Study Materials

2. Come to rehearsal, ready to:

• discuss conceptual questions (script analysis; themes; structure; characterization; language; style)
• read through particularly rich, important, or confusing scenes as a group
• decide on which scenes you will present to the class, and why: c. 10 minutes of actual performance time
• assign roles
• discuss production questions (how to realize the concepts visually using costume, props, setting; how to use the space, block movements, create sound effects, etc.)
• organize time when you can have another rehearsal as a group outside class time (if possible)

3. Over spring break and the following week:

• read through, and begin to memorize, your lines and blocking
• rehearse as a group outside class time (if possible)

4. Come to rehearsal (three weeks after the first rehearsal):

• ready to rehearse your scene
• ready to organize your class leadership, if you have not already done so (especially if you are in the Cherry Orchard group, which will begin leading class next week.)

5. Before the day when you lead the class discussion, your group will need to:

• feel confident about your scene presentation
• be organized as to the way in which you will frame the discussion and scene
• have specific questions and topics you wish the class to address
• be clear and equitable in assigning the leadership of discussion.

These are guidelines meant to help you. The responsibility and choices, however, are yours: you may want to alter the order in which you address some of these issues, and you may wish to delegate duties in a variety of ways. Do not panic if you cannot address all these issues on the days suggested, but be aware that rehearsal time is very limited and you will thus need to make the most of your meetings. Groups rely on the responsible participation of all their members.

1. What role does acting have within the play (telephone/cinema scene)?
   
   
2. How does the two-character interaction compare to that of Didi and Gogo in Godot? Why two characters? What is the effect on the audience?
   
   
3. What's the significance of Antigone's necklace?
   
   
4. Did John and Winston know each other before their sentence?
   
   
5. Why is Antigone so dear to John? Why does Winston play Antigone and John play Creon?
   
   
6. What's a green carrion fly? Why is Hodoshe in the opening description a green carrion fly?
   
   
7. Does he write for certain key audiences to try to make a point to them?
   
   
8. [re. Statements:] Was he trying to signal her with all that stuff about the water? What about that phrase about the beginning/end?

1. What does the play have to say about the comment that, "We're worse than the real secret counselors of Henry IV, because certainly no one had given them a part to play... at any rate, they didn't feel they had a part to play. It was their life" (p. 8)?
   
   
2. How exactly do mirrors and images work in this play? Do the portraits actually work like mirrors, as Landolph says (p. 9)?
   
   
3. Why did Matilda, Belcredi, and the Doctor each choose to visit Henry IV? Did they know each other's reasons?
   
   
4. How do the roles of sister -> mother, lady love -> mother-in-law, nephew -> brother play with the reader/watcher's understanding of reality?
   
   
5. What do you perceive as significant in the final exchanges of Act 2 (pp. 44-45)? Do they have an effect on you as an audience member entering Act 3?
   
   
6. Why does it matter that Henry was mad for 12 years after the accident?
   
   
7. Why does Henry grab Frida at the end (p. 54)? Why does he kill Belcredi?
   
   
8. How does the play make you rethink your ideas about time? How does this connect with the use of historical figures?  How does this connect with the question of acting and agency? How do the various meanings of "acting" come into play, and relate (or not)?
   
   Some names to provide context: Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Marcel Proust