Hannah - resource pack

TEACHER RESOURCES

HANNAH 8 FEB - 9 MAR 2014 WRITTEN BY CHRIS THORPEDIRECTED BY SIMON EVANS

MARLOWE’S DR FAUSTUS RE-IMAGINED FOR A MODERN WORLD

FOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH STUDENTS IN KEY STAGE 3 & ABOVE

2 Introduction

SECTION ONE – CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

3-4 A brief summary of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Chris Thorpe’s Hannah

5 The life of Christopher Marlowe

6-7 Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in context

8 Doctor Faustus - a timeline

9 Hannah - a timeline

10-12 Interview with writer Chris Thorpe

13 Images of the set from the designer Ben Stones

14-16 Interview with director Simon Evans

SECTION TWO – PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES: A SCHEME OF WORK

17 Introduction to practical Drama sequences

18-22 Sequence A: Power and Powerlessness

23-26 Sequence B: Exploring Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

27-36 Resources for Drama sequences

HANNAH RESOURCE PACK

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Welcome to the resources for the Unicorn Theatre’s production of Hannah by Chris Thorpe. Based on the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Hannah asks what happens when a young girl is offered unlimited power and what guides the decisions she makes when once she understands the implications of the power she holds.

Marlowe’s classic story of a man who sells his soul to the devil for supernatural powers translates into a play for a contemporary audience that examines the choices and dilemmas facing us in the 21st Century; What are the things that tempt us, What are the things that hold us back? How could extraordinary power transform us? Writer Chris Thorpe talks about the questions at the heart of his play:

This pack aims to give teachers a deeper understanding of the play and the opportunity to see the potential for classroom work with students before and after their visit. The themes of power and powerlessness, control and choice are at the heart of both Marlowe’s original text and Chris Thorpe’s Hannah. Our drama activities start with the questions – when in life do you feel powerful and what do you have power over? When do you feel powerless? What would you give for more power? - and give students the chance to create, perform and reflect on their responses to those questions using text from both plays.

This pack provides information to support critical and analytical understanding of the play. Through it we aim to provide insight into the process of making a new piece of contemporary theatre, and the roles of the creative team in the making of the play through interviews with writer Chris Thorpe, director Simon Evans and images from the design by Ben Stones. We have also included information about Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and material on the cultural, political and social context for both plays.

The second section of the pack consists of a sequence of Drama activities which aim to deepen and extend student’s experience of seeing the play and enable an active exploration of the meaning, form and content of the play. Drama activities can be adapted for use across Key Stage 3, 4 and 5 and can be used as the basis for a scheme of work in Drama, English, RS and PSSE lessons.


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What makes us good? Why don’t we go out and just do whatever we want? Because we don’t do that a lot of the time, the vast majority of us don’t do that. And it must be because we choose for ourselves.

CHRIS THORPE’S ‘HANNNAH’ A SUMMARY

It’s a Saturday and Hannah lies in bed contemplating existence, her mother insists she get up and get on with her day, and gives her a list of chores to do – including cleaning out the pet lizard – while her mum is out at work.

So here we have this ordinary girlAwake and dreaming, caught as you can seeBetween the need to sleep and the need to do,Confused, and trying hard like most of usTo find a thread of sense and hold it tightIn case it helps us find a way through life.

Hannah and her mum are a family of two. Her mum is a busy, single mum; her time for her daughter squeezed by the pressures of a full time job. But her job isn’t just any job; she is a scientist trying her best to save the world.

Hannah resents the time her mum spends at work, and the chores she has to do to keep the house ticking over. When her mum leaves she gets on with her jobs, but when it comes to cleaning out Dave the lizard’s tank she can’t find him – he’s escaped.

Frustrated with her life and feeling powerless Hannah wishes she had control, the power to fix all that is wrong, to make things happen. At that moment Dave appears before her – not a lizard, not quite a man. Dave is Hannah’s pet but he is also an emissary from another world.

Dave can grant Hannah powers beyond imagination. All Hannah has to do in return is give up her soul. When has her soul ever been of any use to her? Hannah makes the deal and with Dave’s help begins to see the possibilities these new powers give her.

Hannah can travel the globe, she can create and destroy. We witness what that level of power feels like; to be the puppet master, to manipulate the world, to make things happen. But there are limits to this magic; Dave’s power cannot create the spark of life, of human consciousness, of the soul.

When Hannah realises the extent and potential of her new powers she decides she wants to do something to make a difference in the world – but the rules of the game are not quite what she expected, the deal she has struck with Dave is more complex than she had anticipated and force her to confront where power lies.


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MARLOWE’S ‘DR FAUSTUS’A SUMMARY

Doctor Faustus opens with the chorus introducing Faustus; son of humble parents and a brilliant scholar. Faustus is not satisfied with what he has; he has greater ambition and believes that he has reached the limits of human knowledge. Dismissing theology, philosophy, medicine and law, he craves more and sends for Valdes and Cornelius, two tutors who can teach him the arts of black magic. The chorus explains:

And glutted now with learning’s golden gifts,He surfeits upon cursed necromancy;Nothing so sweet as magic is to himWhich he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

Using his new knowledge of magic, Faustus summons Mephistopheles, a servant of Lucifer’s, and tells him he wants to make a deal. He will trade his soul for 24 years of service from Mephistopheles.

The Good Angel warns Faustus of what he is sacrificing in this deal and urges him to repent and return to God. The Bad Angel urges him on. Faustus agrees to the deal with Mephistopheles and signs his name in his blood. When he signs the words O man, fly appear branded on his arm.

Mephistopheles answers all Faustus’ questions about the nature of the world, but he will not answer when asked who made the universe. Faustus has second thoughts on a number of occasions, but each time Mephistopheles offers him something; riches, a book of magic tricks, to distract him.

Faustus travels the world with his new powers. In Rome he makes himself invisible and plays a series of tricks on the Pope. He travels through the courts of Europe where his fame spreads, Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and enemy of the Pope) asks Faustus to conjure Alexandra the Great which he does.

As the years pass and he approaches the end of the 24 years, Faustus begins to dread his impending death. He conjures Helen of Troy to impress a group of scholars. When they learn of Faustus’ pact with Lucifer they are horrified and say they will pray for his soul.

On the final night Faustus begs for mercy, but it is too late. At midnight a host of devils carry his soul off to hell. In the morning the scholars find the remains of his body and decide to hold a funeral for him. The Chorus’ last words are:

Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wiseOnly to wonder at unlawful things,Whose deepness doth entice such forward witsTo practise more than heavenly power permits.


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CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE1564 - 1593

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, two months before Shakespeare’s birth.

He was educated at the Kings School in Canterbury and Oxford University, where he completed a BA in 1584 and an MA in 1587.

In the late 1580s Marlowe moved to London where he became a hugely successful playwright, writing five plays between 1586 and his death in 1593. Marlowe’s plays were often subversive, challenging orthodox thinking through his ambitious and dynamic central characters. Marlowe was also the first writer to use blank verse, this vibrant

and direct new way of writing was taken up by Shakespeare and others and was to become the dominant form for Elizabethan, and subsequently, Jacobean drama.

Marlowe’s life was one of mystery, intrigue and rumour. He has a number of convictions to his name, spending time in gaol for his involvement in a fatal duel. He was accused by many of being an atheist; a freethinker who embraced the intellectual scepticism of the times. He spent a long time abroad during his studies at Oxford; initially the University refused to grant his MA on the grounds of his extended absence; however intervention from the Privy Council which described his faithful dealing and good service to the Queen and explained that he was working on matters touching the benefit of his country ensured that he received his MA after all. Many see the Privy Council’s intervention as proof that he had been recruited by Walsingham’s intelligence service to act as a spy for the Queen. Others suspected that in fact Marlowe was a Catholic working against the Queen. Whatever the truth, he was clearly involved in dangerous and subversive activities.

Marlowe died in a brawl over the payment of the bill in a tavern in Deptford in 1593. At least one of the men he was with, Robert Poley, was known to be a government agent.


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MARLOWE’S ‘DR FAUSTUS’CONTEXT

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus was written between 1589 and 1592 and first performed after Marlowe’s death in 1594 by Edward Alleyn’s company, The Admiral’s Men.

The play is based on the true story of Johannes Faustus; a man who became famous in the early 1500’s when he made claims to be a magician and travelled throughout Europe exploiting this fame.

There have been a number of versions of the story; Marlowe’s was the first play based on Faustus’ life, Goethe’s famous version Faust was written and performed in the 19th Century.

The story of Doctor Faustus follows and includes reference to other stories and myths where unchecked ambition leads to hubris – man challenging the authority or omnipotence of the Gods; Adam and Eve are tempted by the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and are punished by God, banished from the garden of Eden; Lucifer challenges God’s authority, wanting to be his equal, his punishment is to join the fallen angels in Hell; Icarus crosses the Greek Gods when he attempts to fly to escape captivity, in his bid for freedom he flies too close to the sun, the wax in his wings melts and he falls to earth.

Marlowe’s play was written at a time of great change, when medieval England was giving way to the Renaissance. In the medieval world view, God is at the centre of existence, with man and the natural world secondary; the medieval perspective is one of respect for tradition and authority.

The Renaissance, beginning as a flowering of science and the arts in Italy in the 15th Century, was a humanist movement, more concerned with the individual than the hierarchy of God, the State and the people. At its centre was classical learning and scientific inquiry. With the Renaissance came emancipation, a spirit of enquiry, secularism and scepticism.


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CONTEXT CONTINUED...

Marlowe’s play is a morality tale in the medieval tradition; a tragedy in which the unbridled ambition of Doctor Faustus leads to eternal damnation. However the play also challenges this tradition. Faustus could be seen as a Renaissance man, one who desired knowledge and was prepared to challenge God’s ultimate authority in order to get it. He strives to know the answer to the secrets of the universe that science has not yet explained.

However, despite the potential of the supernatural powers he is granted, Faustus merely uses them to play infantile tricks on the Pope and impress courts throughout Europe. Faustus is ultimately damned because he is human, because he can be no-one but himself, a man who desires more, who aspires for knowledge and is prepared to risk all for that. Despite being offered countless opportunities to retract and ask for forgiveness from God, he refuses, and insists on going on.

The period when Marlowe was writing was a time of great change; a time of maritime exploration, with the discovery and mapping of huge areas of the physical world and new scientific discoveries being a challenge to old ways of thinking and organising the world. The theory gaining authority at that time - that the sun, not the earth is not at the centre of the planetary system - contributed to changes in thinking about the church and the state. The Reformation in Europe directly challenged the assumption that ordinary men and women needed clergy to interpret God and Jesus’ teachings for them and instead asserted their right to speak directly with their God.

The 21st Century is also a time of huge advances in scientific knowledge; exploration in space, technological developments, the internet, genetics, neuroscience and physics - in particular with the identification of the Higgs Boson particle, nicknamed ‘The God Particle’ because of the contribution to how we understand how the universe began. The Renaissance and the 21st Century are both periods of rapid change which shape how audiences of both historical periods would consider ideas around power, identity and our place in the natural, political and social world.


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TIMELINEMARLOWE’S ‘DR FAUSTUS’


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Martin Luther (German professor of Theology) writes his 95 Theses which ignites the Reformation and spreads accross Europe throughout the 16th Century.

Mathematician and Astronomer, Copernicus publishes On the revolutions of the Celestial Spheres which proposes his heliocentric model of the universe in which the sun rather than the earth is placed at the centre of the universe.

Queen Elizabeth (Protestant) succeeds Queen Mary (Catholic).

Queen Elizabeth’s legislation 39 Articles creates a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism in England.

Christopher Marlowe is born in London, two months before Shakespeare.

Mary Queen of Scots, who made a claim on the English Crown, is imprisoned by Elizabeth.

The Papal Bull Charter from Pope Pius declares Queen Elizabeth a heretic and demands the excommunication of her supporters.

Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe.

Marlowe’s first play Dido is written.

Babington plot (Catholic plot against Elizabeth) discovered. Elizabeth introduces harsh laws against Catholics.

Mary Queen of Scots executed, whether Elizabeth agreed to the execution is not certain.

The Spanish Armada fails in its attempt at invasion and with it Phillip of Spain’s claim on the English throne and the restoration of Catholicism.

Doctor Faustus written.

Performance of first Shakespeare play, Henry VI.

Marlowe arrested in the Netherlands for counterfeiting money. Speculation whether he was spying for the English government or that he was involved in Catholic conspiracy.

Marlowe dies, stabbed in a brawl over the payment of the bill in a tavern in Deptford. The men he was with were quite possibly government agents.

Doctor Faustus first performed by Edward Alleyn’s company, The Admiral’s Men. Thomas Beard in Theatre of God’s Judgement see’s Marlowe’s death as punishment for his ‘atheism and impiety’.

24 March - Elizabeth I dies.

First publication of Doctor Faustus: The A text.

Publication of The B Text of Doctor Faustus.

Shakespeare’s last play performed.

1517

1543

1563

1558

1564

1634

1616

1604

1603

1597

1594

1593

1592

1590

1588

1587

1586

1585/6

1577-80

1570

1568

1589-92


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TIMELINE THORPE’S ‘HANNAH’

20 July - first man on the moon.

The first hand held mobile phone is produced.

6 September - Chris Thorpe born.

First symposium on Chaos Theory takes place in New York. Chaos Theory is concerned with the nonlinear and the unpredictable in science - The Butterfly Effect which articulates the infinite complexity of nature and science, and the interconnectedness of global phenomenon.

The development of the World Wide Web.

The rise of the mobile phone.

The first Gulf War takes place; the UK joins a huge US led military campaign which forces Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

December - the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

11 September - The Twin Towers in New York destroyed.

March US invasion of Iraq and British Operations begin.

April -the Human Genome Project provided the ability to read nature’s complete genetic blueprint for building a human being.

Richard Dawkins publishes The God Delusion in which he argues that a supernatural creator most probably doesn’t exist.

Google Earth available on the internet.

10 September - The Large Hadron Collider went live in the search for the Higgs Boson.

August - images sent back to earth from landing on Mars.

Hannah written by Chris Thorpe.

1969

2003

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1991

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1990-1

2003

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1980s

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INTERVIEW WITH WRITER CHRIS THORPE WHY DID YOU WANT TO WRITE A MODERN VERSION OF DR FAUSTUS FOR A YOUNG AUDIENCE?

What really interests me is how and why people ever do the right thing and all the ways we’ve tried throughout history to ensure that people do the right thing. We’ve got the law and we’ve got religion; we’ve got all those ideas that we plant into people’s heads of some kind of punishment at some future date if you transgress a rule and I think that’s doubled up at least when you’re young.

We tell stories that are about training people to resist temptation but we never tell them why. We make it about some nebulous idea of punishment that will happen, but it doesn’t. You know you can be punished by your parents; you can be punished by the law, but the universe probably isn’t going to punish you. I’ve never seen anything that’s convinced me of that, although I respect, obviously, people who hold those beliefs very personally to themselves.

So what makes us good? In a world where we imagine that punishment exists, and then suddenly it doesn’t, then what is the reason to be good? Because being good is hard. Why don’t we go out and just do whatever we want? Because we don’t do that a lot of the time, the vast majority of us don’t do that. And it must be because we choose for ourselves.

What fascinates me about the Faust myth is that in the original story there is no doubt about where the punishment is coming from, there is no doubt about who is controlling and articulating this punishment, both in the world in which this play was written, in terms of the church and the state, but also in the metaphysical world. But most of us don’t have that certainty of belief anymore; in fact we’re sceptical about that clarity. And ‘most of us’ includes young people.

IN YOUR PLAY THE CONSEQUENCES FOR HANNAH ARE VERY DIFFERENT TO THE CONSEQUENCES FOR FAUSTUS - THE JEOPARDY ISN’T THAT SHE WILL GO TO HELL AS FAUSTUS DOES, SO WHAT IS AT STAKE FOR HANNAH?

I’ve taken God out of it (my version), but it’s not a piece of atheist propaganda, if there could be such a thing. It’s a version that shows what happens when you take God out of the story.The jeopardy in the play for Hannah is that she is going to not be punished; the jeopardy is that she is going to have to take responsibility that she is going to have to live a life knowing she could have done better. If she chooses to abuse this power and it turns out that she hasn’t really got a soul to lose, the jeopardy is that she’s going to have to live with herself. It’s what we all face I think.


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INTERVIEW CONTINUED...

Somehow for me that’s worse in a lot of ways, the worst punishment in a godless world that you can devise for someone; that they have to just live with themselves. But it’s not even about punishment. No-one’s going to punish you. You have to choose to be good. And the flip-side of that is there’s no point to being good, if you just do it because you’re told to. Otherwise you’re equally capable of being bad because you’ve been told to be bad.

What you do is develop a sense of what will harm and what will not, and you ally that to a sense of responsibility and self-preservation as well, and all you can do is make responsible choices that are going to leave the world a better place than when you arrived in it.

However, the play certainly isn’t written to exclude people with a religious belief. I think it would be very easy to see this as an anti-religious play and I myself am not religious and that certainly influenced the decision to treat the story in the way I’ve treated it. But even in my lack of belief I’m open to the possibility.

WHAT IS THE PROCESS OF WRITING THE PLAY AND WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL AND YOUR VERSION?

There are some very clear points in Marlowe’s text which can be taken and can either be transformed in their entirety, or can be subverted:

The moment of the appearance of temptation; the moment of choice; the moment of realisation that you can harm; the moment of maximum potential damage to the whole world because of your burgeoning megalomania; all these things. You can tell a very different story with different versions of all those points in it.

Obviously I’ve taken the rhythm; linguistically I’ve take the rhythm of the verse parts of the original. Because I just love reading it and I love what you can do with that.

One of the great things that younger people can do is write in verse, write in iambic and be strict about it because it really allows you to marshal your thoughts and moments and make characters say things that you want them to say, but in this strangely twisted way, because you have to fit into a frame, so it really makes you interrogate your thoughts. The linguistic framework of the play is something I really took.


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HOW DO YOU IMAGINE HANNAH BEING STAGED? WHAT DO YOU ADD INTO YOUR TEXT IN TERMS OF STAGE DIRECTIONS TO HELP WITH THE THEATRICAL REALISATION OF THE PLAY?

I have a very clear version in my head of how this might look, but actually it is the least important thing for me to put down on paper. I find it’s far more interesting not to second guess or to try and guide someone else’s imagination.

The words are there to be said, they are there for a specific reason and to be said in that specific order. I would only put the bare minimum (stage directions) that would allow someone to understand what needed to happen, how that happens isn’t up to me. I want to be as surprised as anyone.

It’s a bit like if there was a composer on the piece I wouldn’t write the music for them, I wouldn’t even say what the music should sound like. It would feel a ridiculous thing to me to say that the music should sound like this. If it’s there in the writing well enough, then someone’s going to get a strong impression that’s going to influence their creativity, and I’d love to see what they come up with.


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IMAGES OF THE SET FROM DESIGNER BEN STONES


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INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SIMON EVANS

WHY DID YOU WANT TO DIRECT HANNAH?

Hannah is a verse play that tackles religious themes - we get to tell the story to young people to hopefully excite them and raise some level of debate, that’s what I really hope this play does. I think the play asks questions around the idea of religion being a revealed truth rather than a discovered truth; that so much of religion says this is the way it is, you don’t have any right to argue it or to debate it, this is the word of our God. And that through this play we hopefully encourage young people to think oh right there’s another part of this and a responsibility to engage my own brain in decisions about this kind of thing.

I think sometimes there is a problem with patronising audiences in general, both children and adults. I get that a director’s role is to tell a story clearly and make sure that you’re always engaged and never lost, but similarly I think we can afford to treat audiences with a bit more intelligence, particularly young people.

I think that Hannah plays very gracefully with ideas and how wonderful would it be for audiences to go home realising that they too could play respectfully and gracefully with these big ideas.

I tend to think that most pieces of writing give us a character who we can relate to somehow – someone that goes through an experience that the author wants us to go through as well. So to put a young girl in that situation for a young audience… its wonderful... the opening scene of this play is an argument between Hannah and her mum and I don’t think there’s a child around who hasn’t looked at the front door which the parents are free to come and go through as a sort of portal to freedom; to adulthood, thinking one day, I’ll be a grown up and I’ll be able to do that. And here’s a play where a character turns up and says to Hannah you can do this now, you can open that door and go out into the world and control it, you can be whoever you want to - in return for this one little thing.

Hannah is a reworking of Doctor Faustus, but I’m doing my best not to think about that too much, as I don’t know how helpful it is to come to a piece of writing and just think about it as a text based on something else. Obviously the protagonist in Doctor Faustus is a very learned man who wants power and to explore the world for his own academic gain and progress, whereas Hannah tells a very different story to this, for the character of Hannah, it’s just this primal feeling of, I want to explore and I want to control my world and I can as a young person.


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Chris (the writer) talks about how Hannah is presented with an opportunity that she accepts without really understanding the risks inherent in it. The concept of the soul in Chris’s play is quite different - the soul these days is possibly more associated with soulmates and love than it is with God and a sense of identity. So when Dave says to Hannah I’m going to take your soul it perhaps seems a smaller, less important thing.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF DIRECTING A VERSE PLAY FOR A YOUNGER AUDIENCE?

Any great piece of theatre has rhythm both visually and aurally and I think writing in verse can be hugely liberating, not restrictive.

I think, at best, you’re hardly aware you’re listening to verse in the play, what you should get is a sense that everything is right, and that each word is well chosen and well placed. Iambic pentameter is a heartbeat rhythm and it just sounds right whenever you hear someone talk. If you remember a specific line from a play, chances are the writer has used iambic pentameter or they’ve broken the rhythm of a line in order to really land the word.

As a director, verse gives me a very clear idea of where the writer wants the stresses in each line to be – the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th, 10th syllables should be the ones that really hit. When you hear a stress on the wrong word it sounds wrong, like fingers down a blackboard. You don’t want an audience to be unaware that they are listening to verse, but you want to show the musicality of language, and when you’re dealing with epic ideas it is helpful. It allows for a writer to be more efficient with the lines they use, but heightens everything slightly.

There’s a current movement towards writing in a hyper naturalistic way and that can be thrilling and brilliant, but it doesn’t allow many opportunities for language to elevate itself into something more poetic and more sublime. When you’re talking about these really big issues, it can be helpful to write in a form which allows you to go into the poetic, to explore ideas in a more metaphorical, symbolic, linguistic way. Somehow the verse lets you know that this is a play where ideas are heightened – you hear lines that perhaps wouldn’t sound right if said in a normal way. You get to a place where the only way to talk about concepts this huge is in poetry – it fits.


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CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU MIGHT STAGE THE PLAY?

It’s a play where someone is given omnipotence, control over all the elements and the entire world, so we need to show her being capable of magical things. I’m very lucky, I’ve been a magical consultant on a number of shows and the first question I always ask is, is the character doing magic? Are they a trickster or are they a wizard? By which I mean is their character accomplishing sleight of hand or are they actually able to do this magic?

The first option is actually rather easy and the audience can be in on it. To show a character with supernatural powers is much harder. But yes, we are going to be using magical effects, illusion and projection.

As a director I don’t believe that my hand should be seen. I believe in escapism theatre, that’s the kind of theatre I love making - where an audience just leans into it and then two hours later lean back and take what feels like their first breath in two hours. So many things in theatre can break that - where does it become too artificial? Where does a projection actually pull us from the moment rather than sucking us in further? When does a projection make us go oh my god she can do magic, and when does it make us go where are they hiding the projector?

It’s about finding the physical and visual language for the show and once you’ve found it you use the first five minutes for acclimatising the audience both to the way of hearing and to the way of seeing it, and after that everything just fits in and doesn’t ever break whatever line we’ve created.


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SECTION TWO - DRAMA ACTIVITIES

OVERVIEW

These drama sessions aim to allow students to:

• Exploretheplayactivelyinordertogetmoreoutoftheexperienceasaudience• Engagewithkeythemesoftheplaybeforeandaftertheirvisit

Activities are designed to be flexible so that they can be adapted for use by Drama, English and RS teachers at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5.

Activities build sequentially, developing understanding, knowledge and skills progressively over a number of sessions. The two sequences can be followed closely to provide a scheme of work that will spread over approximately seven sessions each of around one hour. However teachers may want to add further activities that get students ready to work together and that develop the suggested activities to link more closely to your learning objectives and the level at which students work through drama.

The activities in this pack were developed with teachers and Year 8 students at our Collaborate partner school, Harris Academy South Norwood.

SEQUENCE A - EXPLORING POWER AND POWERLESSNESSconsisting of 4 sessions/lessons

SEQUENCE B - EXPLORING MARLOWE’S DR FAUSTUSconsisting of 3 sessions/lessons


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This sequence will give students the chance to explore the opening of the play and become familiar with the character of Hannah - understanding the context in her life that leads to her subsequent actions.

The four sessions in this sequence explore the feeling of powerlessness for young people and look at power in a personal, social, global and metaphysical or spiritual context.

SESSION ONE

AIMTo explore power and powerlessness from the personal to the metaphysical.

1. INTRODUCTIONBegin the session by explaining that one of the themes of Hannah is power and that the following sessions are going to explore what power is and how we use it. Ask the students to think about when they have felt powerful in their lives and when they have felt powerless. You may want some time for paired discussions. Hear back from students as a whole group.

2. COLOMBIAN HYPNOSIS • Ask students to work in pairs. One of the partners close their eyes, the other holding

their partner lightly on the elbow and hand carefully lead them around the room. • Trust and spatial awareness are crucial in this activity; the aim is to sense your partner’s

needs and not to disorient them. • Partners should swap over so they have been both the leader and the led. • Now ask one in each pair to place their hand about one foot in front of their partners

face (or collar bone if the face feels too challenging for your group). The partners need to keep the distance constant as the leader leads their partner around the room.

• Ask the pairs to imagine the leader has hypnotised or cast a spell on their partner. • Ask half the class to watch as the others perform the activity. • Hear feedback from the audience. What did they observe? What did it make them

think about? • Ask students to feed back about how they experienced the activity: Did you prefer

leading or being led? How did it feel in each role? Which role is most powerful and why?


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SEQUENCE AEXPLORING POWER AND POWERLESSNESS

3. SPHERES OF POWER• Have a large version of the diagram Resource A for the whole class to look at. • Refer to the opening conversation about power and powerlessness. • Ask students to think about their own power in these different areas; home, peer

group/school, the wider world, the universe/metaphysical• Imagine the diagram on the floor of the space you are working in and ask students to

place themselves in one of the areas where they feel powerful. Hear from a number of students about why they have placed themselves where they have.

• Now ask students to place themselves in an area where they feel powerless, again hear from a range of students.


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REFLECTIVE DISCUSSIONWhat would having power mean in the examples we have heard from in the different spheres of life? What different kinds of power can you identify? What are the things that prevent people having power in these different contexts?

SESSION TWO

AIMTo find a connection with Hannah at the beginning of the play and tune into her world. To give students the opportunity to create their own poem based on waking at home.

1. WHOLE GROUP COLUMBIAN HYPNOSIS• Re-establish the idea of Columbian Hypnosis; ask the group to stand in a loose

configuration with room for everyone to move. Lead the group from the front and ask the group as a whole to follow the movement of your hand.

• You can add a line spoken in unison; this would be indicated with an opening of the fist.

2. WAKING AT HOME• Ask students to find a space on their own in the room, get comfortable and close their

eyes. • Ask the students to listen as carefully as they can to the sounds within the room and to

note what sounds they can identify.• Now focus on what sounds they can hear emanating from other rooms in the building

and what sounds they can hear coming from outside. • Ask students to share with a partner some of the things they could hear.• Ask students to go back to the comfortable position on their own, with eyes closed. • Ask them to imagine they are in bed, in that in-between state between sleeping and

waking; their eyes are still closed and they beginning to tune into the sounds of the morning.

• Ask: What sounds can you hear in your room? What sounds can you hear from other rooms in your home? Sounds coming from outside?

• Read the text from the opening of Hannah - Resource B. She is talking about coming from sleep into consciousness through a re-awakening of her senses – sounds first, then eyes and body. There are also the voices in her head – or thoughts.

• Give students the writing frame - Resource C and ask students to use their own experience to complete text that describes their own waking and tuning into the day.

• Ask for some volunteers to read out their pieces.


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REFLECTIVE DISCUSSIONHow would we describe that space and time between sleeping and waking? What other things come into our thoughts when we tune into the new day?

SESSION THREE

AIMTo explore the dynamic between Hannah and her mum at the start of the play through working with script, freezeframe and thought-tracking.

1. WARM UP • Discuss what ‘status’ means then ask the students to walk around the space, becoming

aware of each other and their surroundings, finding a ‘neutral’ way of walking. • Ask them to embody different status levels (1 = low status and 10 = high status) whilst

moving around the space – how does this affect pace, levels, direction, rhythm?• Split the group so that half are high status and half are low status - continue to move

around the space. What is the dynamic between the two different groups? - how do they react to one another?

• Swap the groups’ status levels and repeat.

2 HANNAH AND HER MUM• Move the group into pairs and give everyone a copy of the text - Resource D. • Ask the pairs to create the scene between Hannah and her mum. • Now ask them to create a clear opening and finishing freeze frame through which the

audience can clearly read the relationship between them.• See one or two contrasting scenes. • Ask the audience to comment on what they have seen: What can we infer about the

relationship between Hannah and her mother from this scene?

Explain that Hannah and her mum are the only two people in their immediate family. Hannah is around 12-13 years old. Her mother works a lot and this scene takes place on a Saturday morning.

3. WHAT HER MUM THINKS IS IMPORTANT• Read the window scene text to the whole class - ResourceE.• In pairs create a still image of Hannah and her mum for this moment in the play.• Ask for one pair to volunteer to show their image – maybe re-read the scene over the

still image. • Ask the rest of the class to think about what might be going through Hannah’s head at

this point. Ask volunteers to come up and speak Hannah’s thoughts.


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REFLECTIVE DISCUSSIONHow does Hannah feel in terms of her power in this moment? What do you think she thinks about her mother’s view of the world?

SESSION FOUR

AIMTo explore the frustrations of Hannah’s morning which lead her to call out make me centre of the world using ensemble performance, and repeated patterns of words and action.

1. IF I HAD A MAGIC WAND • Ask students to find a place on their own and remind them of session two: awake and

dreaming. • Ask them this time to imagine themselves as a young person who is waking with that

feeling that this morning every little thing is going to go wrong. Imagine all the things a 12/13 year old might anticipate going wrong that day.

• Now imagine, as that 12/13 year old, if you had a magic wand what is the one thing that you would change in life?

• Ask everyone to walk around the room and when you say STOP ask everyone to share their idea with a partner.

• Repeat this process stopping and sharing with new partners each time; however each time you can choose a) to say your original idea b) say an idea you have heard from someone else or c) come up with a new idea.

• Hear back from the whole group what were some of the things these imaginary teenagers would want to change in their lives.

2. HANNAH’S MORNING • In groups of 3 or 4 give students a copy of Resource F and ask them to read the

section of text aloud, going around the group taking it in turns to read a line at a time (it’s best if each student has their own copy of the text).

• First, ask the students to each imagine they are Hannah in this moment and to create an action from the text that they can repeat, i.e. smelling the off milk. They could create actions about either ‘the milk’, ‘the washing’ or ‘the TV’. They should practice repeating their action and then think about how they can do it in a way that shows how Hannah might be feeling in this moment – is she frustrated? Lethargic? Angry?

• Once they each have a repeatable movement, the students can add a few words from the text that fit with the rhythm of their action.

• Ask the groups to then find a way to structure their individual actions/text into a short group movement piece that repeats, thinking about order, pace, rhythm, volume and spatial arrangement. Students need to make sure they have a way of ending their piece and that they have considered how their sequence might represent how Hannah is feeling. Watch and reflect on the students’ work.


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REFLECTIVE DISCUSSIONWhat do you think Hannah wants in these moments? Have we any more insight into Hannah’s state of mind?

In Marlowe’s play Faustus has tired of his limited knowledge and wants more; he wants to understand magic, he wants supernatural powers. In order to do that he calls Mephistopheles, the servant of Lucifer. He wants to make a deal with Lucifer to gain unimaginable and supernatural powers.

This sequence of three sessions will allow students to dramatise key moments of Marlowe’s text and to explore what drives Faustus to make the deal with Mephistopheles and, after twenty-four years of unlimited power, give his soul to Lucifer. Using sections of the text of Hannah students will go on to create a movement piece based on Chris Thorpe’s version of a modern day Mephistopheles.

SESSION ONE

AIMTo explore the moment of decision for Faustus and the forces that pull on him, using still image, improvisation, scene making and text work.

1. FAUSTUS’S DECISION• As a whole group read Resource G - Faustus bargaining with Mephistopheles. • Clarify that this is a moment before Faustus signs his name sealing the deal, at this

stage he is still making his decision whether to go ahead.• Ask students to work in groups of four to create a still image showing Faustus,

Mephistopheles, the good and bad angels. • Now ask the students to add one line (only) of text for each character and bring their

images to life. • See the different interpretations.

Explain a little about the context of the time this was written, the role of the Christian Church and that, despite conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism, it was a time with a shared concept of God, Lucifer, heaven and hell. The implications of Faustus’s decision would have been very clear; he would be turning his back on the Church and the moral code of the time. However this was also a time of new learning; science, philosophy and theology were beginning to challenge the church’s supremacy.


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SEQUENCE B EXPLORING MARLOWE’S DR FAUSTUS - GAINING MAGIC, POWER AND MAKING A DEAL WITH LUCIFER

2. THE PULL OF THE GOOD AND BAD ANGELS• Create a decision line on the floor with the Good Angel at one end and the Bad Angel

at the other. • Explain that what Faustus wants is knowledge and in particular knowledge of the dark

arts - of magic. He wants to know more than he can learn in books; he wants to know more than anyone else - as much as God.

• In pairs or small groups ask students to come up with ideas of what the good and bad angel might say to persuade Faustus. Write them down and then place them at either end of the decision line.

• Ask for some volunteers to be the Good and Bad angels and for one person to be Faustus.

• With Faustus in the middle, ask the volunteers to improvise the scene with the Good and Bad angels using the ideas that the rest of the class have written down.

• You can run the improvisation a number of times with new volunteers but try to deepen the complexity of the decision, as a group you may want to add more ideas to the two sides of the debate.

If Faustus goes with Mephistopheles he will turn his back on society and its moral codes. Magic is an unpredictable and dangerous power – you don’t know where it might lead. Imagining power as great as God’s is hubris. 24 years is very little time in exchange for eternity without God.

3. FAUSTUS MAKES THE DEAL• In pairs give students the text when Faustus signs the agreement with Mephistopheles.

-ResourceH.• Ask students to make the scene, being careful to show the moment where Faustus asks

What good will my soul do thy lord? and Mephistopheles’ answer. • Explain you want each group to be clear what it was that finally made Faustus sign.• See a range of scenes, freezing the scene at the end and then asking Faustus in role

what it was that finally made him make the deal.


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EXAMPLES FROM YEAR 8 STUDENTS AT OUR PARTNER SCHOOL Think of the wonderful things you could do / Once you go bad, there’s no going back

You could rule the world / You will regret this Faustus, think of other peopleYou can have everything you’ve ever wanted / This is going to blow up in your face

SESSION TWO

AIMUsing the poetry of the play text, Hannah, as a stimulus to create an abstract movement sequence which explores the character of Dave, the Mephistopheles figure in the play.

1. INTRODUCTIONRecap on the last session where Faustus signed the deal with Lucifer. What was it that Faustus wanted so much that he was prepared to sacrifice his soul? Remind students that the play Hannah is a modern re-working of the play and that the 21st Century is very different to Marlowe’s time; we have a multi–faith and secular nation. In Chris Thorpe’s adaptation the Mephistopheles figure is called Dave. This session is going to explore: Who is Dave? Where has he come from? What does he want? What does it mean to make a deal with Dave?

1. PHYSICAL & SPATIAL WARM UP• Ask the group to move around the space, being aware of the pace and spatial position

of others in the group.• Ask the group to find a uniform tempo and then attempt to stop and go as a whole

group. • Now introduce a range of commands using numbers 1 to 5. For example: on 1 everyone

moves to the edge of the room, on 2 move to the centre and form a close group, on 3 everyone stop and look at a fixed point, on 4 form a line side by side facing in one direction, on 5 crouch down as if hiding.

• Ask the group to begin to think about the activity as if they were in performance, so that the use of rhythm and space becomes more heightened.

• You could add some music to underscore the activity. • You could break the group into performers and audience.

2. WHO IS DAVE?• Ask the students to read the text from Hannah: Resource I and working in groups of 5

or 6 create two images that show: where Dave comes from and what Dave does. • Emphasise these can be non naturalistic, abstract images that depict place,

atmosphere and energy as well as the character of Dave. • When these images are created give the students the following two sections of script:

Resource J and ask them to create two further images; Hannah calls out and Dave answers Hannah’s call.

• Now that students have their images, ask them to create and rehearse the movement that transitions between each image.


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• Play a range of music/soundscapes from which they can choose to underscore their piece (we used Brian Eno’s Apollo Atmospheres: The Secret Place).

• Now ask students to select a line of text to add to each image or to the transitions and decide how they might incorporate into their finished piece.

• See each group’s movement piece.


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REFLECTIVE DISCUSSIONWho is Dave and where has he come from? Why has Dave arrived? What does he want?

RESOURCES FOR DRAMA ACTIVITIES


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PEERGROUP/SCHOOL

THEWIDERWORLD

THEUNIVERSE/METAPHYSICAL

HOME

RESOURCES FOR DRAMA ACTIVITIESRESOURCE A

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The voices in my head said

The light behind the curtain said

My open eyes said

My body said

The said

The said

Another voice said

My heart said

RESOURCE B

HANNAH: The voices in my head said, save the world. The light behind my curtains said, near day, My open eyes said, I can't be in space My body said, how can I float this way? The water from the bathroom said, that's mum, The birds outside said, everything must start Another voice said, what would make you glad? My heart said nothing, it was just my heart-

RESOURCE C

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MUM: If you're not out of bed when I come in There's going to be the most unholy row.

HANNAH,'s bedroom. Her MUM enters.

HANNAH: I'm up-

MUM: Don't lie, your feet are off the floor.

HANNAH: 'Up' doesn't mean 'standing up'-

MUM: -that's smart.

HANNAH: Don't be sarcastic-

MUM: -I'm allowed to be.

HANNAH: And I'm allowed to get up when I want.

MUM: Oh no you're not, and don't think you can sneak Back to your pit as soon as I've gone out.

HANNAH is finally up. I've left you a long list, make sure it's done The lizard's fed, but give his tank a clean, And while you're at it, put the washing in-

RESOURCE D

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HANNAH: I don’t miss anything we haven’t got. It’s you and me against the world-

MUM: -it’s not. Because we’re in this world, my love. The world is not this street - these trees, those cars This house, our friends and neighbours, loved and close - Although all of those things are in the world. Imagine lines connecting all we know To all we don’t – places we know are there But haven’t seen outside of TV shows. Out there is Africa, the ice-caps, giant squid, America and China, copper mines And power stations, rubbish dumps the size Of cities, jungle with a thousand kinds Of animal or plant in every step, Purest blue sky and gritty choking smoke From villages that armies set on fire. The rich, the poor, the in-between, all linked By lines that you could follow each to each.

RESOURCE E

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HANNAH: The milk was off. I went and bought some more. The washing up was piled up, by the door A dirty pile of dirty clothes looked on I fed them to the old machine, and then I sat and watched TV for five or ten Until I realised there’s nothing on The TV twists my brain like chewing gum And boredom puts my head into a vice And squeezes it until I close my eyes, Remember one more thing my Mum had said I have to clean the lizard out-

Action 1 - the milk

Action 2 - the washing

Action 3 - the TV

RESOURCE F

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Mephistopheles: Now Faustus what would you have me do?

Faustus: I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live, To do whatever Faustus can command, Be it make the moon drop from her sphere Or the ocean to overwhelm the world

Having thee to attend on me, To give me whatsoever I ask, To tell me whatsoever I demand, To slay mine enemies and to aid my friends, And always be obedient to my will

Bad Angel: Go forward Faustus, in that famous artGood Angel: Sweet Faustus, leave that execrable art:Good Angel: Sweet Faustus, think of heaven and heavenly things.Bad Angel: No, Faustus, think of honour and of wealth.

RESOURCE G

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RESOURCE H

Faustus: What good will my soul do thy lord?

Meph: Enlarge his Kingdom. But tell me, Faustus, shall I have thy soul?

Faustus: Ay, Mephistopheles, I’ll give it him.

Faustus writes his pledge in blood.

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RESOURCE I

1.WhereDavecomesfrom:

Imagine there’s a place that’s not a place A sky not of pale blue, but stirred and swirled With colours that no human eye could pierce- Well that’s the place I wait until I’m called- The trees stand luminous against the dark, The wind that rustles through them whispers words In languages so old their sounds have rust. The stars fall slowly, coating us in dust Of unrequited wishes. There’s the spark And metal taste of lightning in the air That fizzes cold and sets your teeth on edge.

2.WhatDavedoes:

It’s kind of like a job – wherever there’s A human feels hard-done-by, there we are We’ve been around forever, by the caves Of hunters, lurking in their piles of bones On pirate ships pursued across the seas In quiet corners of un-quiet homes, On window-sills, in cracks that let in air We wait, we watch, and if someone cries out In powerful-enough voice, then we appear And give them power to make their wishes real

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RESOURCE J

3.Hannahcallsout:

I’m standing here in my own living room The sun is up, the stars are hid by day And everything’s gone wrong, if I can find A way of making my life easier I’d give - I don’t know what I’d give – my teeth? My toes? It doesn’t matter, Universe, you know How to arrange yourself to make things right. I ask you make me centre of the world I’ll give you anything that you desire,

4.DaveanswersHannah’scall:

-beside those trees in that cold wind I stood til your words tore a jagged hole And since the hole stayed open, I rushed through Appeared here, though my skin still feels the cold And what I have for blood runs slow like ice.

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HANNAH CREATIVE TEAM:

DIRECTOR - SIMON EVANSWRITER - CHRIS THORPEDESIGNE R - BEN STONES

RESOURCE PACK WRITTEN BY

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& TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT HARRIS ACADEMY SOUTH NORWOOD

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Hannah - resource pack