Workshop Blog

Week One: Thursday 8 May 2008 

Today was the first session with the students of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language College.  We will be working with about 40 students: two classes of Year 10 Drama students.  Today was all about meeting each other, introducing ourselves and the project to each group.
 
Our objective for this first session was to allow students to become familiar with the plot and characters in both Rosmersholm, and The Crucible.  We talked about what they already knew about the plays, and asked them to respond to some pictures that we had put up on the wall. These included the Almeida’s Rosmersholm poster and production rehearsal shots, alongside stills from TheCrucible film.  Already there were interesting comparisons to be made between the two and it was interesting to see how much was decoded about the nature of the two plays just by looking at pictures.  Students picked up on the tension between people, that there were passionate relationships, and that something bad was going to happen in both.
 
We then split the group in half, and one half focused on The Crucible, the other on Rosmersholm. Armed with a simplified breakdown of the plot, their task was to read through the story, identify what they considered to be the main plot points, and to show these as four or five tableaux, or frozen images. The aim was to be very clear in each image about what was happening – narrative – and to find the best way of ‘telling’ that part of the story for the benefit of the other group.  They could also use a line of dialogue or narration to sum up the tableau.  We then came back together and the groups shared their work.  Afterwards we discussed what we had been able to find out about the story just from the images, and began to explore any overlapping events or themes they could identify between the two.
 
It was a really exciting start to the project and by the end of the session even those who seemed wary of the project at the beginning, were engaging with the work and contributing.
 
Between today and next week’s session, co-directors Wally and Kate will be scouring both plays to find juicy excerpts which will hopefully reveal some interesting parallels between the two. These will be introduced to the students next week as the ones that they will be working on, and beginning the practical exploration from page to stage.