The Play Is the Thing: April 23, 2015

Focus: What control do the characters have or lack over their universe?

1. Warming up: Skim the question game on pages 42 through 44 and select one question you think is central to this play so far

• Why does Stoppard have them play the question game?

2. Reading Act II together

• What imprisons the characters and how so? Do they have freedom?

• Is there logic/reason governing the world of R & G? Where are they seeking it? Do they find it?

• What are R & G's thoughts on death?

• Why the play within a play within a play?

3. Thinking through the play artistically: Try illustrating the characters from each "world" in this play (R & G, the Hamlet characters, the tragedians/actors performing the dumbshow) in a way that demonstrates how much control the characters have over their worlds.

For example, does one world exist inside another? Are they each subject to the same laws?

If the illustration is throwing you off, try simply forming a scale, or a spectrum, of control, and consider where each character falls.


HW:
Culminating essay due Monday.