Play Project: Day 3; Shakespeare's Theater; Titus Andronicus

LAB: Please turn in any missing work. Then, use your time to work on your play projects.

Play Project

Option 1: Write a one-act play. This option allows you to explore a single idea, theme or style. One act plays sustain a longer storyline and plot, usually with fewer characters than full-length plays, but complete their climax sooner and generally take less time to write than full length plays. One full one-act play should focus on one important action (although side plots can be included) and usually develop characters to a greater extent than a 10-minute play. Each full one-act play would typically be around 20-30 pages in length. Workshopping individual plays once you have a draft written would be doable. Having written a substantial play script will likely get the attention of college programs in writing or theater. Polished plays may be given a public reading or production during the playwrights' festival.

Option 2: Write 2 (two) 10-minute plays. This option allows you to dabble with different short plays and scenarios for students who have trouble sustaining a storyline or plot. You've done these before so there's no mystery here. Each 10-minute play should be somewhere around 6-12 pages in length (not including title or cast list pages). Workshopping one or more of your plays is expected. 10-minute plays are about the length we are looking for during the playwrights festival or for the Geva contest in March. Remember: because of their length, start your play very close to the climax.

Option 3: Write a shorter one-act play and a 10-minute play. Best of both options for those of you who write or have more than one idea you want to play around with. One acts, in this case, should be 15 or more pages (not including title page, character list, setting, etc.)--too long for a 10-minute play, but long enough for the Playwrights' festival. The 10-minute play is like option 2, but just one of them.

Advice:

• Start your process by taking some time to write some premises. What do you want to write a play about? Have any plays you have read sparked ideas? What's going on in society or your family or your own past experiences that might make for a good play idea? Avoid the television plot where one character gets upset with another because of infidelity (cheating on someone else...my god, we've seen this a thousand times; abuse plays are better for television or film; avoid low cultural topics--consider more philosophical ideas...)
• Consider your tone. Is your play's premise likely to be comedic or serious? Tragic or satirical? Realistic or suggested sets? Linear or memory or episodic or avant-garde? Choices, choices.
• Follow up your brainstorming with an outline or sketch out ideas (mind-maps or other graphic organizers can help!) to see if they might work and what length might be the best option for the story you want to tell. If you already have a short story you have written (or read from another source) you can turn that into a play for the stage. If you're a poet, consider writing a musical or verse play. Monologue plays and historical plays are also options we have already explored, but feel free to use the form if you'd like.
• Remember that all plays are created by placing a beat next to another beat next to another beat to form a scene. In a short play, one scene may be all you need to tell the story--in longer plays, you may need more than one scene--but try to consolidate action, time, and place (the three unities).
• Develop character, setting, and plot through monologues where appropriate. Develop each character you put into a play (even the spear carrier #1 or the waitress...)
• Be original and creative. Write something that would be interesting to see on stage. This is not the Lifetime channel...

Classroom:

Shakespeare's Theater

Unsure of how my colleagues cover Shakespeare each year (and whether or not you come from a tradition that includes the study of Shakespeare) it's my duty to give you a little info. We'll start with a quick (if dry) overview of the time period. Please take notes on what you learn on the graphic organizer. Turn this in as participation credit at the end of our class today.

Renaissance Theater video (7 min)

Theater, as we know it in Shakespeare's day being performed in a typical PLAYHOUSE, didn't occur until 1576. It was James Burbage who built the first playhouse called, appropriately, "the Theater"--a permanent building dedicated to showing plays for commercial interest. Before then, plays were generally performed in courtyards, tennis courts, inns or guild houses. Private showings for the nobles or upper classes would be commissioned as well in indoor theaters where anyone could afford a ticket.

Actors joined an acting company. Shakespeare, for example, first belonged to the Chamberlain's Men, then to the King's Men (after Elizabeth's death). Only men were allowed to act in the Elizabethan theater. Younger actors (boys) often played the female roles because they would have looked more like women (i.e., no beard). This helps to explain why so many of Shakespeare's plays include cross-dressing. Consider that Juliet, for example, would have been played by a boy to the older actor playing Romeo. New actors were often given smaller roles so as to train with the experienced actors--who often played the major roles. Shakespeare himself was recorded as playing various small roles in his plays. The most famous example was the ghost of Hamlet's father in Hamlet.

Plays were written (often in collaboration) by the actors in the company (who also doubled as the house manager, director, props master, producer, etc.) This helps to explain why some characters in Shakespeare's plays disappear mid-play or return as new characters in the 4th or 5th acts. It's hard to be on stage while also taking money at the door.

Lines for a play were written on sides and distributed to the company members. It would be rare for an actor to have a complete script (the writer would, of course) but printing costs money, so copies were kept to a minimum. This helps explain why there are A sides and B sides to Shakespeare's works. Some lines or sides were changed by the actors or the writer during the performances. Famous actors might even change the author's lines by slipping in a bit of well-rehearsed and well-known comedic business for the audience's benefit.

Finally, having one's works collected in a folio book or quarto would have been rare. Scripts that got out of the hands of a company could be stolen by other theater companies, so copies were not passed around generally. The King's Men must have thought a lot about Shakespeare to have his works printed and bound! Luckily they did--or we could not frustrate future high school students by forcing them to read his plays!

The structure of a Shakespearean play (most 5 act plays) is:

ACT ONE: Exposition, Inciting incident, Major Dramatic Question is introduced, sometimes the protagonist has made a Major Decision. Often a complication occurs to disrupt the status quo.
ACT TWO: Rising Action, Complication(s), Establishment/development of the Major Conflict, sometimes the protagonist has made a Major Decision. Introduction to subplot (minor plot).
ACT THREE: Crisis or Turning Point, Dark Moment, Major Decision.
ACT FOUR: Enlightenment, development or Resolution of minor plots.
ACT FIVE: Final climax, Resolution of minor and major plots, falling action. Major Dramatic Question is answered.

Titus Andronicus is believed to be Shakespeare's first tragedy. He may have co-authored it with George Peele (although we can't be certain) between 1588 and 1593. Popular in his day, the play is thought to be needlessly violent and the most bloody of all his plays. It has the common Shakespearean themes of revenge and madness. Common motifs can be found below...

The play is set at the end of the Roman Empire and tells the fictional story of a Roman general, Titus, who runs afoul of Tamora, Queen of the Goths. As you watch the play/film (see below) please take notes on the following:

Major Characters:

• Titus Andronicus – A renowned Roman general
• Tamora – Queen of the Goths; afterward Empress of Rome
• Aaron– a Moor; involved in a sexual relationship with Tamora
• Lucius – Titus's eldest son
• Lavinia – Titus's daughter
• Marcus Andronicus – Titus's brother
• Demetrius – Tamora's son
• Chiron – Tamora's other son; allusion to the centaur Chiron
• Saturninus – Son of the late Roman Emperor; afterward declared Emperor
• Bassianus – Saturninus's brother; in love with Lavinia

Minor Characters:

• Quintus – Titus's son
• Martius – Titus's son
• Mutius – Titus's son
• Young Lucius – Lucius's son 
• Publius – Marcus's son 
• Nurse
• A Clown
• Sempronius – Titus's kinsman
• Caius – Titus's kinsman
• Valentine – Titus's kinsman 
• Alarbus – Tamora's son (non-speaking role)

Themes/Motifs:

• Revenge
• Human Kindness & Pity (and its limitations) (Cruelty, as its opposite as well)
• Limbs (usually being hacked off--"parts" of the body, just as children are "part" of the parent's "body", and citizens are part of the body politic...)
• Animals (particularly fierce bestial animals...like a wilderness of tigers, but also birds of prey, and their victims)
• Astrology (reference to Fate and the stars)

Allusions:

Ovid's Metamorphoses (the story of Philomela, in particular)
Seneca's play Thyestes (the myth of the House of Atreus--, and, of course, Aeschylus' The Orestia)

Information about Julie Taymor (director; also directed The Lion King on Broadway, Across the Universe, Spiderman the Musical (on Broadway) and Frida) and the cast of Titus (1999)

While we're not exactly ready to discuss the finer elements of film, Julie Taymor's film is an effective visual work.

Notice what the camera is doing while watching the film. The camera provides POV in a film and conveys meaning, both literally and symbolically. As you watch look for examples of:

• Motifs (repeated objects, symbols, or actions)
• Frequency (how often a thing occurs)
• Synecdoche (parts representing the whole)

Listen to how TONE is created by the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound elements. As you watch, also keep in mind the key themes and development of plot and characters Shakespeare uses in this play.

Turn in your graphic organizer by the end of class today on Elizabethan theater.

HOMEWORK: Complete your reading of Titus Andronicus. Keep writing your play projects!