Devising from an image: Narrative approaches

Waiting: an introduction to drama conventions

Acting Shakespeare: Monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Practising physical and vocal skills

Live theatre responses: Becoming a critic

Narrative structures using poetry: Developing monologues

Acting Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Posture, gesture and voice in performance

Live theatre responses: Using social media

Approaching text: Bringing it to life

One text, different approaches

The journey: a verbatim project

Live performance responses: Evaluating stagecraft

Understanding roles and responsibilities of the creative team

Commedia dell'arte: an introduction

Using Drama conventions to explore contemporary issues

Drama

Y7 Drama

Key Stage 3

Year 7

UNIT

In this lesson, pupils will learn about the fairy plot of the play we will look at and the characters involved, with an introduction to how imagery and rhythm is used in Shakespeare's language. Memorisation Tips will be used and they will learn about and act out the Wild Bank monologue.

Imagery and rhythm in Shakespeare's language

﻿Hello. My name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to your drama lesson. This is the first of three drama lessons looking at the unit of work called, Acting Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. And all the way through the unit of work we're going to to be looking at different techniques for acting and performing monologues to an audience. And in this first lesson, we're going to look at how Shakespeare himself wrote monologues using imagery and rhythm to help us as actors perform them to the best of our abilities. But before we go on why don't we just check what equipment we need before this lesson, before we make a start. So this is the equipment that you're going to need for this lesson. You're going to need a worksheet or a piece of paper, you're going to need a pen and you need a highlighter. So make sure you've got these items before we carry on. So this is the rundown of our lesson today we're going to start with a little bit of an introduction to the play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". And from that, we're going to start looking at a monologue which is delivered by a character called Oberon. And we're going to look at how Shakespeare has written this monologue using imagery and rhythm to help us perform it. And then we're going to have a go at performing the monologue. Before we finish with a quick quiz. Now there's going to be some key words that we're going to need for the success of our lesson. And these key words are imagery. Imagery involves the use of words or phrases which create vivid pictures in the minds of the readers or listeners. We're going to need to use the word rhythm. Rhythm is a regular and repeated pattern of sound or movement. We're going to need the word monologue. A monologue is a long speech that an actor says on their own. And then finally, we need the word motivation. Now motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage. Now, before we go on let's just quickly check our understanding of this really important key word, motivation. So tell me now, what does the key word motivation mean? That's right. Motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage. And if you think about it, from your own acting experience or from watching a theatre shower or a television programme, every character on stage or on screen does something and they do it for a reason. Well, they say it for a reason and that is called motivation. And it helps us as actors to understand why we're doing something on stage. So let's start by looking at the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1596. And it is set in Athens and consists of several plots, all of which interweave across each other. But there are four main plots. The first is the lover's plot. The second is the mechanicals' plot, the third, the fairies' plot. And finally we have the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. In this lesson, we're going to look at the fairy plot. Now the fairy plot starts with an argument between King Oberon and Queen Titania. Now they're arguing about who should take ownership of a young Prince which they have been gifted. Titania, she wants to take the young prince to be hers and one of her servants, whereas Oberon wants to take the young prince to be one of his knights. The argument ensues and Titania wins and leaves with the prince. And Oberon is left alone, jealous and angry of Titania. Let's just go back to that key word motivation for a moment. Motivation means the reason why a character does something on stage or says something. Based on what you know so far, about the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the fairy plot. What do you think Oberon is feeling at this moment in time? And why does that motivate him to take revenge? Tell me your thoughts now. I think there are lots of different things that Oberon could be feeling right now. He can be feeling quite sad and quite lonely, for Queen Titania has left. He can also be feeling quite angry and quite frustrated that he didn't get his own way. And I think it's that feeling, that feeling of frustration and anger that motivates him to take revenge on Titania. And so in doing so he delivers this monologue and the monologue goes like this. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine With sweet Musk roses and with eglantine There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dancers and delight. And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin Weed wide enough to fit a fairy in. And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes and make her full of hateful fantasies." Now, what Oberon is saying in this monologue is that he wants to take revenge and how he's going to take revenge. And he's actually talking to another character called Puck, who is his servant and he's telling Puck where Titania sleeps at night and then telling him to go to her and to give her a potion which will make her full of hateful dreams. Let's just go back for a moment and think about that key word imagery. Tell me now, what does the key word imagery mean? Imagery involves the use of words or phrases which create vivid pictures in the minds of the readers or listeners. And in this monologue, Shakespeare has given us lots of different examples of imagery. So this brings us onto our first task. We're going to look at the imagery within the poem. So if you've got the worksheet, use this, otherwise we'll see it on the screen. We're going to read through the monologue. Then I want you to highlight everything that you think could be considered imagery. So let's have a look at the first half of the monologue. So pause the video here and highlight where you think there might be some imagery. Let's have a look at the second half of the monologue. So pause the video again and highlight either on your worksheet or pointing at the screen, where you think the imagery might appear. Let's go through some of the things that I've picked out. You may have picked out something different to me. So some of the ones that I picked out here, are wild thyme, which is a lovely purple flower that grows in the wild. And I've also picked out violets, which are beautiful long flowers, equally, they grow in the wild, as well as sweet Musk roses which are also wild flowers. In fact, all the way through here, we've got oxlips we've got the nodding violet, we've got woodbine and we've got eglantine as well as sweet musk roses. They are all wild flowers. And what Oberon is trying to suggest here and the image that he's trying to put into your mind is one of a wild bank of wild flowers that can be found in any area of wasteland across Britain and that lovely peacefulness that can be found in those places. And then let's have a look at the second half of his monologue, which gets a bit darker and a bit deeper. So here we've got things like "Lull'd in these flowers." Now lull'd, for me, suggests more than just waiting and sleeping. It suggests something more sinister. As does the "Throwing her enamell'd skin" and streaking her eyes. I mean anything which involves eyes is quite horrible. And making "Her full of hateful fantasies", hateful dreams. And so suddenly Oberon's monologue takes a turn and becomes much darker and much more full of revenge as he details how he wants to take revenge and what that revenge is going to look like. It's going to come in the form of really horrible hateful dreams. Let's think about how we're going to perform this and let's think about that key word rhythm. So tell me now, what does the key word rhythm mean? That's right. Rhythm is a regular and repeated pattern of sound or movement. Now in Shakespeare's rhythm he uses a fairly natural rhythm all the way through his work and that is of boom, rest, boom, rest, boom, boom, boom, rest, boom, rest, boom, boom, boom. And so when we look at that monologue we've started to work on, it comes like this. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows" boom, rest, boom, rest, boom, boom, boom. "Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows" rest, boom, rest, boom, boom, boom. So when we look at the whole start of that monologue and it comes out something like this "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows where oxlips and the nodding violet grows quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine with sweet must roses and with eglantine." I what you may have noticed is that with that rhythm we also emphasise all the key words the most important words that Oberon is saying. So this then brings us to the next task. And I want you to read through the second half of the monologue, either on the worksheet that you're using or on the next screen and underline the natural rhythm like I have done for the first half. So here's the second half of the monologue pause the video now and highlight where you think the rhythm is. So this is what I've prepared, and you might want to pause the video here, so that you can make any adjustments to your own version, but this is what I've got. And it goes something like this. "There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dance and delight. And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin. Weed wide enough to fit a fairy in And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes And make her full of hateful fantasies." So again, you can see with that rhythm, it really highlights and emphasises those key words of the monologue and what he's trying to communicate. And in particular, the revenge that he wants to take. So let's think about how we're going to act this out and we're going to do a quick exercise called "I say it, you say it." And what I want you to do is I want you to say the line in the same way as I do. Copying as much as you can about the way I say it and perhaps even some of the gestures that I do when I say the words. So let's make a start. I'm going to say it. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows" your turn. "Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows." Your turn. "Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine" Your turn. "With sweet musk roses and with eglantine" Your turn. "There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dance and delight And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin Weed wide enough to fit a fairy in And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes And make her full of hateful fantasies." Excellent, well done. And I know how hard that can be performing to a screen. So really well done. Before you have a go at performing the monologue I'm going to give you a demonstration of the monologue myself. Now, this is my interpretation of it and yours might be different but mine goes something like this. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine with sweet musk roses and with eglantine There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight And there, the snake throws her enamell'd skin. Weed wide enough to fit a fairy in and with the juice I'll streak her eyes and make her full of hateful fantasies." So now it's over to you. What I'd like you to do is I would like you to experiment and perform the monologue. So act out the whole monologue using the rhythm we've just explored and trying to change the way you use your voice to describe the imagery of the lovely bank of flowers. And then as you describe the act of revenge. So pause the video here and have a go at performing the whole monologue for yourself. Now, how did that go? How was that performance for you? Did you find that you managed to get across to your audience how sweet and calm the wild bank of flowers were? Where Titania laid and the fact that perhaps she's laying there without any idea what's going to happen to her? Did you get that, managed to get that twist in the monologue where Oberon suddenly becomes much harsher and talks about how he wants to take revenge? And perhaps did you manage to get that full on anger and frustration when he talks about giving her horrible fantasies, those horrible dreams? Let's just finish up this lesson with checking some of our understanding. And in particular, the word monologue. Is monologue a long speech that an actor says on their own? True or false. Tell me your answer. That's right. It's true. Although you may have heard the word soliloquy. A soliloquy is slightly different to a monologue. I soliloquy is a speech which an actor gives on their own but does so speaking directly to an audience, whereas in a monologue, that might be completely on their own or it might be to another character. As in when we saw Oberon, he was talking to the character Puck. Well done on your performance. It's really hard to perform and you've done a good job today. Well done.

In this lesson, pupils will learn about the lovers' plot of the play and the characters involved. There will be an introduction to how iambic pentameter is used in Shakespeare's language. Memorisation tips will be used, and pupils will learn and act out Puck's announcement.

Iambic pentameter in Shakespeare's language

﻿Hello. My name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to our drama lesson. This is the second of three drama lessons on a unit of learning called Acting Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now, in our first lesson, we looked at a monologue which was delivered by Oberon, one of the fairies. And in that we looked at imagery, and rhythm, as a way of helping us to perform it. And in this lesson, we're going to build on that, and look at iambic pentameter, and see how Shakespeare wrote his poetry to help us be able to perform the monologue to the best of our abilities as actors. But before we go on with the lesson, let's just make sure they've got all the equipment we need before we can make a start. So in this lesson, you are going to need the following items. You're going to need the worksheet, or a piece of paper to work from. You're going to need a pen, and you're going to need a highlighter. So before we go on, make sure you've got those pieces of equipment and then let's make a start. So this is our rundown of our lesson today. We're going to start with a little bit of recap of the Midsummer Night's Dream. And then we're going to look at the lover's plot from the play. We're going to look at Shakespeare's way of writing, using iambic pentameter. And then we're going to look at an example of that in a monologue, which is given by Puck. Now you might remember Puck because he appears in our first lesson. He was Oberon's servant, Oberon being the King of the fairies. And then we're going to act out that monologue, using as many tricks as we can to help us perform it and make it really good. And then we're going to do a quick quiz at the end of the lesson. So once you're ready, let's get started. So to make this lesson a great success, we're going to need to know three key terms in particular. The first key term is something I've already said, which is iambic pentameter. Now, iambic pentameter is the name of a widely used rhythm of speech that contains five beats in each line. We have already in a way come across it in our first lesson, but I'm going to explain it a little bit more in this lesson. Our next key word is a monologue, which is a long speech that an actor says on their own. And then finally, poetry. Now poetry is a heightened form of language that takes the reader on an emotional or intellectual journey. Heightened, because it includes things like imagery, and rhythm, and metaphors, and similes. And Shakespeare uses poetry throughout most of his plays. And in particular, a particular kind of character speaks in poetry. And those that are important speak in poetry. So roles such as Kings, or Queens, or the lovers in the Midsummer Night's Dream speak in poetry, whereas their servants, and anyone else like soldiers, or sailors, they all speak in something called prose. But we'll explore more about the difference between poetry and prose later on in the unit of learning. Let's do a quick recap on the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play written by William Shakespeare, written in 1596. And it is set in Athens and consists of several plots, all of which interweave across each other, but there are four main plots. The first is the lover's plot, which we're going to explore today. The second is the mechanicals plot. The third is the fairies' plot, which we explored in our last lesson. And finally, we've got the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Now in this lesson, we're going to be looking at the lover's plot, and a monologue that comes from it. The lover's plot can be quite a confusing plot. It involves four characters. We've got two girls, Helena and Hermia, and two boys, Demetrius and Lysander. And their plot runs all the way through the play and doesn't just involve them, but it also involves the fairies as well. So I'm going to detail the plot using this image that we've got in front of us. And it starts with an arranged marriage. So Hermia is arranged to be married to Demetrius. The arranged marriage has been organised by her father, but the problem is, is that Hermia is desperately in love with Lysander, not Demetrius. So the lovers run away. Hermia and Lysander decide to escape from the arranged marriage by running into the woods together. Secrets revealed. Before Hermia goes, she confides her plan into her best friend, Helena. Now, Helena is in love with Demetrius and has been desperately upset, because of the arranged marriage, that Demetrius will be married to Hermia instead of her. So she sees this as an opportunity to get Demetrius to change his mind about how the how he feels about her. So in the hope that he will forget about Hermia, and fall in love with Helena instead, Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia's plan to run away into the woods with Lysander. Demetrius goes in chase. But sadly, the plan that Helena has, doesn't go to plan. And instead of Demetrius suddenly saying, "Oh, well, nevermind, I'll fall in love with you instead, Helena," he follows his heart and he still loves Hermia. So he chases after Hermia, and enters the wood after her. Helena goes in chase. Now, Helena, feeling a bit awkward, and a bit sad about what has happened, decides, well actually, I might as well run after Demetrius into the woods as well. After all, what has she got to lose now? So at this point, you've got all the four characters in the woods. You've got Hermia and Lysander, they've entered the woods first, they're together. Demetrius is chasing after them. And then Helena comes in later, chasing after Demetrius. Oberon gets involved. Now Helena manages to catch up with Demetrius, and is trying to say how she feels about him, and Oberon watches this. And he watches Demetrius being really horrible to Helena. And so he decides to get involved, and he decides to get Puck to put it right. Now, we've seen in our last lesson what happens when the fairies get involved and the mischief they can create. So love potion. Oberon instructs Puck to give Demetrius a love potion to make Demetrius love Helena instead. The plan is, is to wait until Demetrius is asleep, and then go to Demetrius with this love potion, put it in his eyes, and then make sure that the first person that he sees when he wakes up is Helena, and thus the potion should work. And he will magically fall in love with Helena, and all will live happily ever after. Sounds like a good plan. Mix up. Puck's a bit confused. Now, Oberon, to be fair, he didn't actually give a description of Demetrius. So Puck, on his own, goes into the woods and finds a man lying asleep in the wood, and assumes it is Demetrius. And so he goes to him and puts the love potion in his eyes and goes away back to Oberon, happy that he's done his job. But, of course isn't Demetrius. It was actually Lysander all along. And so Lysander is asleep with the love potion in his eyes, just waiting to see what's going to happen. Love at first sight. Now it just happens to be, that Helena comes along into that part of the wood, having just had this argument with Demetrius, trips over Lysander and immediately wakes him up. And of course, he then immediately falls in love with Helena. So let's just quickly recap that plot, because it's quite confusing. So we start with Hermia, and she is in love with Lysander. Although, she is in an arranged marriage with Demetrius, so they decide to run away. Then we've got Demetrius, Now he does love Hermia. So despite the fact that Helena reveals how she feels about him, and pleads for him to stay with her, he runs away and to follow where Hermia and Lysander has gone. And then we've got Helena, poor Helena, who desperately loves Demetrius, has been honest with him, told him her feelings, but yet he's still run after Hermia, and she's still on her own. So she runs into the woods as well. And then, the fairies get involved. And this is where the confusion starts. So Hermia, still in love with Lysander. But Lysander has been given a love potion, no longer loves Hermia, now desperately in love with Helena. Helena, now, quite confused, doesn't love Lysander, really loves Demetrius. 'Course, Demetrius doesn't love Helena. He really loves Hermia. And so thanks to Puck's misunderstanding, we create this really confusing situation within the lover's plot. So let's just check our understanding of this. Which of these statements are true? Option one: Hermia loves Lysander. Option two: Hermia loves Demetrius. Option three: Demetrius loves Helena, and option four: Helena loves Demetrius. Tell me which of those statements are true now. That's right. Option one: Hermia loves Lysander, and option four: Helena loves Demetrius. Now, before we go on and look at the monologue, let's just remind ourselves: in plays by Shakespeare, which types of character speak in poetry, that heightened form of language that contains imagery, and rhythm, and metaphors, and similes? Tell me now. That's right. Key characters, central characters, characters that are important, characters like Kings and Queens and the lovers, which have just been introduced. So let's have a look at the monologue we're going to be working with today. And the monologue is delivered by Puck. Now the monologue is in poetry. So therefore we know that Puck is an important character, despite the fact that he is Oberon's servant. He is a very important character within the plot, for he is the cause of the mischief and the confusion within the lover's plot. And he says this at the moment where he's coming back to Oberon to tell him what he has done with the love potion. And he says this, "Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand. And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageants see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!" Before we have a look at how are we going to perform this, we need to think about how it's structured, because within its structure, we'll find secrets of how to perform it. So let's just go back to this key word that we looked at, at the beginning of the lesson, iambic pentameter. So tell me now, what is iambic pentameter? What is, iambic pentameter? It is the name of a widely used rhythm of speech in English literature. And it is a really simple form of rhythm, where each line has five beats. The linguistic root of the word shows this. The word iambic pentameter, iamb is Greek for foot, as in the starter, the place where it begins, and penta is the word for five in Greek. So one iamb sounds like this, bah BOM. Now we came across this in our last lesson in a slightly different structure. And we'll talk about that in a moment, but the most basic form of iambic pentameter, the most regular form of it, appears like this: bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM! Rest , rest , rest , rest , rest . Now, as I said before, iambic pentameter doesn't always have to come in that format of bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, but it must always have five iambs. Remember, one iamb is bah BOM, or rest emphasis rest BOM. So, in our last lesson, where we had the line "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, we still have those five BOMs. I know a bank where the wild time blows. If we look at the rhythm of the monologue we're working with now delivered by Puck, we've got that same rhythm: boom, rest, boom, rest, boom boom boom. BOM bah BOM bah BOM BOM BOM. And we apply it to that first line. And we've got captain of our fairy band. I'm going to say, you're going to say it. Captain of our fairy band. You say it, I say it, captain of our fairy band. You say it. Notice how, when you say it with that rhythm, the key parts of the line are emphasised. So this brings us to our first task. And what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to read through the monologue and I'd like you to identify where you can find the iambic pentameter. So using this screen here, pause the video now. Either point at where you think the iambic pentameter is, or highlight it on your worksheet. Pause the video now, and press play when you're ready to go on. So here's what I've done. I've gone through that monologue. And I've highlighted where I think the iambic pentameter is by capitalising it and underlining it. And it goes something like this: captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand. And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we, their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! I think you can tell, that once you start pronouncing the iambic pentameter, then you start to really emphasise the key words within the speech. And it makes it sound so much more interesting, than just saying it as it reads on the text. Captain of our fairy band. Helena is here at hand. If you're working from the worksheet, you might want to pause at this moment just to make sure that you've got the same annotations on your worksheet that I've got here. Before we start acting the monologue out, I wanted to have a quick exercise of, I say it, you say it. And we're going to do this twice. The first time, I want you to repeat it exactly the way I say it. And you're trying to use some of the same gestures that I use as well. So I say it, captain of our fairy band. You say it. Helena is here at hand. And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Now we're going to do this exercise again. This exercise, I say it, you say it, is a really good way of helping you as actors learn your lines. So instead of looking at the screen, what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to look away from the screen. When I say the line out loud, I want you to repeat the line back to me, from memory. So look away the screen now, and I shall start. Captain of our fairy band, your turn. Helena is here at hand. And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Excellent. You can look back at the screen now. Before I ask you to act out of the monologue I'm going to demonstrate it first. But before I demonstrate it, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the monologue. And it's a really good monologue, and you can have lots of fun with it. 'Cause remember it is Puck, and Puck is the King of mischief. And at the moment, he's talking to Oberon and inviting him to come and watch and laugh at the consequences of his actions, which has been to put the love potion into the eyes of Lysander instead of Demetrius. And in particular, that last line, Lord, what fools these mortals be, is talking about these humans and how just strange and silly they seem to him and to the rest of the fairies. So you can have real fun with this. So don't hold back, go for it. Have a lots and lots of fun with this monologue, as I'm going to now in my demonstration. So here we go. Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, and the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! And so this brings us up to our second task, which is to perform the monologue. So I want you to act out the whole monologue, focusing on keeping that iambic pentameter rhythm going throughout the speech. So pause the video now and either use your worksheet, or the monologue on the screen and perform it. And I suggest you spend about 10 to 15 minutes working on this before you're ready to perform it. So pause the video now and come back when you finished. How did you find that activity? Did you enjoy acting it out? I think it can be a great monologue, and a real good fun one to act out. How did you find communicating Puck's mischievousness to the audience? How well did you do that last line? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Maybe had a different interpretation of it, and that's completely fine. My personal interpretation is that he's kind of a fun and mischievous character, but I've also seen him plays really well as a really dark and scary character too. So that's just finish up by checking some of our understanding. Which of these is correct? Iambic pentameter: iambic pentameter is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line. Monologue: a monologue is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line. Monologue: a long long speech that an actor says on their own. Iambic pentameter: a long speech that an actor says on their own. Point to the screen, which ones are correct? That's right. Iambic pentameter is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM. And a monologue is a long speech that and actor says on their own. Before we go today, I want to say one last thing, and that's well done. I know that performing can be really, really hard, so well done performing today. You've done a good job.

In this lesson, pupils will learn about the mechanical plot and the characters involved. They will explore the difference between poetry and prose and how each is used in Shakespeare's plays. Pupils will act out Bottom's Dream and learn how Shakespeare added secret stage directions in his dialogue.

Adding movement to Shakespeare

﻿Hello, my name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to our Drama lesson. This is the last of three Drama lessons looking at A Midsummer Night's Dream. And we've looked at a lot of different parts of the play so far. In our first lesson, we looked at the Faerie Plot and how King Oberon wants to take revenge on Titania. And we also looked at how Shakespeare used imagery and rhythm to help us as actors to perform it. Then in our second lesson, we looked at the Lovers' Plot and how Puck got involved to create a huge amount of confusion between them all. And we also looked at how Shakespeare used iambic pentameter to help us as actors to perform that monologue, as well. Now both of those monologues were using poetry. And today, we're going to look at another monologue. But this is in prose. And we'll talk about those key terms later on in the lesson. But this monologue comes from a group of characters called The Mechanicals, who are trying to put on a play to help celebrate the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. So let's make a start. But before we do, let's look at what materials and equipment we need in order to complete the lesson. So this is the equipment you're going to need in this lesson. You're going to need the worksheet or a piece of paper, you're going to need a pen, and you'll need a highlighter. So before we go on, make sure you've got those pieces of equipment. And once you have, let's make a start. So this is the rundown of the lesson. We're going to start with a recap on the plot so far of A Midsummer Night's Dream. And then from that, we're going to start looking at The Mechanicals' plot. And within that, we're going to explore a monologue of a character called Bottom. And the monologue is called Bottom's Dream. We're going to think about how we can create that monologue and act it out using lots of different movement. And then we're going to do a quick quiz at the end of the lesson. So let's get started. In order to be successful in the lesson today, we're going to need to know four keywords. The first of those is status. Now status is used to describe how important a character is. So a character like a king, like King Oberon, for instance, has far greater status than a servant, who might be at the bottom. The next word is prose. Now prose is the way we speak to each other in everyday language. It's just a posh version of saying the way we speak normally. Now in our last lesson, I talked about poetry because characters who are really important in Shakespeare's plays spoke in poetry, characters like Kings and Queens and gentlewomen and gentlemen, whereas servants, other characters who are not so important, speak in prose, just speak in the way we do every day. Our third keyword is monologue, and that's a speech that an actor says on their own. And then finally, gesture. Now a gesture is any physical movement made by any part of the body that communicates something to an audience. So like a shrug of the shoulders is often communicates that you don't really understand something. Or we might point. That's also a gesture. Or we might point with our head to say, "Let's go." These are all gestures, small, physical movements that communicate something to an audience. Before we go on any further, let's just check our understanding of some of those keywords. Let's start with status. Tell me now what is status? That's right, status is used to describe how important a character is. What about this question? Prose is the way we speak to each other in everyday language. In Shakespeare's plays, what type of characters speak prose? Is it high status characters or low status characters? That's right, it's low status characters. In Shakespeare's plays, high status characters such as Kings or Queens speak in poetry, whereas lower status characters, like servants, will speak in prose. And that's just one way of knowing when you open up a Shakespeare play of knowing who the characters are and a little bit about their background. Let's start by having a quick recap on the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is the play we've been looking at all the way through this unit of work. Now A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1596. And the play is set in Athens and consists of several plots, all of which interweave across each other. And there are four main plots. The first is the Faeries' Plot, which we looked at in our first lesson. The second is the Lovers' Plot, and that we looked at in our second lesson. And today, we're going to be looking at the Mechanicals Plot and we're going to look a little bit at the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Now in this lesson, we're going to look at the group of characters called The Mechanicals and a part of their plot within the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now if you haven't guessed already, The Mechanicals are all tradesmen, servants, and workers from Athens. And Athens is in a state of celebration at the moment because they are celebrating the forthcoming wedding between Theseus and Hippolyta. And these Mechanicals, and there's six of them altogether, there's Quince, Snout, Flute, Starveling, Snug, and a character called Bottom, have all come together to rehearse a play, which they hope will form part of the celebrations of the wedding. And this is their part of the plot. And it starts with them rehearsing. And The Mechanicals are rehearsing in the woods. And if you remember back in our first lesson, where Oberon wanted to take revenge on Titania by putting some love potion in her eyes so that she would then have some hateful dreams, well this is part of that revenge. And mischief occurs. So Puck comes along and transforms one of The Mechanicals, the character of Bottom, head into that of a donkey. Just his head. The rest of him is a human. His head is that of a donkey. And then, the love potion. So Puck takes revenge and gives Titania a love potion and makes sure that the first thing that she sees when she wakes up is Bottom. And it's love at first sight. Titania instantly falls in love with Bottom and instantly brings him in and makes him one of her servants and part of her faerie band, the Prince. Titania is so in love with Bottom that she forgets everything else. And she agrees to hand over the Prince to Oberon. Remember the Prince was the character that Titania and Oberon were arguing about way back at the beginning of the play. With the Prince with Oberon, we get some restoration. And Oberon orders Puck to restore Titania and Bottom. Titania goes back, embarrassed and upset. Well Bottom, he thinks he's had a dream. And Bottom is reunited with his friends and believes that he has just had a dream. When Bottom wakes up from his dream, when Bottom wakes up from his experiences, he believes what he's had was a dream. And so before he goes back to see his friends, this is what he says. "I had the most rare vision. "I have had a dream past the wit of man "to say what dream it was. "Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. "The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man "hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, "his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report "what my dream was. "I shall get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. "It shall be called Bottom's Dream." And what this, he's saying in this short monologue is that he believes he's just had a dream. But this dream is just huge, it's massive. It's untouchable. No person has ever come across a dream so fanciful, so wild, so amazing as this. And so he will go to his friend, Peter Quince, who's one of The Mechanicals, to write a song of this dream. And it shall be called Bottom's Dream. Now, we're going to act this monologue out, just as we've done with all the others. But before we do that, let's just think about some key terminology we might want to use, and in particular, the word gesture. So tell me now what does the keyword gesture mean? That's right. Gesture is a physical movement made by any part of the body that communicates something to the audience. That might be a shrug of the shoulders, a turn of the head to say, "Let's go that way," anything that communicates something to the audience. Now Shakespeare wrote all his plays without any stage directions. Instead, he wrote secret stage directions in the words the character says. So we need to read carefully into the words that Shakespeare wrote to find the kind of things that you should be doing as actors. So for example, the eye of a man hath not heard, the ear of a man hath not seen. In this example, you should add movement by gesturing towards or touching what is in bold. So have a go with me. The eye of a man hath not heard, the ear of a man hath not seen. Now suddenly, that all becomes a little bit more interesting to watch and to hear, because you're emphasising the words eye, heard, ear, and seen in your way of speaking, but you're also emphasising them by pointing towards them, by gesturing towards them. So let's have a go here. Pause the video, and either using the copy on the worksheet or the copy on the screen now, find all the things that you should point to or gesture towards in the speech. Pause the video now and press play when you've done that. Here's some of the things that I found. I have had the most rare vision. Vision, thinking about something you can see. I've had a dream, and we can create a movement for dream, something coming out of your brain. Past the wit, wit being something about intelligence. The wit of man, to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. The eye of a man hath not heard, the ear of a man hath not seen, the man's hand are not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will go, I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called Bottom's Dream. Now this is what I've found. You may have found some other different ones. Now that's fine. And if you're using your worksheet, you might want to pause the video now so that you can write down some of my suggestions on your worksheet. Now, we're going to act out this monologue. But before I ask you to do that, I'm going to demonstrate it for you. Now as I act it out, I'm going to really emphasise what I'm saying with my physical gestures. I think this helps the audience understand what's happening, even if they sometimes can't understand the language of Shakespeare. Before I start, I'm going to give you one more tip. Some of you might be working with a worksheet. If you are, don't hold your worksheet down and keep looking down and looking up at it. It breaks the flow of a performance. Instead, hold the worksheet up so it's in your eye line, so that you can quickly look over to it and then back to our audience or the other character you're looking at. And do this until you feel really familiar with it or you know the lines. I'm not particularly familiar with this monologue, so I'm going to hold my script up like this. So this is my interpretation of this monologue. I have had the most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wits of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand unable to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called Bottom's Dream. So this brings us onto our main task, which is to perform the monologue. And I want you to act out the monologue and create a gesture or a physical touch for each of the secret stage instructions we have identified so far. So pause the video here, and either use the copy of the monologue on your worksheet or the copy of the monologue on your screen now, and act it out. I suggest you spend about 10 or 15 minutes performing this. Good luck. How did that go? Did you enjoy that monologue? It's a really good fun monologue, 'cause you can do lots of different gestures. And as you get used to it and you are able to get the piece of paper away or read it from the screen, you get both hands to be able to work with and you can get really nice and physical with it. Before we go, let's just finish up by checking our understanding of some of the key terminology we've used in this lesson. So complete these gaps. What is the way we speak to each other in everyday language? It conveys what rather than being full of complex what features? In Shakespeare's plays characters of what to society speak in prose. Using the suggested words on the right, fill in the gaps. Let's go through some of the answers then, shall we? So prose is the way we speak to each other in everyday language. It conveys information rather than being full of complex language features. And in Shakespeare's plays, characters of low importance to society speak in prose, which is why in our example we just saw there, we had Bottom, who is a servant, speaking prose, where in the other two lessons, we've had Oberon and Puck, and they are both characters of high importance, so they speak in poetry. Before we go today, I just want to say well done. Performing can be really hard. And you've done some really good work today, so you should be proud of yourselves. Well. Why not share your work with Oak National? If you'd like to share any of the work that you've done from this lesson or the previous two lessons in the unit of learning, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Unit Overview: Acting Shakespeare: Monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Lessons:

Imagery and rhythm in Shakespeare's language

Iambic pentameter in Shakespeare's language

Adding movement to Shakespeare