BOOK REVIEWS - Delta Publishing

BOOK REVIEWS
in the patina of inanimate objects.
What would the students’ familiar
classrooms have been like ten years or
thirty years in the past? What stories
might their family homes have to tell?
Who lived there before them? What
was there before their house was
built? I recommend this play both as a
powerful stimulus for creative drama
work and as an eminently performable
script. I’m looking forward to exploring
both aspects myself very soon.
Burying Your Brother
in the Pavement
Jack Thorne
Same
Deborah Bruce
The Wardrobe
Sam Holcroft
Originally published as part of
National Theatre Connections these
three plays have now been published
as single volumes. They are written
to be performed by young people
and although they are quite different
in style they explore similar themes:
secrets, and the human condition.
Deborah Bruce explores this very
effectively in Same. This play considers
the extent to which we are all the
‘same’ and our experiences of youth
are similar, regardless of when we
were born, by comparing the reaction
of a group of children to the death of
their grandmother with that of her
friends in an old people’s home. It
is static, but deliberately so; the old
people trapped by their infirmity, the
young by their addiction to technology.
The current concerns of the young are
not trivialised but seen to be just as
valid as the reminiscences of the older
characters. As Timberlake Wertenbaker
forces us to consider the differences
and similarities between convict and
officer through the use of doubling in
Our Country’s Good, so Bruce uses the
same technique to explore the shared
humanity of the characters. The final
act reveals something else that is
shared; that our relationships are as
valid as our forebears’ and indeed as
fragile. This would be a challenging
play for young people to perform due
to its reliance on conversation over
action. As well as this, it is vital that
the commonality is well-expressed but
Bruce states her belief that this can be
achieved if the young performers don’t
resort to ‘old person’ acting.
I was intrigued by the prospect
of reading Jack Thorne’s Burying Your
Brother in the Pavement having greatly
enjoyed his BBC3 series The Fades. This
play shares some stylistic similarities
with that show that would be exciting
and challenging for the young
performer. The play is part murder
46 Drama Magazine Spring 2015
mystery, part surreal comedy and
part social commentary. It concerns
Tom’s journey to lay his brother to
rest following his unexplained death
on the street. Tom takes up residence
there, planning to bury his brother
where he died and finds out some key
truths about his brother over the week
that follows. The hallucinatory style
recalls Kafka with council bureaucrats,
strangely behaving policemen, and
frightened funeral directors played in
a heightened style. It uses flashbacks
and a flippant and sarcastic narration
from Tom that recalls the very funny
video diaries of the hero of The Fades.
Tom’s journey to understanding his
brother and reconciling himself to his
lifestyle is well handled and would
appeal to teachers trying to tackle
homophobia without preaching or
brow beating. This is a witty, complex
and lively play, tinged with a sadness
that would invite the audience to
contemplate the tragedies that may
occur when we keep secrets from
each other.
The third of these three plays
is a wonderful read and would be
immensely rewarding to perform.
The Wardrobe by Sam Holcroft is a
portmanteau piece, exploring the lives
of children over four centuries. Like
Same it explores our commonality. The
entire play is set inside a wardrobe,
with the action reflecting the concerns
of different time periods while
weaving historical and thematic links
between the characters. The script
blends monologues, duologues and
group pieces that are variously tinged
with darkness, tragedy and sympathy
as the children hiding in the wardrobe
are rarely doing so as part of a game.
The conceit of this play would be great
fun to explore in a drama classroom,
particularly as it demands that space
is deliberately limited by the confines
of the cupboard which is almost a
character in its own right. Holcroft’s
use of language is deft, clearly
delineating the changes in period
without sacrificing empathy for the
characters. The use of the wardrobe
as a stimulus for dramatic action
could be used to inspire students
to create their own pieces based on
the stories that might be embedded
Chris Lambert
Burying Your Brother in the
Pavement
Jack Thorne
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 84842 416 6
Same
Deborah Bruce
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 84842 408 1
The Wardrobe
Sam Holcroft
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 84842 409 8
Creative Shakespeare: The
Globe Education Guide to
Practical Shakespeare
Fiona Banks
I should declare at the outset that I
am a big fan of Shakespeare’s Globe.
Plays that I have previously struggled
to engage with have suddenly made
sense in that physically tight yet
culturally diverse wooden O. I know
from personal experience that children
and teenagers, so often uninspired
by their school experiences, have
realised on just one visit why the
plays are so revered, so enduring and
such fun. Moreover, I have witnessed
how the work of Globe Education
has given thousands of young people
access to Shakespeare and helped
them master his work in practice. The
promise implicit in the title was that
what actors, directors and academics
had learnt from performing in that
special space would be transferred
into work that could be undertaken
in school as an antidote to those arseachingly boring approaches that still,
surprisingly and disappointingly, exist
in too many English classrooms.
In Chapter One, ‘Key Principles
and ideas for Creative Shakespeare’,
Fiona Banks, creator of Globe
Education’s wide array of training
programmes, points out that
Shakespeare is taught in 65% of the
world’s countries while in the UK,
English teachers are more likely to
teach Shakespeare than any other
single author. This alone is a powerful
argument for making that teaching as
creative and enjoyable as possible. The
chapter is brief but serves as a solid
philosophical bedrock upon which the
book to come is built.
Chapter Two, again quite brief,
outlines the particular context of the
Globe as a performance space and,
as I had hoped, gives some insight
into what was discovered (or perhaps
re-discovered) about the relationship
between the three A’s: Actor, Audience
and Architecture. There are snippets
of theatre history here along with new
realisations about the way some of
Shakespeare’s lines acknowledged
the stage for which they were written.
The notion of treating the audience
as another actor is an especially
powerful one as anyone who has
seen a production there will doubtless
recognise.
For teachers wanting to inspire
their pupils, the ‘core approaches’
delineated in Chapter Three will
represent the heart of this book. The
keynote is that Shakespeare’s plays are
not sacred and advice is offered on why
and how to cut the text rather than risk
the dreaded ‘plodding through’ that
has killed so much of his work stone
dead for so many for so long. This is,
appropriately the longest chapter and
offers a rich mixture of discussion,
activities, teaching tips, extracts of text,
and commentaries from the Globe
Education practitioners. Giving these
practitioners a voice provides some
interesting insights into their preferred
practices but I began to find these
insertions, rather misleadingly subheaded ‘Tips’, annoyingly democratic
in that I couldn’t see how giving all
of them the chance to comment on
each topic would help teachers in
their classroom work. The inclusion
of edited extracts and resources such
as the ‘story pictures’ sequence for A
Midsummer Night’s Dream are a boon
for the busy teacher but there will still
be quite a lot for them to do in deciding
which activities would be appropriate
for different age/ability groups. I was
perplexed by the apparently random
organisation of the activities: if some
sort of rationale had been given it
would have saved me time and effort
Books
fruitlessly looking for one!
A particular strength of the book
is the chapter entitled ‘Language:
Inside Out’. Here, the thoughts
of Globe Associate (Text) Giles
Block (whose book ‘Speaking the
Speech’ was reviewed in the Spring
2014 edition of this magazine) and
practitioner Yolande Vazquez offer
a convincing rationale for tackling
Shakespeare’s language head on.
Here again, brief extracts are well
chosen in order to illustrate the effects
of different metres, line endings and
other language features. Things do get
a bit technical here but the practical
approaches are described quite clearly.
No doubt some of the activities in
the book as a whole will be familiar to
many teachers but for those wanting
to try out the creative approaches for
the first time the detailed explanations
should prove helpful. Having said that,
I found some of the explanations of
activities in the chapter ‘Actor, Stage
and Audience’ too wordy to follow.
Separating the description from
commentary by, for example, bullet
pointing the stages of the exercise
then offering italicised comments
might have made them more
accessible.
The chapter on ‘Performance’
goes on to discuss the way Globe
Education sets about organising their
annual ‘Our Theatre’ project, how to
prepare for a visit to the theatre and
using filmed versions of the plays.
While this illuminates the work of the
company it doesn’t add much to what
I perceived the thrust of the book to
be, that is, how to teach Shakespeare
creatively. The last chapter, ‘Learning
Through Shakespeare’ offers case
studies of work undertaken in a
hospital school and one for children
with complex learning difficulties.
These fed my personal interest in
drama and special educational needs
but I’m not sure how relevant other
teachers will find this chapter and
wondered if this book was the right
place for these case studies.
I was disconcerted to spot myself
in one of the photographs but don’t
let that put you off because despite the
reservations outlined above this is a
very useful and interesting adjunct to
the exciting and influential practical
work that Globe Education does
so well.
Andy Kempe
Creative Shakespeare: The Globe
Education Guide to Practical
Shakespeare
Fiona Banks
Bloomsbury
ISBN 978 1 4081 5684 1
Reviews
Sweet William: A User’s
Guide to Shakespeare
Michael Pennington
Twenty years ago, there seemed to be
little new to say about Shakespeare.
His work having been analysed
exhaustively from a variety of
perspectives. Aspiring academics
would still seek to enhance their CVs
by converting their Ph.D. theses into
books but Shakespearian studies had
clearly run its course - hadn’t it?
Such assumptions have been
demolished in the last two decades. A
spate of superb books, have ushered
in a new golden age of Shakespeare
criticism. Books such as Michael
Wood’s In Search of Shakespeare,
Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the
World, Jonathan Bate’s Soul of the Age
and James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in
the Life of William Shakespeare adopted
a largely biographical approach
to Shakespeare with a refreshing
absence of critical jargon and ‘isms’.
Michael Pennington’s Sweet William
follows in the footsteps of these
‘biographers’. The way Shakespeare’s
growing maturity is reflected in his
development as a dramatist forms a
loose structural model for the book
but never becomes a straitjacket. At
times Pennington jumps through time
to compare early plays with late and,
faced with the paucity of verifiable
information about Shakespeare’s life,
engages in some speculative detective
work. It’s a task he obviously relishes,
and one for which he’s well qualified.
I’ve long admired Pennington as
an actor but was unfamiliar with his
writing. His acting and directorial
experience yield illuminating insights
into the plays in performance but
I confess to being surprised by the
breadth and depth of his scholarship
and quality of his writing. He uses
contemporary cultural references to
make a point about Shakespeare’s
stagecraft and language. For example,
likening him to ‘an uncanny young
musician starting with Dixieland
before discovering free-form jazz’
and describing the ‘obnoxious’ little
Princes in Richard III as the kind of
kids that would turn you into
Miss Trunchball.
Pennington’s blend of scholarship
and practical experience gives him
an edge over critics with a purely
academic knowledge. One of the
strongest sections of the book is the
analysis of the Henry IV plays and
Falstaff’s relationship with Hal. Is it
friendship or love that binds the men
together? It often feels, he says, like
the love between a surrogate father
and his chosen son which gives
Hal what he clearly seeks but never
receives from his real father.
Just occasionally I found his
interpretation unconvincing.
The claim, for instance, that the
‘love scene’ between Henry V and
Katherine affords a glimpse of a
human being with a potential for love
which allows us ‘to feel something for
Henry’ ignores the bawdy exchanges
between Henry and Burgundy. This
crude, misogynistic conversation is
carried on in front of Katherine, her
parents, and the entire French court
(though the scene is often omitted in
modern productions!)
Mid-way through, Pennington
interrupts his chronological narrative
for an ‘Interval’ chapter devoted to
a fascinating discussion, subtitled
‘The State We’re In (Part One)’,
of changing styles of acting and
speaking Shakespeare’s verse.
The concluding chapter (Part Two)
focuses on the revamping of the
Royal Shakespeare Theatres, current
debates about theatrical design, and
the contentious issue of funding. As
you’d expect from the co-founder of
the English Shakespeare Company,
Pennington is an outspoken critic of
the government’s recent savage cuts
to regional theatres.
One of the many pleasures
afforded by Sweet William is the way
it invites a dialogue with the writer.
It’s like chatting to an immensely
knowledgeable and entertaining
actor in The Dirty Duck at Stratford: a
raconteur full of theatrical anecdotes,
waspish asides, and provocative
insights. He acknowledges that he’s
constantly changing his mind about
Shakespeare’s plays, citing Much
Ado as an example; a play largely
dismissed in his discussion of the
romantic comedies where he clearly
regards some of the comic scenes
as laboured. However, Marianne
Elliott’s ‘brilliant’ production has
recently ‘completely reconciled’ him
to the play. Much Ado has always
been one of my favourite comedies;
Pennington’s late conversion has
quashed any lingering reservations
I might have had and moved me
closer to becoming a theatrical
‘luvvie’, gushing with praise for
Sweet William.
Dudley Jones
Sweet William: A User’s Guide to
Shakespeare
Michael Pennington
ISBN 978 1 854 59568 3
The Complete Brecht
Toolkit
Stephen Unwin
This is the second Complete Toolkit
produced by Nick Hern Books;
the first being on Stanislavsky by
Bella Merlin published in 2007 and
reprinted twice. It is probably no
accident that this longer volume
emerged first. In theatre and drama
education there is still some sense
that Stanislavsky has pre-eminence
and that his work has a greater
complexity and potential for
exploring a subtlety in relation to
the human condition that is less
evident in Brecht. Both the author
of the work under review here and
indeed Brecht himself acknowledge
a debt to Stanislavsky. In Brecht’s
famous 1952 essay entitled Some
of the Things that can be Learned
from Stanislavsky he makes eight
essential points about theatre, all
of which may be seen in evidence
in his own work. They include: the
sense of responsibility to society; the
importance of the broad conception
and of details; truthfulness as a duty;
and the representation of reality
as full of contradictions. It is thus
important to emphasise that there is
no radical break between the Brecht
and Stanislavski in that they are both
parts of the Modernist movement
in theatre, striving to fulfill a newly
realised ambition for it. At numerous
points, Stephen Unwin stresses
this, not least to provide a stimulus
for the teaching and studying of
modern theatre. Nick Hern Books
Spring 2015 Drama Magazine 47
Reviews
Books
have, admirably, provided us with two
companion volumes that really do
support each other in so many ways.
Although some may look askance
at the very idea of a toolkit for work in
theatre we should remind ourselves
that there is nothing new in this in
relation to thinking about the arts.
Toolkits can be refined while also
being accessible and friendly. At
their very best they want to be at
your side to help you clarify your
intentions and show you how to fulfill
them. This is certainly the major and
brilliant achievement of this book.
Although the library shelves are lined
with works by or on Brecht, it can
be quite a daunting task to develop
an advanced sense of what he was
about. He not only wrote some of the
masterpieces of 20-century theatre
and an extraordinary number of
poems but considered it an essential
parallel task to think about education
and learning. Perhaps the most
important work that represents this
task is John Willett’s 1964 collection of
essays Brecht on Theatre subtitled ‘the
development of an aesthetic’. Every
one of the 55 essays in that collection
has an important relationship to
thinking about the theatre and
education and constantly encourages
a willingness to renew one’s own
practice. This book must similarly
be commended for its exemplary
clarity and concision thus following
Brechtian principles in itself.
The structure of the book has
been very carefully thought through.
After a sparkling and committed
introduction there are five sections.
The first two are necessary and
basic introductions to Brecht as a
person and to the theatre context in
which his work developed from the
pre-dominant form of naturalism
and early modernism, through the
paradoxes of the Weimar Republic
and thence to the fascist revolution
that followed. The subsequent
sections become ever more useful
though I should point out that each
continually looks back at the key
principles laid out earlier. In this sense
they are not strictly separate sections
but rather the building blocks in a
move towards understanding Brecht’s
most notable work at all levels.
Sections 2 and 3 focus in
turn on theory and practice but
Unwin constantly reminds us of
the vital interplay between these
two sometimes woefully separated
discourses. Section 4 interestingly and
usefully lays out for the reader the
author’s own experience of working
with Brechtian principles in his
practice as a director.
The book ends with 50 exercises.
These have been prefigured earlier
48 Drama Magazine Spring 2015
in the book and relate directly to
the issues raised throughout. Each
exercise begins with a clear statement
as to the purpose and intention of it,
followed by a full description of how it
might work.
The Complete Brecht Toolkit is an
extremely enjoyable read in itself. This
is due both to the commitment of the
authors and their perception of the
need to clarify but not simplify. In this,
they honour the complexity of Brecht
while providing a valuable addition
to the literature aimed at exploring
and explaining this key figure. I
highly recommend this book to you
but nonetheless think that it would
be best combined with John Willett’s
seminal work and Brecht’s collected
poems. I wonder when Methuen will
get around to reprinting them? A new
copy can go for up to £370 while even
a second-hand copy is likely to cost
around £25. Gold dust! It’s worth also
mentioning here that there is a new
biography of Brecht by Steven Parker
which has just been published by
Bloomsbury Press
Mike Stevenson
The Complete Brecht Toolkit
Stephen Unwin
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 85459 550 8
The best of the rest
King Charles III
Mike Bartlett
This Flesh is Mine
Brian Woolland
‘The queen is dead, long live the
king.’ Set in the presumably not too
distant future, Mike Bartlett’s play is
a politically sharp, extremely funny,
and slightly alarming dissection of
the fragility (or is it the unassailable
endurability?) of the established
order. In a nutshell, Charles ascends
the throne but before the coronation
he makes it clear that he intends to
break with convention by refusing to
give royal assent to a bill designed
to restrict the freedom of the
press. Given the way the press has
frequently treated Charles this may
seem ironic but the conceit sets an
intriguing conundrum: do we want
an unelected monarch albeit one
who, in this case, puts principles
before his own constitutional safety,
or will we settle for a parliament that
uses its elected status as a means
of limiting what we are allowed to
see and hear? While some of the
domestic scenes are like a parodic
soap opera, beyond
the palace gates
civil disturbances
escalate as the
constitutional crisis
deepens.
What makes
this play
especially
interesting is its use
of blank verse and
structural mimicry
of Shakespeare’s
histories. There
are parallels to be
drawn between
Harry and his rakish fifteenth
century namesake, while William’s
manipulation of the situation (ably
abetted by a Kate who has a touch
of Lady Macbeth about her) has
overtones of Lear’s less charming
daughters. There’s even a ghost from
Charles’ past stalking the corridors
of the struggle for power! Uneasy
indeed lies the head that doesn’t yet
wear the crown.
If King Charles III is a history play
set in the future, This Flesh is Mine is
a Greek tragedy which moves from
the world of The Iliad to a present
day that, while fictional, is resonant
of the tensions and oppressions
in Palestine where the play was
developed and first performed. This
is a poetic yet harrowing exploration
of the personal and public tragedy
of war and the grief it brings. As the
title suggests, it’s about bodies and
who owns them, alive or dead. Like
King Charles III it draws on the forms
and themes of dramas past to create
a lens through which to review the
present and question the implications
for the future. Both plays would thus
complement a number of set texts
very well by stimulating discussion
on the relationship between form,
content and political and historical
context.
Andy Kempe
King Charles III
Mike Bartlett
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 848 42 397 8
This Flesh is Mine
Brian Woolland
Oberon
ISBN 978 1 78319 138 3
Pronoun
Evan Placey
Home
Nadia Falls
Pronoun follows 18-year-old Dean
through the typical traumas of a
teenager: romance on the brink,
parent/child tensions, testing
friendships, and the stress of
A-levels. Oh, and did I mention
that Dean used to be Isabella?
This topical new play challenges
preconceptions of gender in order
to spotlight archetypes and labels
that should have no place in today’s
diverse society. But while this appears
to be Placey’s overarching message,
he avoids labouring the point.
It’s a play about love, friendship
and loyalty, punctuated by quirky
appearances from James Dean, who
lives in a poster on Dean’s wall and
on whom he models his ‘new look’.
The real highlights of the play for me
were the choral episodes from the
school’s senior management team
which reveal a deep-routed fear
of how Dean’s decision to change
gender might impact their next
Ofsted inspection.
In Home the characters are
experiencing transition of a different
kind. Fall’s play gives us startling
insight into what it is to be homeless
in today’s Britain through verbatim
accounts, beat boxing and R&B
songs. Bullet, Tattoo Boy and Young
Mum, amongst others, offer up
stories of their quests to find a sense
of security in a world that is lonely,
challenging and often frightening.
The ghost of one young resident who
was stabbed to death hangs over
the play, adding to the urgency of its
central message.
Both of these plays are essentially
about identity and the desire to
belong and represent powerful
additions to the age 16+ repertoire.
Lucy Brassell
Pronoun
Evan Placey
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 84842 391 6
Home
Nadia Falls
Nick Hern Books
ISBN 978 1 84842 355 8
Books
Storytelling With Our
Students
David Heathfield
Heathfield may not be familiar
to UK drama teachers but is well
known abroad as an accomplished
storyteller, an expert at passing on
his extensive treasury of tales from
around the world with an inspiring
warmth and generosity. What he
also does, with clinical precision,
is deconstruct the techniques he
uses to apply the stories to a range
of educational objectives. His work
focuses in particular on using stories
to enhance language learning but
this book has a broader brief and
deserves attention for a number
of reasons. It is the most clearly
written manual on how to choose,
learn, tell and work with a story that
I have ever come across. Each of the
forty tales reflects a different culture
and each is used as an exemplar of
a different purpose or storytelling
strategy. In this, the book becomes
a powerful means of developing
the drama teacher’s own classroom
practice while offering a rich and
entertaining multi-cultural resource.
The first scholarly yet accessible
and short section of this book
offers an informative context on
storytelling as a fundamental
human activity and its importance
in teaching. The advice offered is
complemented by a set of epigrams
that wouldn’t be out of place on
the drama studio wall. The stories
themselves are grouped under
three headings: The teacher as
storyteller; Creative ways into and
out of storytelling; and The students
as storyteller. Suggested activities
include ways of telling, presenting
and discussing stories as well as
idea for improvisations around
characters and themes. These may
not seem revolutionary to a trained
drama teacher but they are clearly
explained and purposeful.
The last section of the book
offers an extensive list of resources
related to storytelling. Many of these
are readily available on YouTube
and would serve well as stimuli for
drama lesson across the key stages.
Heathfield’s 2005 book Spontaneous
Speaking (Delta Publishing ISBN
978 1 900783 92 7) is also worth
checking out. Sub-titled ‘Drama
activities for confidence and
fluency’, it’s a lively collection
of ideas for improvisations and
scenarios pitched at developing
oracy that would serve well as warm
Reviews
up activities and could certainly
be utilised to support students for
whom English is an additional
language.
Andy Kempe
Storytelling With Our Students
David Heathfield
Delta Publishing
ISBN 978 1 905085 87 3
Visit: http://www.nationaldrama.org.uk/membership/
Spring 2015 Drama Magazine 49