Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to our drama lesson.

This is the second of three drama lessons on a unit of learning called Acting Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Now, in our first lesson, we looked at a monologue which was delivered by Oberon, one of the fairies.

And in that we looked at imagery, and rhythm, as a way of helping us to perform it.

And in this lesson, we're going to build on that, and look at iambic pentameter, and see how Shakespeare wrote his poetry to help us be able to perform the monologue to the best of our abilities as actors.

But before we go on with the lesson, let's just make sure they've got all the equipment we need before we can make a start.

So in this lesson, you are going to need the following items. You're going to need the worksheet, or a piece of paper to work from.

You're going to need a pen, and you're going to need a highlighter.

So before we go on, make sure you've got those pieces of equipment and then let's make a start.

So this is our rundown of our lesson today.

We're going to start with a little bit of recap of the Midsummer Night's Dream.

And then we're going to look at the lover's plot from the play.

We're going to look at Shakespeare's way of writing, using iambic pentameter.

And then we're going to look at an example of that in a monologue, which is given by Puck.

Now you might remember Puck because he appears in our first lesson.

He was Oberon's servant, Oberon being the King of the fairies.

And then we're going to act out that monologue, using as many tricks as we can to help us perform it and make it really good.

And then we're going to do a quick quiz at the end of the lesson.

So once you're ready, let's get started.

So to make this lesson a great success, we're going to need to know three key terms in particular.

The first key term is something I've already said, which is iambic pentameter.

Now, iambic pentameter is the name of a widely used rhythm of speech that contains five beats in each line.

We have already in a way come across it in our first lesson, but I'm going to explain it a little bit more in this lesson.

Our next key word is a monologue, which is a long speech that an actor says on their own.

And then finally, poetry.

Now poetry is a heightened form of language that takes the reader on an emotional or intellectual journey.

Heightened, because it includes things like imagery, and rhythm, and metaphors, and similes.

And Shakespeare uses poetry throughout most of his plays.

And in particular, a particular kind of character speaks in poetry.

And those that are important speak in poetry.

So roles such as Kings, or Queens, or the lovers in the Midsummer Night's Dream speak in poetry, whereas their servants, and anyone else like soldiers, or sailors, they all speak in something called prose.

But we'll explore more about the difference between poetry and prose later on in the unit of learning.

Let's do a quick recap on the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Now, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play written by William Shakespeare, written in 1596.

And it is set in Athens and consists of several plots, all of which interweave across each other, but there are four main plots.

The first is the lover's plot, which we're going to explore today.

The second is the mechanicals plot.

The third is the fairies' plot, which we explored in our last lesson.

And finally, we've got the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Now in this lesson, we're going to be looking at the lover's plot, and a monologue that comes from it.

The lover's plot can be quite a confusing plot.

It involves four characters.

We've got two girls, Helena and Hermia, and two boys, Demetrius and Lysander.

And their plot runs all the way through the play and doesn't just involve them, but it also involves the fairies as well.

So I'm going to detail the plot using this image that we've got in front of us.

And it starts with an arranged marriage.

So Hermia is arranged to be married to Demetrius.

The arranged marriage has been organised by her father, but the problem is, is that Hermia is desperately in love with Lysander, not Demetrius.

So the lovers run away.

Hermia and Lysander decide to escape from the arranged marriage by running into the woods together.

Secrets revealed.

Before Hermia goes, she confides her plan into her best friend, Helena.

Now, Helena is in love with Demetrius and has been desperately upset, because of the arranged marriage, that Demetrius will be married to Hermia instead of her.

So she sees this as an opportunity to get Demetrius to change his mind about how the how he feels about her.

So in the hope that he will forget about Hermia, and fall in love with Helena instead, Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia's plan to run away into the woods with Lysander.

Demetrius goes in chase.

But sadly, the plan that Helena has, doesn't go to plan.

And instead of Demetrius suddenly saying, "Oh, well, nevermind, I'll fall in love with you instead, Helena," he follows his heart and he still loves Hermia.

So he chases after Hermia, and enters the wood after her.

Helena goes in chase.

Now, Helena, feeling a bit awkward, and a bit sad about what has happened, decides, well actually, I might as well run after Demetrius into the woods as well.

After all, what has she got to lose now? So at this point, you've got all the four characters in the woods.

You've got Hermia and Lysander, they've entered the woods first, they're together.

Demetrius is chasing after them.

And then Helena comes in later, chasing after Demetrius.

Oberon gets involved.

Now Helena manages to catch up with Demetrius, and is trying to say how she feels about him, and Oberon watches this.

And he watches Demetrius being really horrible to Helena.

And so he decides to get involved, and he decides to get Puck to put it right.

Now, we've seen in our last lesson what happens when the fairies get involved and the mischief they can create.

So love potion.

Oberon instructs Puck to give Demetrius a love potion to make Demetrius love Helena instead.

The plan is, is to wait until Demetrius is asleep, and then go to Demetrius with this love potion, put it in his eyes, and then make sure that the first person that he sees when he wakes up is Helena, and thus the potion should work.

And he will magically fall in love with Helena, and all will live happily ever after.

Sounds like a good plan.

Mix up.

Puck's a bit confused.

Now, Oberon, to be fair, he didn't actually give a description of Demetrius.

So Puck, on his own, goes into the woods and finds a man lying asleep in the wood, and assumes it is Demetrius.

And so he goes to him and puts the love potion in his eyes and goes away back to Oberon, happy that he's done his job.

But, of course isn't Demetrius.

It was actually Lysander all along.

And so Lysander is asleep with the love potion in his eyes, just waiting to see what's going to happen.

Love at first sight.

Now it just happens to be, that Helena comes along into that part of the wood, having just had this argument with Demetrius, trips over Lysander and immediately wakes him up.

And of course, he then immediately falls in love with Helena.

So let's just quickly recap that plot, because it's quite confusing.

So we start with Hermia, and she is in love with Lysander.

Although, she is in an arranged marriage with Demetrius, so they decide to run away.

Then we've got Demetrius, Now he does love Hermia.

So despite the fact that Helena reveals how she feels about him, and pleads for him to stay with her, he runs away and to follow where Hermia and Lysander has gone.

And then we've got Helena, poor Helena, who desperately loves Demetrius, has been honest with him, told him her feelings, but yet he's still run after Hermia, and she's still on her own.

So she runs into the woods as well.

And then, the fairies get involved.

And this is where the confusion starts.

So Hermia, still in love with Lysander.

But Lysander has been given a love potion, no longer loves Hermia, now desperately in love with Helena.

Helena, now, quite confused, doesn't love Lysander, really loves Demetrius.

'Course, Demetrius doesn't love Helena.

He really loves Hermia.

And so thanks to Puck's misunderstanding, we create this really confusing situation within the lover's plot.

So let's just check our understanding of this.

Which of these statements are true? Option one: Hermia loves Lysander.

Option two: Hermia loves Demetrius.

Option three: Demetrius loves Helena, and option four: Helena loves Demetrius.

Tell me which of those statements are true now.

That's right.

Option one: Hermia loves Lysander, and option four: Helena loves Demetrius.

Now, before we go on and look at the monologue, let's just remind ourselves: in plays by Shakespeare, which types of character speak in poetry, that heightened form of language that contains imagery, and rhythm, and metaphors, and similes? Tell me now.

That's right.

Key characters, central characters, characters that are important, characters like Kings and Queens and the lovers, which have just been introduced.

So let's have a look at the monologue we're going to be working with today.

And the monologue is delivered by Puck.

Now the monologue is in poetry.

So therefore we know that Puck is an important character, despite the fact that he is Oberon's servant.

He is a very important character within the plot, for he is the cause of the mischief and the confusion within the lover's plot.

And he says this at the moment where he's coming back to Oberon to tell him what he has done with the love potion.

And he says this, "Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand.

And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we their fond pageants see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!" Before we have a look at how are we going to perform this, we need to think about how it's structured, because within its structure, we'll find secrets of how to perform it.

So let's just go back to this key word that we looked at, at the beginning of the lesson, iambic pentameter.

So tell me now, what is iambic pentameter? What is, iambic pentameter? It is the name of a widely used rhythm of speech in English literature.

And it is a really simple form of rhythm, where each line has five beats.

The linguistic root of the word shows this.

The word iambic pentameter, iamb is Greek for foot, as in the starter, the place where it begins, and penta is the word for five in Greek.

So one iamb sounds like this, bah BOM.

Now we came across this in our last lesson in a slightly different structure.

And we'll talk about that in a moment, but the most basic form of iambic pentameter, the most regular form of it, appears like this: bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM! Rest , rest , rest , rest , rest.

Now, as I said before, iambic pentameter doesn't always have to come in that format of bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, but it must always have five iambs.

Remember, one iamb is bah BOM, or rest emphasis rest BOM.

So, in our last lesson, where we had the line "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, we still have those five BOMs. I know a bank where the wild time blows.

If we look at the rhythm of the monologue we're working with now delivered by Puck, we've got that same rhythm: boom, rest, boom, rest, boom boom boom.

BOM bah BOM bah BOM BOM BOM.

And we apply it to that first line.

And we've got captain of our fairy band.

I'm going to say, you're going to say it.

Captain of our fairy band.

You say it, I say it, captain of our fairy band.

You say it.

Notice how, when you say it with that rhythm, the key parts of the line are emphasised.

So this brings us to our first task.

And what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to read through the monologue and I'd like you to identify where you can find the iambic pentameter.

So using this screen here, pause the video now.

Either point at where you think the iambic pentameter is, or highlight it on your worksheet.

Pause the video now, and press play when you're ready to go on.

So here's what I've done.

I've gone through that monologue.

And I've highlighted where I think the iambic pentameter is by capitalising it and underlining it.

And it goes something like this: captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand.

And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we, their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! I think you can tell, that once you start pronouncing the iambic pentameter, then you start to really emphasise the key words within the speech.

And it makes it sound so much more interesting, than just saying it as it reads on the text.

Captain of our fairy band.

Helena is here at hand.

If you're working from the worksheet, you might want to pause at this moment just to make sure that you've got the same annotations on your worksheet that I've got here.

Before we start acting the monologue out, I wanted to have a quick exercise of, I say it, you say it.

And we're going to do this twice.

The first time, I want you to repeat it exactly the way I say it.

And you're trying to use some of the same gestures that I use as well.

So I say it, captain of our fairy band.

You say it.

Helena is here at hand.

And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Now we're going to do this exercise again.

This exercise, I say it, you say it, is a really good way of helping you as actors learn your lines.

So instead of looking at the screen, what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to look away from the screen.

When I say the line out loud, I want you to repeat the line back to me, from memory.

So look away the screen now, and I shall start.

Captain of our fairy band, your turn.

Helena is here at hand.

And the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Excellent.

You can look back at the screen now.

Before I ask you to act out of the monologue I'm going to demonstrate it first.

But before I demonstrate it, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the monologue.

And it's a really good monologue, and you can have lots of fun with it.

'Cause remember it is Puck, and Puck is the King of mischief.

And at the moment, he's talking to Oberon and inviting him to come and watch and laugh at the consequences of his actions, which has been to put the love potion into the eyes of Lysander instead of Demetrius.

And in particular, that last line, Lord, what fools these mortals be, is talking about these humans and how just strange and silly they seem to him and to the rest of the fairies.

So you can have real fun with this.

So don't hold back, go for it.

Have a lots and lots of fun with this monologue, as I'm going to now in my demonstration.

So here we go.

Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, and the youth mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! And so this brings us up to our second task, which is to perform the monologue.

So I want you to act out the whole monologue, focusing on keeping that iambic pentameter rhythm going throughout the speech.

So pause the video now and either use your worksheet, or the monologue on the screen and perform it.

And I suggest you spend about 10 to 15 minutes working on this before you're ready to perform it.

So pause the video now and come back when you finished.

How did you find that activity? Did you enjoy acting it out? I think it can be a great monologue, and a real good fun one to act out.

How did you find communicating Puck's mischievousness to the audience? How well did you do that last line? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Maybe had a different interpretation of it, and that's completely fine.

My personal interpretation is that he's kind of a fun and mischievous character, but I've also seen him plays really well as a really dark and scary character too.

So that's just finish up by checking some of our understanding.

Which of these is correct? Iambic pentameter: iambic pentameter is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line.

Monologue: a monologue is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line.

Monologue: a long long speech that an actor says on their own.

Iambic pentameter: a long speech that an actor says on their own.

Point to the screen, which ones are correct? That's right.

Iambic pentameter is a rhythm of speech that contains five beats on each line, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM, bah BOM.

And a monologue is a long speech that and actor says on their own.

Before we go today, I want to say one last thing, and that's well done.

I know that performing can be really, really hard, so well done performing today.

You've done a good job.