Unit 1 – Area of Study 3: Analysing a play in performance

Outcome 3

Analyse a performance of a script.

Examples of lear​ning activities

• View a pre-modern era script in performance; discuss the acting skills, the contribution of production areas and theatrical styles and conventions; consider how these elements collaborated to create meaning and consider which, if any, of these elements was most important in the construction of that meaning.
• 
  Prior to viewing a performance of a pre-modern era script that has been adapted to a contemporary setting, discuss the original style and conventions and imagine how they might be recontextualised; after viewing the performance discuss all aspects of the production and use this as a basis for reinterpreting scenes from a contemporary text into a pre-modern setting.
  
• Select a play from the pre-modern era to read; consider ways in which the play might use theatrical styles; compare the inherent authentic or expected style to other possibilities; write an evaluation of the difficulties of performing the piece exactly as written, staying as true to style as possible, e.g. consider the inherent difficulties in an authentic staging of The Rover by Aphra Behn or The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay.
• Select a work from the pre-modern era and use the internet and/or printed text to find at least three reviews of it in performance; discuss the different ways in which the performance was analysed and evaluated in the reviews; consider the intentions of the playwright, the intentions of the performance and the intentions of the critics.
• As a director, initiate ideas for a contemporary interpretation of a play from the pre-modern era and explore how these might be interpreted in other production areas; justify your decisions, e.g. set Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan or The Marriage of Figaro by WA Mozart in your own locality and time.
• Conduct a class debate about different ways of interpreting a scene of a play from the pre-modern era, each side of the debate being required to include a presentation of the scene.

 

​​Detailed example

Elizabethan theatre recontextualised

Students attend a performance of an interpretation of a script from the Elizabethan period that has been adapted or recontextualised to a contemporary setting.

Before attending the performance they:

• examine the style of Elizabethan theatre and list the conventions that contribute to this style
• consider the factors that contributed to the development of Elizabethan theatre style, i.e. why the acting and other production areas and presentational styles developed as they did.

After viewing the performance they:

• discuss how three of the elements of theatrical composition were manipulated in the performance
• describe how the theatrical style of Elizabethan theatre was adapted for a contemporary interpretation
• discuss the dramaturgical and directorial decisions made in relation to the theatrical style
• identify which, if any, aspects of the authentic or expected style were still present in the contemporary interpretation
• read the text (or excerpts) and consider other possible interpretations
• choose a piece of contemporary text and apply Elizabethan theatrical conventions to it.