WELCOME TO YOUR EDUCATOR PACKET FOR SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION.
All of the information below is assuming that your class is college level. There are a few ideas to which your discretion will be necessary based on the type of class you teach.
Art Assignment: This doesn't necessarily have to be done with an art class. Pen and paper would probably suffice. Without explaining anything about the script give the class the following scenario:
"You are a painter in Italy. Italy has just won a battle against its most fierce opponent. The whole country is rejoicing in its victory. As one of the most recognized and talented painters in Venice you have been asked to paint this battle to show the power and strength of Venice and specifically its splendid victory. You have ten minutes. Go."
The objective: The students have been given a vague description for a painting by you, their authority figure. It is time to see who paints a glorious Italy and who understands that Italy just destroyed a people and are victorious in their death.
The point: Galactia, the Venice painter, didn't paint a victorious Italy, but instead showed the pain and death that occurred. She did it against opposition. She did it as a female painter around the early 1600's when it was usually looked down upon female painters. The basic fact is that it is usually an incredible feat to go against the grain.
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Art comparison project
If you have projector capabilities it will probably not be necessary to get copies of these paintings, but for this project it will be necessary, in some fashion, to have two paintings of the Battle of Lepanto. This is the battle for which Scene's protagonist is to paint. The battle can be painted either with disdain, as did Galactia, or with support and victory.
This website is for a victorious painting done in the 17th century.
http://www.starportraitstudio.com/5629th_oil_painting.htm
This website is for a modern, highly abstract painting done in modern times.
http://www.museodelprado.es/en/ingles/exposiciones/info/en-el-museo/lepanto-cy-twombly/la-exposicion/
The Point
Galactia in the play had a very different view of the Battle of Lepanto. What are the views of these artists? Which makes the most sense? Is one right and the other wrong?
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Author Biography: He is a British playwright named Howard Barker.
The son of Sydney Charles and Georgina Irene Carter Barker, was born in Dulwich, London. Between 1958 and 1964 he attended Battersea Grammar School, before going to Sussex University where he took an M.A. in history in 1968. Four years later he married Sandra Mary Law. Barker has coined the term 'Theatre of Catastrophe' to describe his work. His plays often explore violence, sexuality, the desire for power, and human motivation.Rejecting the widespread notion that an audience should share a single response to the events onstage, Barker works to fragment response, forcing each viewer to wrestle with the play alone. "We must overcome the urge to do things in unison" he writes. "To chant together, to hum banal tunes together, is not collectivity."
Where other playwrights might clarify a scene, Barker seeks to render it more complex, ambiguous, and unstable.Opposing the predominance of comedy in the contemporary culture, which unifies us through the banality of a shared response, he argues for the rebirth of a tragic theatre, which will force us to recognize our differences. Only through a tragic renaissance, Barker argues, will beauty and poetry return to the stage. "Tragedy liberates language from banality" he asserts. "It returns poetry to speech." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Barker
Reviews
The Past Through the Prism of the Present
June 5, 2007 - 10:48 — Mallory Jensen
"The characters’ tangled relationships and loyalties, portrayed with intensity by the leading actors, not only draw you into the individual struggles that shape them and their world, but demand your engagement from start to finish with the intellectual and moral issues from which those struggles are born."
Steve Hoppe
"Written by Howard Barker, Scenes from an Execution combines extremely dense text with profound visual imagery, which Director Jim Peck and the rest of the company execute with clarity and precision"
A Look Into the Characters
Galactia- Female, Venetian, Painter, 46 years old.
Carpeta- Male, Painter of "pity", Galactia's lover, appears to be around the same age as Sordo so possibly about 37 years old.
Urgentino- Male, politician, the Doge, Venetian.
Suffici- Male, Venetian Admiral, being painted by Glactia.
Rivera- Female, critic, poet, sensualist, brought to critique Galactia's work by Urgentino.
Ostensibile- Male, Cardinale, Secretary of State for Public Education.
Prodo- Male, "Man with the Crossbow Bolt in His Head", shows battle wounds for money to Galactia.
Sketchbook- Androgynous, sort of a narrator to Galactia's painting, no sense of age, race, etc.
Supporta- Female, Venetian, Galactia's daughter, in a professional relationship with her mother for 20 years.
Dimentia- Female, Venetian, Galactia's daughter.
Sordo- painter, acquaintance of Carpeta, 37 years old.
Basic Plot
Glenda Jackson starred in this brilliant drama about a sixteenth century Venetian painter commissioned by the Doge to do a mural commemorating the naval victory at Lepanto. She is a woman, a realist, a rebel and a free spirit, so the government does not get the jingoistic celebration of political and military might it expects. Galactia reveals war in all its horror, cruelty and suffering and chooses prison over changing the mural. This fascinating parable raises issues of contemporary resonance. As the play unfolds, the paradoxical mystery of art is espoused: that works exist independently of their creators.
http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/2229
Question and Answer Session
After seeing the production of Scenes there will be a time for Q & A with the actors and director and possibly others will be present. This is really a time to delve into what you have seen. There are typical questions to ask the actors such as, "How did you learn all of those lines?" These questions are valid, but the director and cast and others would be more enticed by the following questions.
1. What was your overall concept? (both design and acting)
2. How did you decide what time period to put this in?
3. Who made the decision on how to approach the character of the "Sketchbook?"
4. Was the nudity a concern when choosing this show?
5. Why do you think the show is called Scenes from an Execution?
