Three Theban Plays example essay topic

Throughout the year the texts we have studied have provided us with inspiration on the topic and themes of our devised drama. The texts we have studied in Theatre Studies have been Anton Chekov's "Three Sisters" and Sophocles' "Antigone", one of the three Theban plays. The link between these plays is the role of women and could be described as proto-feminist. "Antigone" shows us a woman who is prepared to go against the rule of the city and Creon, whom should be the dominant male in the play. "Three Sisters" portrays three women who cope with the death of their father, and live without men in their lives.

We have used both of these ideas in our devised drama, as all our women are single and go against the stereotypical view of women allowing the audience to see a contrast of five women, all a foil to the traditional view of women in the catholic church. We have also been influenced by a collection of poetry we have studies on our English Literature course. Carol Ann Duffy is well known as a feminist writer and her 1999 collection, "The World Wife" is an original collection in which she explores the view of the wives of historical, biblical and mythological men and gives the reader a chance to see the great tales concerning these men through the eyes of the woman, who is often shown to be much more strength in character than her husband or partner. After studying the poems, our group decided to base our five female characters on poems in the play, these poems being "Delilah", "Mrs Faust", "Mrs Midas", "Salmon" and "Mrs Lazarus". Using these as guidelines for our characters, the five girls in our group were able to elaborate on then, using the techniques of our practitioner, Stanisvlaski, to create a full character from the narrative in our selected poems. Caryl Churchill's play "Top Girls" was also an influence on us.

The play "Top Girls" shows the audience famous women from the past having a dinner party together and discussing their experiences to one another. This is not unlike our devised drama and influenced us to choose the setting of a gathering. The 1995 movie "How To Make An American Quilt" directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse inspired us for the idea of our women making a quilt together to commemorate the memory of a person from the village in which our play is set. The idea of different memories being sewn onto a quilt, we decided, would influence our characters to speak out about their own experiences and their past.

As we are a group of five females and one male, the group had to come up with a role for myself as my specific skill is acting. After much discussion on it, we were inspired by the presence of the chorus in "Antigone" and the other Theban plays. As our play is set in a catholic church which is known to have strong views about the placement of women, my character will be the voice of the catholic church and will involve relevant biblical readings as well as being a character is my own right. I took the inspiration for my character from William Golding's "The Spire". The character Jocelin in the novel is a a priest who descends to madness and although he is a holy man, he shows the sin of the catholic church and its members through his thoughts.

The group have used this idea to have my character as a constant presence in the church and often confessing sins.