This Teacher Curriculum Guide for
TEN
unknowns by JON ROBIN BAITZ
was prepared for the Huntington Theatre Company by Janet Crowly Morcos Education Consultant
with contributions by Donna Glick Director of Education
Scott Edmiston Literary Associate
Linda Murphy Associate Director of Education
Jaime Grande Education & Community Associate
Katy Doyle Student Matinee Coordinator
Ann Marie Parisi Boston University Education Assistant
The Huntington’s John Hancock Student Matinee Series is funded in part by a generous grant from the John Hancock Financial Services, Inc.
The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera
About This Curriculum This curriculum guide has been developed for use in conjunction with the Literary guide for the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Ten Unknowns by Jon Robin Baitz. The guide has also been connected to the Massachusetts State Learning Standards - Grades 6-12 for Language, Literature and Composition and the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework Theatre and Connections Strands (see Addenda). We recommend that teachers read the literary guide for Ten Unknowns before approaching this curriculum guide, and that they then read the curriculum guide in its entirety. This curriculum includes the following sections: Audience Etiquette introduces students to the concept of drama and audience etiquette. Learning Standards - 1,2,3 Objectives provide teachers with measurable goals. Preparation offers background information and introduces issues of the play without requiring special knowledge. Learning Standards - 1,2,3,8,9,7,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25 Mastery Assessment of Ten Unknowns helps students assess the main points of the play. Learning Standards - 1,2,9 Open Response Assessment allows students to create complete answers to thoughtful questions employing topic sentences and supporting evidence from the text. Learning Standards - 1,2,3,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,21,22,23,24,25 Thinking Level Assessment encourages students to develop independent judgments about the issues and a clearer understanding of complexities of the play, and helps them to relate such issues to their own lives. Learning Standards - 1,2,3,8,9,11,24,25 Writing Assignments affords students opportunities for self-expression and analytical thought and for developing their writing skills. Learning Standards - 1,2,3,5,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,25 Questions for After Attending a Performance of the Play encourages students to consider the aesthetic and practical elements of a live performance. Learning Standards - 1,2,9,15 Media Assessment provides hands-on and interactive challenges that can inspire further consideration of the play. Learning Standards - 1,2,9,15 Theatre Standards and Connection Strands Quotations allows students to approach relevant thoughts from the script on the themes of the play. Learning Standards - 1,2,3,5,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,25 Scene from Ten Unknowns to analyze. Learning Standards - 2,9,15 Addenda Massachusetts State Learning Standards - Grades 6-12 Language, Literature & Composition Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework Theatre & Connections Strands.
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Audience Etiquette
Landscape by Jerry Uelsmann
Because many students have not had the opportunity to view live theatre, we are including an audience etiquette section with each curriculum guide. Teachers, please spend some time on this subject since it will greatly enhance your students’ experience at the theatre. If a Huntington education staff member will be visiting your classroom, we will be covering some of this, but you might want to supplement or continue the discussion begun by the Huntington staff member.
1. What are the differences between live theatre and the cinema? 2. How does one respond to a live performance of a play, as opposed to when seeing a film at a local cinema? What is the best way to approach viewing a live performance of a play? What things should you look and listen for?
3. What is the audience’s role during a live performance? How do you think audience behavior can affect an actor’s performance?
4. How does a play script typically differ from a novel? How are the two similar? How does a stage actor approach preparing for his or her role?
5. What do you know about the theatrical rehearsal process? Have you ever participated in one as an actor, singer, director, or technical person?
6. What are some of the elements involved in producing a play – set, costumes, lighting, actors, director, stage management, tech direction, etc.? Depending on your course, here is an opportunity to discuss the various jobs in theatre: set construction, costuming, properties, sound engineering, marketing, program writing and editing, company management, and so on.
7. How do costumes, set, lights, sound and props enhance a theatre production? 8. What is a professional stage actor’s life like?
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Objectives
Artist Richard Diebenkorn in his Studio
Students will:
• Identify central themes in Ten Unknowns, including: • art as life force • parasitical relationships in the natural
world and in the world of art and commerce • artistic integrity and compromise • betrayal and redemption
• relate themes and issues of Ten Unknowns to their own lives
• identify conflicts and struggles in interpersonal relationships of their own while coming to understand those of the characters in Ten Unknowns
Artist Elmer Bischoff in his Studio
• analyze the play’s themes and issues within the characters’ generational, professional, gender and cultural contexts.
• familiarize themselves with the major periods of modern art history • participate in hands-on arts activities, including acting, visual arts, music and movement
• evaluate the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Ten Unknowns.
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Preparation BACKGROUND Ten Unknowns is a play about art and artists. It’s also about the eternal clash between the old and the new, between jaded cynicism and youthful idealism and, perhaps most of all, between art and commerce. For students of art history, it’s an example of how art and public taste change and evolve, and an artist’s work can suddenly become in or out of vogue. For students of psychology, it’s an exploration of the nature of power and exploitation between mentor and apprentice. And for students of American culture and history, it’s a vivid portrait of one man’s experience of having been a WPA artist and how it affected his art and his life. Abstract Expressionism Centered in New York City, 1946 to the 1960’s Raphelson “Abstract Expressionism. All you had to do was make a little jump, a little child’s leap, into shitshaped daubings and mealy-mouthed little splotches and batches of half-baked color, you’d win a prize – you’d win a crackerjack prize! And you had to do it, or you were out! You were expelled!”
Eyes-Heat by Jackson Pollock
Kenneth Noland, among others, was primarily concerned with exploring the effect of pure color on a canvas.
In Ten Unknowns, the fictional Malcolm Raphelson, himself an unknown and forgotten representational or figurative painter, dismisses and pooh-poohs the entire movement known as Abstract Expressionism.
1. Create a gallery of modern American art in your classroom by having students work in small groups to research, collect and bring in examples of art by each of these abstract expressionists. They can down-load images from the Internet and project them on a wall, or locate poster prints, photographs or slides from an art library. Have students play art critics of the 1950’s walking through the gallery to view and make comments on the artwork. Record their comments on videotape, as if for TV news.
Abstract Expressionism is defined by artcyclopedia.com as a form of art in which the artist expresses himself purely, through the use of form and color. It is a form of non-representational, or non-objective art, which means that there are no concrete objects represented. Now considered to be the first American artistic movement of worldwide importance, the term was originally used to describe the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and (Raphelson’s nemesis) Jackson Pollock.
2. Study a painting by Jackson Pollock, such as Autumn Rhythm (1950), and the techniques he used to create it. Spread out a large piece of white cotton fabric on the floor of the classroom, and have a group of students volunteer to reproduce the painting as accurately as possible. Have other students interview them about how they set about the task, who took charge and who followed, the process of planning and execution, the materials they used, and their thoughts about the results. Explore their
The movement can be broadly divided into two groups: Action Painting and Color Field Painting. Action Painting, typified by artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Franz Kline and Philip Guston, put the focus on the physical action involved in painting. Color Field Painting, practiced by Mark Rothko and
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Approximately twenty-five years after the WPA ended, the United States Government established the National Endowment for the Arts.
1. Find out what happened to a real “unknown” WPA artist, such as Aaron Berkman, Jules Halfant, Max Arthur Cohn, Norman Barr, Lee Krasner and Gertrude Shibley. Be an art sleuth and track down their stories. Where is their artwork today? INTRODUCING KEY ISSUES Integrity, Identity, Self-Deception and Personal Growth 1. What is integrity? Find a dictionary definition of the word. Who can you think of as examples of people with integrity? Who comes to mind as someone without integrity? Why? Can it mean different things to different people? What is artistic integrity? How can we live a life of integrity? How can we know when we are deceiving ourselves? What are some of the sacrifices inherent in having integrity? What is meant by personal growth? Have students write about a personal experience that challenged their integrity and resulted in personal growth, and what it cost them.
Sea Grass by Milton Avery
feelings about working together as artists to duplicate another artist’s vision, not their own. In what ways was this hard, easy, challenging or frustrating? What did they learn from this experience? Who were the WPA artists? Artists such as Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, Mark Rothko, Willem De Kooning and Jackson Pollock were just a few of the thousands of artists on the WPA Project who achieved worldwide recognition. WPA was the abbreviation for the Works Progress Administration, a government funded arts program set up during the Depression by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help the impoverished arts community. The artists who participated in the WPA ranged from figurative and academic, all the way to abstraction and surrealism, in addition to almost every other school of painting, sculpture and the graphic arts.
2. Have students role-play and improvise scenes that illustrate and explore the idea of self-deception and its impact on personal integrity. For example, someone who claims credit for something that a coworker actually did, in order to get ahead at work. Explore the immediate impact of the deception, and the longer-term implications. Try several alternative scenarios. Exploitation, Personal and Ecological 1. When is exploitation a good thing? How do we benefit from it? How has it come to be seen as a negative term? In what ways do people exploit others? Why? How do they justify this behavior to themselves? In the free exchange of goods and services in the world, how do we stop the exploitation of labor? What about the exploitation of natural resources? Is this ever a good thing? How is the earth’s ecology affected by the exploitation of natural resources? Bring in stories from the media for analysis and debate.
Government funding of the arts community continued until the mid 1940’s, when the WPA was disbanded. Many artists gained experience, their careers were fostered and lifetime friendships (and rivalries) began during the WPA. The general public became exposed to works of art through the many exhibitions, the schools of art and the public institutions that displayed the murals, sculpture and other works. A great deal can be learned about the 1930’s and 1940’s when we study the art produced at the time of the WPA project. We can see where all the future art movements such as surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism and graffiti art began.
2. Explore the relationship and exchange between a mentor/teacher and his/her student or apprentice. Who benefits most from this relationship? Who has the power? In what ways can that power be
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abused? How does the balance shift between them as the apprentice becomes more skilled and experienced? When can this relationship become unhealthy, and what must each party do to grow? Explore this with examples from TV, movies and the students’ own life experiences.
3. Have students collect news stories and pictures and make posters to demonstrate the impact of exploitation on people and the earth. Devise a theme for the exhibition and invite everyone at your school to attend a showing of this work. Find and play songs with related themes (e.g. Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi), interspersed with sound bytes of clips from speeches by environmentalists like Ralph Nadar, and other activities, to make this a multi-media experience for those who visit the exhibition. Betrayal and Redemption 1. The themes of betrayal and redemption are often explored in ancient myth, in folk tales around the world, and in religious stories. Working in small groups, ask students to come up with several examples of stories of betrayal and redemption to share with the class. What characterizes these stories? What lessons do they teach? What makes them universal? Compare and contrast how different cultures present these stories. How are they presented today in newer forms of media, e.g. Japanese comic books?
Blue Cloud by Mark Rothko
hard-hearted businessman. Are these mutually exclusive roles? Where are the potential conflicts between them? In what ways do they need each other? How can they compliment one another? Using the board or flipcharts, have students list the similarities and differences between art and commerce, and map where they intersect and where they diverge. Explore how these two worlds are interdependent.
2. Have students search for and show examples of
2. What is fraud, exactly? asks Fabricant, the art dealer.
paintings, illustrations, photographs, or drawings that depict betrayal and/or redemption in an abstract or literal way. Ask students to create two drawings or paintings each, one abstract and one figurative, to explore the same theme in two different styles. Choose from the list of issues explored here: integrity and identity; self-deception and personal growth; exploitation, personal and ecological: betrayal and redemption; and commerce vs. art.
Explore the sensitive issue of plagiarism and ownership of art and creative output. What constitutes an original if it’s all been done before? Who owns an idea? What if someone uses an assistant to help create the work? To whom does it belong then, and who should get the credit? Discuss and debate.
3. Through role play, have students experience being in the role of the artist, the role of his/her assistant, and the role of the agent who represents that artist and his/her work to the public. What happens when the artist cannot produce? How does the agent market him/her? How does the assistant help or hinder the artist and ultimately become an artist him/herself? Have the same actors switch roles and repeat the scene.
Commerce vs. Art 1. Engage students in a collective brainstorm on what it means to be an artist, and to be a businessperson, and what their vision of each role is, for example, the poor starving artist and the cold
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Mastery Assessment Act II 1. What do Judd and Julia discover about each other’s training and apprenticeship?
Act 1 1. Identify the pun in Trevor Fabricant’s name.
2. Define the relationship between Fabricant and 2. How does Raphelson talk to Judd in front of
Malcolm Raphelson?
Julia, after spending the night working on the painting of his mother together? What is Judd’s reaction?
3. What does Fabricant want Raphelson to do, and how does the artist respond?
4. What sales technique does Fabricant use to try to
3. Compare and contrast Julia’s and Raphelson’s
convince him?
response to Judd’s disappearance.
5. Compare and contrast these two men and their
4. What do we learn about the progress of Julia’s
views about art and commerce.
work with the frogs?
6. Who is Judd Sturgess? Define his relationship
5. How does Raphelson distract her from thinking
with the other two men?
about Judd?
7. Why does Raphelson tell the story about
6. What does he reveal to Julia about his marriages
DeKooning and Rauchenburg?
and his view on love?
8. What are your first impressions of Julia?
7. What happens when he tries to draw her?
9. How does her arrival change Raphelson’s
8. How does Julia think she may be responsible for
behavior? How does he treat her?
the rift between Raphelson and Judd?
10. What is Julia doing in this region? How does
9. How does Raphelson explain the connection
she feel about her work?
between Judd and Pinocchio?
11. In what ways do Julia and Raphelson agree and
10. What happens when she challenges him on his
disagree?
working relationship with Judd?
12. What decision does Raphelson ask Julia to make
11. What does Julia reveal to him about her own past?
for him?
12. How does the dynamic between them change 13. Describe the reactions of both Fabricant and Julia
after he kisses her?
to the painting of the lake.
13. When Judd returns, what does he expect to find? 14. What starts the argument between Fabricant and
How is it different?
Judd? What is it about, really?
14. What is revealed in anger between the two men, 15. How do Judd and Julia become friends? What
to Julia’s horror?
does he warn her about?
15. What does Raphelson try to do to reclaim the 16. What happens between Judd and Raphelson after
paintings? How does Julia respond?
Julia goes to bed?
16. Where does Judd go and what does he do? Why? 7
Village in Mexico by Alice Naylor
17. What is Fabricant’s view of what happened? How
21. Something changes between Raphelson and Judd.
does it change his plans?
What is it?
18. Describe how Fabricant mocks and dismisses
22. When Julia returns, who and what does she
Judd’s claims, then threatens him.
expect to find? How is it different?
19. How does Fabricant justify himself to Raphelson
23. What did Judd and Raphelson do with the paint-
in light of Judd’s actions?
ings? How has this affected them?
20. What does Raphelson send Fabricant off to do
24. Finally, what surprise does Raphelson reveal?
for him?
Does it change anything? How?
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Open Response Assessment Instructions for students: Please answer the following as thoroughly as possible in a well-thought out and carefully written paragraph. Remember to use topic sentences and examples from the text.
1. What is Ten Unknowns about? What does it have to say to young people today?
2. How do relationships between characters change and evolve from the beginning to the end of the play? Explore their conflicts, individuals crises, and resolutions.
3. What does this play have to say about art and artists? Explain platwright Baitz’s point of view.
4. Why did the playwright set this play in rural Mexico? How does the geographical setting of the play impact its characters, physically, emotionally, and psychologically?
5. What does it mean to be a blocked artist? How do
Frog on Flower by Doris Kowan
the other characters help or hinder Raphelson in dealing with this problem?
6. Analyze what each character really wants and needs. How do they go about getting it? Explore who uses whom for what purpose.
7. Both Julia and Judd are apprentices, in training. What else do they have in common? How/why do they become friends? What does he do for her and she for him?
8. Observe the parallels between the extinction of the frogs, the decay of the American city, the demands of consumerism, and the corruption of the art world. Is there any room for optimism? Who speaks for or embodies hope for the future in the play? Why?
9. Describe the roles of art, commerce, and science in furthering the action of the play.
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Thinking Level Assessment commercialism. What do you know about this icon of modern art? How did he blend art and commerce? What is he most remembered for?
4. If you were to become an artist today, where would you live, and why? How would you survive? Explore and research how artists make a living in America today, versus under the WPA system in the 1930’s. Discuss the idea of “selling out” as an artist. What would that mean to you? Must you compromise to be an artist? Find a working artist to interview about these and other issues. Write a newspaper story as an arts reporter.
5. Go to an art museum, like the MFA, in Boston, and tour the galleries of modern art. Note which artwork and which particular artists speak to you and consider why. If Malcolm Raphelson really existed, whose work would his paintings most resemble, and why do you think so? Make a case for your opinion and present it to the class.
Page 4, Paragraph Five (Short Stories) by Robert Rauchenberg
1. If you were assigned to be the dramaturg for a
6. The life of the artist, whether in the field of music,
production of Ten Unknowns, what research and visual stimulation would you provide for the director and actors at the first rehearsal? Perhaps examples of paintings by Jackson Pollock and some of “his homies,” pictures of glass frogs, Zapotec people, Central Mexico? Display these visuals around your classroom for students to see and experience the world of the play.
dance, theatre, literature or art, is the subject of many books, plays and movies, and continues to fascinate the public. Why do we tend to think that artists’ lives are more exciting, more emotionally charged, and more intriguing than our own? Discuss and consider how this way of life, and its attendant challenges, draws so many new hopeful candidates every year. What keeps artist striving and working year after year, often without recognition? Why is this way of life so attractive?
2. Assign small groups of students to research the work of artists mentioned in the play: Jackson Pollock, De Kooning, Rauchenberg, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, El Greco, Zuban, Turner, Hieronymous Bosch, Manet, Max Ernst, etc. Define and describe their individual styles of painting and show examples to compare and contrast their work.
7. What defines success in the world of art and artists? Who defines what success means? Is it to be well-known within the art world itself, or to be famous as a household name? Is it about how much money you make, where your work is exhibited, or how controversial your work is considered to be by the critics? Find published interviews with artists who talk about these ideas, (e.g. movie director Woody Allen) and share your findings with the class.
3. “I am a deeply superficial person,” said Andy Warhol. He was considered by some to be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, and reviled by others as the pinnacle of self-serving
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Writing Assignments 1. In an essay, explore how the fragile glass frog is used as a metaphor in Ten Unknowns – for the artist, for hope, for survival, and/or for what else, in your opinion? What is the message of the frogs? Support your views with quotes from the play.
2. Each character is somehow transformed over the course of the play. Track the emotional and psychological changes in each character and what exactly precipitates each change. Present your findings as a seminar for your peers.
3. As each of the four characters, write a journal entry in his/her voice as if it were the end of the first act of the play. What does he/she feel? What are their secret thoughts?
Painter with Sons and Frog by Sandro Cho
(especially a “signature” gesture), and movement. Consider also how well the actor “played off” the other performers. Was this a solo performance or was the actor a “team playGlass Frog er”? Give examples for each of your criticisms. Remember that being critical does not mean being negative; it means being observant. Be sure to include both the things you believe were done well and those you think could have been performed better.
4. Working in small groups, write a short play or a short story about one of the four characters in Ten Unknowns, set one year after the conclusion of this play. What has happened to them? What are they doing now? How has this experience changed them? What will the future hold for them?
5. Write an essay examining one of the central themes presented in Ten Unknowns.
6. Write a critical examination of the performance
7. Write a critical review of the
by one of the actors in the Huntington production of Ten Unknowns. Consider how well the character you chose was portrayed through the actor’s use of voice, body language, mannerisms
Huntington production of Ten Unknowns and submit it for publication in your school newspaper. Be sure to send us a copy.
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Questions for After Attending the Performance E Did the characters change/develop/undergo transformation during the course of the play? F. In what ways did the characters reveal the themes of the play? 3. About the Set A. Was the set usable and workable? B. Was the set compatible with the production as a whole? Were there any features of the set that distracted from the action of the play? C. Did the design reflect the themes, type and style of play? D. Were the artistic qualities of unity, balance, line, texture, mass and color used effectively?
Playwright Jon Robin Baitz PHOTO: JOAN
MARCUS
E Did the set provide appropriate environment and atmosphere?
Note to teachers: After viewing Ten Unknowns, ask the following questions:
F. Was the set used to present any symbolic images or did it simply represent the space in which the action of the play occurred? Did it contain elements of both a "realistic" and a "symbolic" approach?
1. About the Play and Production A. What was your overall reaction? Were you moved? Shocked? Empathetic? Explain your reactions. How was the play structured? Did it build to a single climax? Was it episodic? Did this structure help or hinder your understanding of the play? Was the dialogue interesting? Appropriate? Were you aware of the imagery and symbolism during the course of the play? Would you have been aware of these devices without previous preparation?
4. About Lighting and Sound A. Did the lighting establish mood and atmosphere? Was the illumination sufficient? Did the lighting harmonize with, and contribute toward, the unity of the production?
B. Was the pace and tempo of the production effective and appropriate?
B. Were the music and sound effects appropriately conceived? Were they executed effectively? 5. About Costumes/ Makeup/ Hairstyles A. Were all of these elements correct in terms of the period fashion? Were they suitable in terms of character and storytelling for the production?
2. About the Characters A. Did the characters touch you personally in some ways? Did you care about them? B. Were the characters three-dimensional and believable?
B. Did the costumes and make-up use of color/ design serve to illuminate the themes, type and style of the play, or any particular choices of interpretations in this production?
C. Were the motivations of the characters clear? D. What qualities were revealed by the actions and speech of the characters?
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Media Assessment These questions and hands-on exercises are inter-active challenges in Drama, Music, Dance, Visual Arts and Design that inspire further consideration or understanding of the play. The warm-up exercises in Drama have been adapted from the International School’s Theatre Association publication titled Drama and the Active Study of Literature by Tim Williams. Creating Characterization 1. Have each of your students choose a character from Ten Unknowns that he/she would like to portray. As though they were preparing for the role in rehearsal, have them ask the following questions about their characters:
a. What do I want in the play? What is my overall objective?
b. What is in the way of what I want in the play? What are my obstacles? Who is/are my obstacles? Does what gets in the way of what I want change throughout the course of the play? How?
Actor Ron Rifkin Plays Malcolm Raphelson
or their integrity questioned. Can they act or portray their own emotions? Do they disguise or hide what really happened? What is difficult to portray, and why? Do you have to have had a similar experience in order to understand what is being said in a play? This is obviously a difficult and sensitive area for most adolescents to deal with, especially in the company of their peers, and it’s not productive to push too hard. It’s not meant to lead to a psychotherapy session, but if we believe literature to be of value, then we should be stressing the fact that it is about our own personal experiences as much as the writer’s; just getting students on their feet to start playing some experience of their own involves much more commitment than almost any seated, abstract discussion.
c. Does my character change during the course of the play? What is my character’s journey, or plot of transformations?
d. What are the contradictions inherent in my character?
2. Have students imagine that they have been chosen to play one of the characters in this play. Have them make notes individually on how they would approach their role. Ask students to consider what research would be needed, what physical and psychological qualities might be best to work on, character movement, and speech patterns (what types of accents do each of the characters have, how do these speech patterns display class/status?).
2. Have students improvise some moment from Ten Unknowns and then test the effects of changing something - tone of voice, some important trait in a character, or a vital remark. How does such a change affect the selected moment and what
Role Playing/Improvisation 1. Have students look for parallel situations between the characters’ stories and their own lives. Have them recall when they have been deceived, betrayed
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follows? What repercussions would such a change have on the shape and balance of the play? Students could improvise what happens before or after some point, or what happens after the play’s end. Both these exercises help the class understand how a work of art involves an interrupted process, or a decision to stop what could be endlessly revised. See if the students can identify some of the writer’s main points of choice or decision in their story.
3. Actors often view their roles in terms of journeys. The way their characters change and the creative tensions between each turning point are potential building blocks for creating any given role. Ask your students to imagine that they are actors playing roles in Ten Unknowns. Have them trace the journey of their characters, addressing the following questions: • What does my character want in the beginning of the play?
3. Have each student select a line from the play that
• How does each scene affect the “want” or objective, and how does my character change in response to the events in this particular scene?
best captures the essence of a particular character. Organizing the class by four main characters, have students present their lines and explain the reasons for their selections. After each character is completed and all the chosen lines have been read aloud and explained, discuss the rationale for choices.
• Is there a “pivotal scene” or moment for my character? A scene or moment in which he/she experiences a “turning point,” or transforms in such a way that he/she will never be the same again?
Acting 1. Define subtext and motivation in the context of performance. Using the scene from Ten Unknowns included at the end of this guide, have students examine the subtext or motivation of the lines and action by discussing the following questions:
• Students should summarize what the overall journey of their character is during the course of the entire play. How can each character’s journey be outlined?
• Does the character say precisely what he or she means, or does the character intentionally mislead other characters?
Visual Art 1. Using plates, papier-mache, and other materials, have your students create masks that represent characters in Ten Unknowns. Have students perform a scene twice – once with the masks, once without. What impression do the masks make on the audience? How do the masks make the scene different?
• Are words the character’s only expression at this point in the play? • Why does the character speak at this particular time? • Why in this way? • Why to this person? • If the character is silent, why? • Why does the character stop speaking? • What does the character want to accomplish in the scene? • How does the character’s intention determine the character’s action, tone of voice, or facial expressions?
2. Have students act out a scene from Ten Unknowns. They should use props and elements of costumes. Have them consider who stands where, who moves when and where, gestures, tone of voice, music, and intended emotional impact.
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pret the same ideas. Or, have students select and work with one of the pieces from #2 to create an interpretive dance. Have them perform the dance for their classmates, followed by a discussion of the elements of the dance which interpreted the concepts. Allow time for students to talk about the process they used in creating, rehearsing, and performing their dance.
2. Pass out art paper, paints, and brushes. Have students create abstract* paintings of a character from the play. Make sure the students do not tell their classmates who their paintings represent. Hang the completed paintings around the room. Ask students to pick out qualities, moods, and feelings of each painting. Next have each artist identify the character his/her painting represents and explain how the various details of the painting depict the character.
The Design Process 1. Scenic designer Adam Stockhausen and costume designer Tom Broecker collaborated extensively to select a color palette for this production which reflects the world of and the characters in Ten Unknowns. Assign students to work in teams and design scenery and costumes which would appear harmoniously on stage. The students should pay attention to color, fabric and materials.
* The concept of abstract imagery may need to be explained to some students. Emphasize that they are trying to capture moods, feelings, and conflicts and that their paintings need not perfectly resemble their character (or anything concrete, for that matter.)
3. Have your students choose any character from Ten Unknowns and create a character collage. The collages should include pictures (hand-drawn or cut from magazines/newspapers) of actions the character performs, images expressing relationships the character has with others, typical moods, feelings, or attitudes, etc. Include quotations from the play that reveal something about the character (these can be quotations from the character as well as quotations about the character).
2. Discuss the role that Lighting Designer Donald Holder and his work have played in the Huntington production of Ten Unknowns. Discuss how color, angle, and intensity helped to suggest time of day, mood focus and action. Students should look for pictures or use watercolors and create their own pictures to illustrate these properties.
Music/Dance 1. Create background music and/or sound effects to accompany scenes in the play.
3. Other students might design costumes for the play. Research the clothing styles of Central Mexico. Exhibit the students’ costume designs for each character and have them explain to the class how they are correct for the period and appropriate for the characters of their situations and stations in life. Have the class compare designs with those used in the HTC production.
2. Conceive the final scene of Ten Unknowns featuring as a movement composition without words. Select a choreographer and dancers, as well as a movement style, i.e., ballet, jazz, hip-hop, blues, or modern. Have students develop a performance together for the class. Is the group’s presentation accurately reflective of the characters in this “grand finale”?
4. Others might design a poster for the play. Encourage them to consider what message about the play they want to convey to the public in order to sell tickets. Which people should be acknowledged on the poster, and what other information should be included (price of tickets, dates, and so on)?
3. Have groups of students bring in tapes or CD’s of music or perform and/or compose a piece of music to create a mood for a theme/issue from the play, a symbol in the play, a character in the play, or an incident/moment in the play. Ask them to play an excerpt from the piece of music and explain what mood the music creates, why they chose that particular piece, and what others they considered.
5. How would you re-arrange the furniture to make your classroom feel like a painter’s studio? What about the light, color, surfaces and other “props”? What would it take to make your classroom feel like a set for Ten Unknowns? Draw and explain your set design ideas. Create a 3-D model in cardboard. Display these “sets” in the classroom.
4. Have students take the above activity and instead of finding/creating music, have them create and perform a dance (with or without music) to inter-
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Quotations Use the following quotations to analyze the four characters of Ten Unknowns, to discuss specific scenes in context, or to discuss the universal application of these ideas when they are quoted out of context. Search for pictures, paintings, other visual images or music to which you might apply one of these quotations as a title. You can also use the quotations as a springboard to role-playing, improvisation, essay writing, creative writing and further research or as the first lines of letters, poems, or short stories. Develop any theme you choose. Actress Kathryn Hahn plays Julia Bryant
FABRICANT Sometimes buying things — art or a cashmere sweater or...sex, say — makes it all the more real. The money going out; comfort coming in. It’s — yes — terribly shallow, but actually rather true, I think, in a way.
RAPHELSON She has something. I don’t even know what it is. Just this thing. She just got right under my skin. When I stumbled into her; this John O’Hara girl in the town square, fumbling in a Spanish phrase book. I swear. I wanted to...paint her. JULIA They send us down here to sift through the mud and the slime, and if the news is bad enough, the professors take all the credit. JUDD Malcolm loves Armageddon Scenarios; they have a kind of deeply pornographic pull on him. FABRICANT It’s very difficult, isn’t it, to actually be passionate about something and fight for it? JULIA It’s my San Francisco propriety. I’m afraid I’m a complete prisoner of it. JUDD I went to art school. Art School is – essentially a kind of Bohemian post-teen nursery school, at least that’s what it became, from the sixties on, turning out all these armies of scruffy looking people like me. You didn’t even have to be able to draw. At all. RAPHELSON Some advice: Don’t marry an artist. It’s all heartbreak, dereliction of duty and pretending to listen. that’s my advice. Don’t marry an artist. Don’t fall in love with anyone. JUDD “What is fraud?” Is that what you just asked...?
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Scene to Analyze from Act II – Scene Three (The Studio. Two days later. Just before dawn. JUDD, in an astonishing state of dishevelment, enters the studio, Actor T. Scott Cunningham and collapses on the plays Trevor Fabricant sofa. He is shaking and bruised. TREVOR FABRICANT follows him appalled. His is carrying a cup of coffee.)
Office of Film Production. Whatever that is. Now finish your wet, soaked, coffeebread and let’s get these Actor Jonathan Woodward things crated up. They plays Judd Sturgess should have all gone up North weeks ago. I let this thing go on and on and on...The silence and the elliptical nonsense.
FABRICANT No, No — No, There’ll be no coddling you, Judd. Drink you...beverage, we have to start moving.
JUDD Wait a second. I told you he didn’t paint these. FABRICANT Who is ever going to believe that? You’ve never painted anything remotely like this.
JUDD I’m going to need several more cups. Even to think about moving. That cell. God. It was amazing. As far as jail cells go, it was somewhere in the Max Ernst — Heironymous Bosch latitudes.
JUDD Hold on, back up, pal. I can prove it. I can do them in my sleep. I can paint this down to the brush stroke....!!!!
FABRICANT I am insisting that this be done with a bit of grace.
FABRICANT That doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t prove anything. We know you’re skilled. It means nothing. You don’t seem to have a handle on the thorny nature of the problem. These are sold, you see. I’ve sold them, I’ve taken money already and I don’t have it to give back.
JUDD Hey, I’m all for grace. A dying fall. A silent, dignified exit. FABRICANT Well, it’s too late for that. Raphelson’s holed himself up in his room, you’re back on heroin — where’s the dignity? It’s a calamity. Look. The police were very kind to let you go, but we do have a ticking clock. You have to be out of town by tonight. For God’s sake, you were lying in the town square shooting up in front of the touristas, Judd!
JUDD No you’re kidding me, you’re not — FABRICANT I promoted his man. There’s a woman coming to the gallery, there’s a woman from Vogue...And a hobgoblin from Art News! Not to mention a eunuch from the BBC with a tape recorder and bad breath!
JUDD I shot up in the movie theater, not the square! How much did you have to bribe them to get me out?
JUDD Are you seriously saying that you could....?
FABRICANT Not a little but less than I thought. Because when all is said and done, they’re business men too, aren’t they? Yes..they came at me with palm outstretched, let me tell you, and not just the police, but the fire chief as well, and then a lady from the Governor’s
FABRICANT I mean, come on. Isn’t it just a little bit too much for me to buy? The notion that you did everything? I mean, come on. Think about it. 17
Artist Larry Welden in his Studio
JUDD How can you hand these over to people? Sell them. Knowing that they’re fakes?
JUDD He could have been. But he ain’t. FABRICANT Look. You have a shot. Don’t make this into your ticket to bitterness and larceny. Really. For God’s sake, start your life. It’s getting very, very late.
FABRICANT Are they? They don’t look fake to me. And after all, there is the larger question of what is fraud, exactly...?
JUDD I was trying. Then you sent me down here.
JUDD “What is fraud?” Is that what you just asked...?
FABRICANT Judd, I’m sorry but there’s no way for you to come out the winner here. Do you follow? There’s no way. What you say can never be proven. Do you understand?
FABRICANT So he had some help. Whatever help you offered, was voluntary, wasn’t it? JUDD My God. You actually have no level you refuse to sink below, do you?
JUDD I think so. You’re saying that you believe me....
FABRICANT You volunteered, and now you have some proprietary issues, well, too bad! That hardly makes them any less authentic than anything else in the world. They’re wonderfully done, the colors are marvelous. They’re glorious surfaces...
FABRICANT Nope, sorry. JUDD But while still vaguely interested in notions of right and wrong, in the abstract, they’re moot here, because you have to back your horse, the great betrayer.
JUDD Thank you.
FABRICANT Did you — I have only one question. There is only one question: Did you forge his signature?
FABRICANT He’s being described as “an American original.” 18
Addenda MASSACHUSETTS STATE LEARNING STANDARDS - GRADES 6-12 Language, Literature, and Composition
#1
Students will use agreed-upon rules for informal and formal discussions in small and large groups.
#2
Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute their own information or ideas in group discussions and interviews in order to acquire knowledge.
#3
Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.
#4
Students will acquire and use correctly an advanced reading vocabulary of English words, identifying meanings through an understanding of word relationships.
#5
Students will identify, describe, and apply knowledge of the structure of the English language and Standard English conventions for sentence structure, usage, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
#6
Students will describe and analyze how oral dialects differ from each other in English, how they differ from written standard English, and what role standard American English plays in informal and formal communication.
#7
Students will describe and analyze how the English language has developed and been influenced by other languages.
#8
Students will decode accurately and understand new words encountered in their reading materials, drawing on a variety of strategies as needed, and then use these words accurately in speaking and writing.
#9
Students will identify the basic facts and essential ideas in what they have read, heard, or viewed.
#10
Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the characteristics of different genres.
#11
Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in literature and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
#12
Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
#13
Students will identify, analyze and apply knowledge of the structure, elements and meaning of nonfiction or informational material and provide evidence from the text to support their meaning.
#14
Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure, elements, and themes of poetry and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
#15
Students will identify and analyze how an author’s choice of words appeals to the senses, create imagery, suggests mood, and sets tone. 19
MASSACHUSETTS STATE LEARNING STANDARDS - GRADES 6-12 Language, Literature, and Composition – continued
#16
Students will compare and contrast similar myths and narratives from different cultures and geographic regions.
#17
Students will interpret the meaning of literary works, nonfiction, films, and media by using different critical lenses and analytic techniques.
#18
Students will plan and present effective dramatic readings, recitations, and performances that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience and purpose.
#19
Students will write compositions with a clear focus, logically related ideas to develop it, and adequate detail.
#20
Students will select and use appropriate genres, modes of reasoning, and speaking styles when writing for different audiences and rhetorical proposes.
#21
Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice (diction) in their compositions after revising them.
#22
Students will use knowledge of Standard English conventions to edit their writing.
#23
Students will use self-generated questions, note-taking, summarizing, precis writing, and outlining to enhance learning when reading or writing.
#24
Students will use open-ended research questions, different sources of information, and appropriate research methods to gather information for their research projects.
#25
Students will develop and use rhetorical, logical and stylistic criteria for assessing final versions of their compositions or research projects before presenting them to varied audiences.
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MASSACHUSETTS ARTS CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK Theatre and Connection Strands Theatre is an art form concerned with the representation of people in time and space, their actions, and the consequences of their actions. Theatre education expands the ability to understand others and communicate through language and actions, and provides a unique opportunity for integrating the arts, linking dance, music, and visual arts elements in performance and production. Theatre includes acting, improvisation, storytelling, mime, playmaking and playwriting, directing, management, design and technical theatre, and related arts such as puppetry, film and video. Theatre Standards: I. Acting. Students will develop acting skills to portray characters who interact in improvised and scripted scenes. II. Reading and Writing Scripts. Students will read, analyze, and write dramatic material. III. Directing. Students will rehearse and stage dramatic works. IV. Technical Theatre. Students will demonstrate skills in using the basic tools, media, and techniques involved in theatrical production. V. Critical Response. Students will describe and analyze their own theatrical work and the work of others using appropriate theatre vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect their analysis to interpretation and evaluation. Connection Strands: VI. Purposes and Meanings in the Arts. Students will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their meanings. VII. Roles of Artists in Communities. Students will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts institutions in societies of the past and present. VIII. Concepts of Style, Stylistic Influence, and Stylistic Change. Students will demonstrate their understanding of styles, stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where art works were created, and by analyzing characteristic features of art works from various historical periods, cultures, and genres. IX. Inventions, Technologies, and the Arts. Students will describe and analyze how performing and visual artists use and have used materials, inventions, and technologies in their work. X. Interdisciplinary Connections. Students will apply their knowledge of the arts to the study of English language arts, foreign languages, health, history and social science, mathematics, and science and technology/engineering. Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework - October 1999 Page 57.
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