Peer Workshop (Play Projects); The Seagull

During period 1 (until 8:00), please do one of the following activities in the lab:

A. Workshop.
Step 1: Copy or transfer your play script to Google Docs (if you haven't already used the program to write your script).
Step 2: Select up to 2 other students whose feedback you would like for your project. SHARE your google document script draft to this person. You may also select me, as your teacher, as your 2nd or 3rd reader.
Step 3: Let your peer reviewers know what kind of help you would like to get feedback on. Send a note about what kind of help you want the reader to help you with:

• Formatting
• Grammar, spelling, syntax
• Character development suggestions
• Plot development suggestions
• Suggestions about structure/organization
• Diction, language use, theme suggestions, etc.
• Other (specify your request)

Remember to give your peer reviewers the option to edit or comment on your Google doc. If you keep your Google doc as READ ONLY--your reviewers cannot provide in-text commentary.

Step 4: Read any texts sent or shared with you. INSERT comments to assist your writer based on step #3 above. If a student simply sends you a script without knowing what you should look for, please either ask that peer, or give general thumbs up or down comments (you do not need to provide written feedback for your peer in this case).

Step 5: Fill out one of the participation/workshop slips for today's participation.

B. Writing.
Keep writing your play projects. Complete option A when you need to. Deadlines for the play project are Jan. 20. This is also the probable date for your final exam for this course. There is no exam for this class given during mid-term week.  

Period 2 (8:00)
Please go down to our classroom to read The Seagull together. Choose a character role from those available and let's read The Seagull.

Russian Playwright and short story writer, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be his four major plays (The Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard are the others). The Seagull was written in 1895 and produced in 1896. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the fading leading actress Irina Arkadina, her son the experimental playwright Constantine Treplieff, the ingénue Nina, and the author Trigorin.

Similar to Chekhov's other full-length plays, The Seagull relies upon an ensemble cast of fully-developed (and quirky) characters. In contrast to the melodrama of the mainstream theatre of the 19th century, actions (example: Constantin's suicide attempts) are not always shown onstage. Characters tend to speak in ways that skirt around issues rather than addressing them directly, a dramatic practice  known as subtext. In fact, it is this failure to communicate that creates much of the conflict in Chekhov’s work. The practice of subtext, although found in Shakespeare's plays, gained so much popularity in play writing, that no successful script today is without it.

The Seagull alludes to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Arkadina and Treplieff quote lines from Shakespeare's tragedy before the play-within-a-play (and even the play-within-a-play is a device used in Hamlet!) Treplieff seeks to win his mother’s favor back from Trigorin, much as Hamlet tries to win Gertrude (his mother) back from his uncle Claudius.

The opening night of the first production was a failure. “Vera Komissarzhevskaya, playing Nina, was so intimidated by the hostility of the audience that she lost her voice. Chekhov left the audience and spent the last two acts behind the scenes. When supporters wrote to him that the production later became a success, he assumed they were just trying to be kind.” When Constantin Stanislavski (a famous director and acting teacher) directed the Seagull in 1898 for the Moscow Art Theatre, the play was successful and well regarded. Stanislavski's production of The Seagull became "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama."

IMPORTANT VOCABULARY CONCEPT:

• Subtext: important meaning in what is not said in a character's line. It is the unspoken meaning or message in a literary work (scene, play, film, story, etc.) Subtext for an actor are the subtle details or clues used by that actor to develop his/her character based on reading between the lines. Usually, paying close attention to the motivation or reason why a character speaks, rather than what he says. 

HOMEWORK: None. Play projects are due Friday, Jan. 20.