of classic plays for A Level. In particular you might like to explore: • Simon Stone’s adaptation of Lorca’s play which moves the setting to contemporary London and how this impacts on an audience’s understanding of and sympathy for the central character. • The design of the production and how it reflects the characters’ physical and psychological states. • The role of women and mothers in drama across a number of different productions including Medea, Antigone, Hamlet and The Deep Blue Sea. Other 20th century classics in the NT Collection Production Date Playwright Director The Deep Blue Sea 2016 Terence Rattigan Carrie Cracknell Les Blancs 2013 Lorraine Hansberry Yaël Farber The Cherry Orchard 2011 Anton Chekhov Howard Davies Translations 2018 Brian Friel Ian Rickson Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 2018 Tennessee Williams Benedict Andrews A Streetcar Named Deire 2017 Tennessee Williams Benedict Andrews 3 Yerma − Learning Guide Teaching Information Other productions of re-imagined classic plays in the NT Collection Production Date Playwright Director One Man, Two Guvnors 2014 Richard Bean Josie Rourke Other productions featuring members of the same creative team Production Date Artist Treasure Island 2014 Lizzie Clachan - Designer Twelfth Night 2017 James Farncombe - Lighting Designer Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 2018 Alice Babidge - Costume Designer 4 Yerma − Learning Guide Production Notes The following notes have been compiled to help guide you through the significant design and performance aspects as you watch the production, or to remind you of them after you have watched it. You will also want to make your own notes and form your own opinions on the effectiveness of these aspects as you explore the production. Key Design Elements: Set The performance takes place on a traverse stage – there are audience members on two sides of the performance space and glass walls separate the performers from the audience. This gives a sense of entrapment, lack of freedom and coldness. Consider how the ability to see other members of the audience can affect your engagement with the play and its themes. The glass walls create a viewing chamber – a sense of voyeurism, we are intruding on intimate and emotional scenes between various different characters. Throughout the play, changes are made to indicate the different locations: • White carpeted floor of the flat. • The set reflects the barren nature of Her; it is often entirely or almost empty. Set dressing includes, in several scenes, removal boxes. This never seems like a permanent or happy home. • Black and chrome wheelie chair (upstage left) and a portable fan (downstage right) to indicate the location has changed to the office. 5 Yerma − Learning Guide Production Notes • Kitchen island stage left (hob and sink), grey L-shaped sofa upstage centre with a standard lamp next to it and a low glass and chrome coffee table in front of the sofa, light wooden dining table, with three matching wood and chrome chairs (all facing upstage). Potted palm downstage right, with two piles of coffee table books downstage centre. Downstage left, a silver table/stool with a pot plant. The set is dressed with various domestic items such as baby muslins, glassware, saucepan, laptop, crockery etc. It then reverts back to an empty space as the audience realise that this is not their baby, but Mary’s. The stage space is suddenly back to being an empty space with no furniture. • Strings of party lights, one table upstage left with champagne bottles and glasses etc. The sense of party is created more by the movement of the actors and the letting off of party poppers. As the scene changes to 2am, the carpet is now AstroTurf. • A tree, fully in leaf is placed downstage right as She becomes interested in gardening. Later the tree has brown leaves rather than green. Their beauty and age are fading, which again reflects her situation. • The AstroTurf becomes white to indicate snow and is a very effective way of indicating emotional, as well as physical coldness. 6 Yerma − Learning Guide Production Notes Key Design Elements: Costume The costume design is modern dress, but classic enough to not be specific to a particular year. References to the weather are often made through clothing – summer dresses (the festival), anoraks or coats, jumpers etc. • Her: Grey, round neck, woollen jumper, short black leather skirt, bare feet or black loafers, large black handbag. Changes in Chapter Two to blue denim dungarees over a white short-sleeved t-shirt – She has become more ‘motherly’ in the audience’s perception but we then realise that it is not her child. Chapter Three – short lace dress, with short, wide sleeves. White sling backed heeled shoes. In the garden she wears a white, wide necked t-shirt, khaki skinny jeans and bare feet. Chapter four white t shirt and grey yoga leggings. • John: Black slacks, beige jacket, tank top underneath, white shirt, and brown shoes. In Chapter Two he wears a grey short-sleeved t-shirt, dark tracksuit bottoms. Grey suit and open necked white shirt for Chapter Three. • Helen: White blouse and white linen trousers with tan belt and brown shoes. A pink and cream patterned cardigan later. • Mary: Light blue shirt, blue skinny jeans, white converse, sunglasses on her head in Chapter 2, grey jacket and nappy bag in Chapter Two. • Victor: black jeans, beige mac, blue shirt over a white t shirt • Des: Pink knitted dress (mid-thigh), yellow leather bomber jacket, white trainers, and gold hoop earrings. Des also wears a pink plastic poncho over denim shorts and a vest top in the festival scene. 7 Yerma − Learning Guide Production Notes Key Design Elements: Lighting Brightly lit from above and both sides: this is a traverse configuration. • At the beginning Chapter Three, strings of coloured bulbs provide the party location and atmosphere in a dimly lit stage (to suggest night time). • Strobe lights in the festival scene (Chapter Six) create the mental state for Her, and it is highly disorientating for the audience too. • Stark bright white lighting in the majority of scenes, although the scene in Her and John’s flat is softer, more yellow to represent comfortable and happy domestic environment. • Intensity of lighting is important particularly as we move towards the scenes that take place at night. Key Design Elements: Sound • The scene changes are accompanied by a soundscape of female voices singing. They become increasingly discordant as Her begins to deteriorate mentally and emotionally. • The music changes to heavy bass and cymbals in Chapter Six. The sound is more artificial rather than natural (possibly reflecting the way in which Her’s attitude to fertility has changed as she has gone through IVF). The music is increasingly discordant which can be (deliberately) uncomfortable for the