All That Fall Teacher Guide

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BAM PETER JAY SHARP BUILDING30 LAFAYETTE AVE.BROOKLYN, NY 11217

ALL THAT FALLDEC 20—21, 2012

BAM FisherBySamuel BeckettPan Pan Theatre Company

Study Guide Written by Nicole Kempskie


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Table Of Contents

Page 3 Behind the ScenesPage 4 Samuel BeckettPage 5 The Magic of RadioPage 6 Radio Drama ComponentsPage 7—8 The Play in ContextPage 9 Words, Words, Words

Page 10 Thematic ElementsPage 11 Curriculum Connections

Dear EducatorWelcome to the study guide for theproduction All That Fall that you andyour students will be attending as partof BAM Education’s Live PerformanceSeries. At this unique performance,you and your students will sit in rock-ing chairs and listen to Samuel Beckett’sradio play All That Fall , an immersiveauditory experience recorded in Dublinand directed by Gavin Quinn. Recreatingthe atmosphere of listening to the radiocommunally, with lighting that progressesslowly from sunlight to moonlight andstars, students will get to engage theirimagination and intellect in an activeway, as they co-create the world ofBeckett’s play. In addition, this experiencecan serve as an impetus to investigatethe musicality of Beckett’s writing—hismasterful use of language, silence, andsound, and his ability to seamlessly blendthem into a compelling, enigmatic andevocative dramatic experience.

Your Visit to BAMThe BAM program includes: this studguide, a pre-performance workshop inyour classroom led by a BAM teachinartist, and the performance (Decembe20-21; 100 minutes).

How to Use this GuideArts experiences, such as the one youhave chosen to attend at BAM, alwaywork best when themes, ideas, andelements from the performance can bealigned to your pre-existing classroomlearning. This guide has been createdto do just that by providing you withbackground information to help youprepare your students for their experieat BAM. Depending on your needs, ymay choose to use certain sections thadirectly pertain to your class exploratior the guide in its entirety. In additionat the end of this guide you will nd sgested classroom activities and ideas tyou can implement before or after seethe production. The overall goals of thguide are: to connect to your curriculuwith standards-based information andactivities, to reinforce and encouragecritical thinking and analytical skills,and to provide you and your studentswith the tools and background informtion necessary to have an engaging,educational, and inspiring experienceat BAM.

“Pan Pan provides an experiencethat is genuinely different from

anything you’ll have encounteredin the theatre before…Under GavinQuinn’s direction, the company

also provides an excellent performance of the play—perhaps even an exemplary one”

— Irish Theatre Magazine


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SAMUEL BECKETTSamuel Barclay Beckett was born onGood Friday, April 13th, 1906 in Foxrock,Ireland, a well-to-do suburb of Dublin.The younger of two sons, Beckett wasvery close to his affectionate father, buthad a troubled relationship with hisoverbearing mother. This conictedrelationship would nd its way intoBeckett’s writing later in life.

Growing up, Beckett was both a strongstudent, known for his intellectual rigor,and a gifted athlete, excelling at bothcricket and rugby. He received his B.A.in Modern Literature (French and Italian)from Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College.It was here he became engrossed in thegreat French authors of the time such asProust, Gide, Larbaud, and the playwrightRacine, as well as the Italian Renaissancewriter, Dante, and the great German phi-

losophers. He spent his hours away fromschool taking in theatrical performancesand his summers traveling to France,Italy, and Germany where he could feedhis love for the ne arts.

In 1928, Beckett secured a short-termteaching post in Paris at the École Nor-male Supérieure, succeeding Irish poetand academic Thomas MacGreevy, whointroduced him to the Irish writer JamesJoyce and his friends. He worked along-side Joyce, assisting him, writing essaysabout his work, and helping to translate

what would later becomeFinnegan’sWake into French. In addition, he becamepreoccupied with the work of modernistauthor Marcel Proust, whose existentialideas would later come to play greatlyin his writing.

In 1930, Beckett returned to Dublinfor a full-time teaching job at TrinityCollege where he found himself restlessand unhappy. He left the college, traveledand tried to live in Germany, Paris and inLondon, nally returning to Dublin lostand distraught. A series of events, includ-

ing his cousin and rst love PeggySinclair’s death to tuberculosis, as wellas his father’s sudden death to a heartattack, sent him back to London wherehe spent two years under psychoana-lytical care, recovering from a “nervouscollapse.”

Beckett then returned to Paris, settled,and began his writing career in earnestin 1938, publishing poetry, short storiesand his rst novel,Murphy. That sameyear, he began his lifelong partnershipwith Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil, who

championed his works and is attributedwith getting his rst plays produced. Dur-ing WWII, the two worked for the FrenchResistance and were forced to ee to theSouth of France, where Beckett wouldspend his days as a farm laborer and hisevenings writing his second novel, Watt.

It was during this time period, the pre-and post-war years and after the deathof James Joyce, that Beckett was mostprolic and where he truly found anddeveloped his unique voice. JohnBanville wrote in theNew York Reviewof Books that:

“It is certain that Beckett did undergosome kind of profound realization of theartistic path that he must take. He wouldallow “the dark” into his work, the chaos,pain, and painful comedy of existence as

he experienced it, and thereby make anew kind of art, one that depended noton Joycean richness and playfulness, buton deliberate shrinkage of material andelimination of literary ornament.”

This combination of existential question-ing along with a spare, compressed writ-ing style was perfectly served by Beckett’schoice not to write in his native languageof English (with the ornamental andlyrical air of his Irish predecessors likeJoyce), but rather, in French. Between1946 and 1960, Beckett produced nov-

els, screenplays, teleplays, radio plays,and his most seminal dramatic works:Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp’sLast Tape , and Happy Days. The radioplay All That Fall, written in 1957, wasBeckett’s rst foray into writing dramasspecically for the radio, and his rstdramatic piece written in English.

Beckett continued to write and directthroughout the remainder of his life,receiving numerous awards and honors,one of which included the Nobel Prizefor Literature in 1969. He died at the

age of 83 on December 22, 1989 inParis, France.

Selected WorksDramatic WorksEleutheria (1940)Waiting for Godot (1953)Act Without Words I (1956)Endgame (1957)

Krapp’s Last Tape (1958)Happy Days (1961)Play (1963)Come and Go (1965)Breath (1969)Not I (1972)That Time (1975)Footfalls (1975)A Piece of Monologue (1980)Rockaby (1981)Catastrophe (1982)What Where (1983)

Radio

Embers (1957)All That Fall (1957)From an Abandoned Work (1957)

TelevisionEh Joe (1965)Quad I + II (1981)

CinemaFilm (1965)

Novels/Novellas/StoriesDream of Fair to Middling Women (1Murphy (1938)Watt (1945)Molloy (1951)Malone Dies (1951)The Unnamable (1953)How It Is (1961)More Pricks Than Kicks (1934)Company (1980)Worstward Ho (1983)First Love (1945)Stories and Texts for Nothing (1954) Non-ctionProust (1931) Poetry collectionsCollected Poems in English (1961)Collected Poems in English and Frenc(1977)


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The Magic of Radio

“Radio is at once both public and pri-vate…it is much more direct; it’s one toone…we are required to collaborate aswe are when we read a book. Then we

are giving something. We are not justtaking…There’s no set designer like yourown self; you furnish the mis-en-scène,the wardrobe, the physical proportionsof the actor, and the setting.”Radio Drama writer/director Norman Corwin

The HistoryChances are it will be difcult for studentsto imagine a world without Facebook,Twitter, and YouTube, let alone withouttelevision, but in the early 30s, the mostpopular form of home entertainment wasa box with a dial and speakers that broad-casted music, news and programmingranging from soap operas to superheroadventures. That box was the radio andprior to 1922, this new form of technol-ogy created by Italian inventor GuglielmoMarconi was mainly used like a tele-graph, serving as an effective tool inWWI for international and at-sea com-munication.

That all changed when David Sarnoff,a worker at the American Marconi Co.(which would later become RCA) sawhow much potential the radio had, if onlyit were wireless and more affordable. Ina 1916 memorandum he wrote: “I havein mind a plan of development whichwould make a radio a ‘household utility’in the same sense as the piano or pho-nograph. The idea is to bring music intothe home by wireless.” And that’s exactlywhat he did.

The wireless Radiola console was intro-duced in 1922 and middle-class citizenswho were enjoying the nancial boom of

the 20s scurried to buy one of these new-fangled boxes. In a matter of three years,sales of the Radiola rose from $11 millionto $60 million, and the radio became apermanent xture in the American home.

Early Radio ProgrammingFamilies would gather around the radio,in much the same way families gatheraround the television today to watcha favorite show. The same genres ofprogramming that we encounter whilechannel surng with our remotes today—adventure, drama, comedy, and suspense

can be traced back to radio shows like Abbott and Costello; Amos ‘n’ Andy; The Adventures of Superman; Little Orphan Annie; The Shadow; Clara, Lu, and Em;Lassie; and The Hitchhiker . Many showswere broadcast in a serial format, similarto the episodic television programming wewatch today, and audiences would haveto tune in the following week to nd outif Superman saved the day or what thefuture held for Orphan Annie.

In addition to weekly serial programming,full-length radio dramas hit the airwavesand became hugely popular. These werefull-length plays that were either writ-ten for Broadway and performed live inthe studio for broadcast, or were writtenspecically for the radio, like All That Fall.Most notable was actor and director Or-son Welles’sMercury Theatre on the Air

program, known for its historic broadcastofWar of the Worlds, a radio play thatsent listeners into a panic thinking thataliens had invaded New Jersey.

How it WorkedRadio plays were created, recorded, andbroadcast from the studio. Actors werecast in roles based on their voices andwould perform at microphones, scripts inhand. In addition, all of the sound effectswere made simultaneously by “soundeffect artists,” artists hired to “play” thesound effects in much the same way an

instrumentalist plays their instrument inan orchestra. The sound effects weresmall handmade “instruments” con-structed to make the sounds of trains,car engines, brakes screetching, doorsopening and closing, horses galloping,and so on.

Active ListeningThe beauty of radio theater is that it re-quires the listener to take part in bringinga story to life. Much like reading a book,the listener actively engages their imagi-nation and paints images with their mind

as the drama unfolds. In this fast-paced,wired world we live in, a world in whichwe are all so used to engaging in mul-tiple activities at once (texting, emailing,tweeting, watching television, talking onour phones, etc.), students might needa little practice cultivating the stillness,focus, and deep level of concentrationrequired when listening to a rich, layeredradio play such as All That Fall. Preparestudents by doing the activity on the right-before your visit.

ENRICHMENT ACTIVTuning In

Begin by reviewing and discussing “Radio Drama Components” on the fo

lowing page with students. (Students have a copy in their student guide.)

Next, choose a radio play from the30s, 40s, or 50s for students to listen tThe web archive at (http://archive.orgtails/oldtimeradio) contains numerousoptions including such classics asThe

Adventures of Superman, The Hitchhiker,Little Orphan Annie, Lassie, and War ofthe Worlds.

Have students turn to the “ListeningActivity Notes” page of the student gu

Play the program and have studentstake notes according to the instructionand prompts in the table as they listen

After listening, have students sharetheir responses with the class.

Standards: CCR6-12 Speaking & Listening 1-4; Lguage 1-5; Blueprint: Making Connections


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“In life man commits himself to hisown portrait, outside of which there is

nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on theother hand, it helps people to under-

stand that reality alone counts, andthat dreams, expectations, and hopesonly serve to dene man as a brokendream, aborted hopes, and futileexpectations.”

— JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (From, ExistentialismIs a Humanism )

Beckett, like many great writers, is anauthor who can’t be compartmentalizedor placed into one specic intellectualor cultural context. For example, Beck-

ett was raised in a middle-class suburbin Ireland and assisted one of the mostcharacteristically Irish writers—JamesJoyce—but chose to write in French.In his early days he lacked an interestin politics, but during WWII joined theFrench Resistance. Nevertheless, all writ-ers are inuenced by the political, social,and economic climates that surroundthem, even if it is indirectly.

In Beckett’s lifetime he lived through twoworld wars, the rise of Stalin and Hitler,the Holocaust, the Anglo-Irish War, theIrish Civil War, colonial wars in Africa andthe threat of atomic warfare as the ColdWar heightened. Out of these dark timescame a number of key philosophical andcultural movements that coincided withBeckett’s writing career. While scholarsdisagree as far as which of these eventscome into play directly in Beckett’s work,the following overview of existentialism,absurdist theater, and modernism willallow students to ponder that questionfor themselves.

The Backdrop: TheHorrors Of World War IIHorried by the rise of Hitler’s Naziregime, Beckett witnessed the persecutionof his Jewish friends in occupied Paris.

When Paul León, a friend and assistantto Beckett’s mentor James Joyce, wasarrested and sent to a concentration campon August 21, 1941, Beckett decided to

join the French Resistance. As a memberof the Resistance, Beckett mainly actedas an information handler. In Augustof 1942 when his Resistance cell wasdiscovered, Beckett and his wife nar-rowly escaped arrest and deportation toa concentration camp. They managedto escape to a rural area in unoccupiedFrance where they lived out the remainderof the war.

During this time Beckett worked as a farmlaborer in the day and in the evenings hewrote. The aftermath of WWII and thehorrors of the Holocaust left artists andwriters like Beckett disillusioned at best,devastated at worst. As a result, nationsaround the world faced a social, econom-ic, and existential crisis. A sense of cyni-cism toward conventions and a generalsense of unease and anxiety pervaded.

ExistentialismExistentialism was a complex philo-sophical movement that came out of thispervading sense of national despair. Itwas associated with a number of post-war French thinkers. Key gures in themovement held different positions withinthe discipline, but a core belief was thatself-inquiry was the way to understandhuman existence. This philosophicalmovement found its way into the lit-erature, art, and dramatic writing of thePost-WWII period during which Beckettcreated a number of his masterpieces.

A Selection of ExistentialPrecepts

Our lives are determined by our indvidual choices as opposed to a predetemined fate.

The universe is random and meaninless, as opposed to ordered and ration

We create meaning in our lives anddene ourselves through our values anhow we choose to act according to thovalues.

Humans should make decisions andact based on their own personal beliefsystems rather than for rational reasonauthenticity is emphasized versus actiin accordance with social norms.

Because such an emphasis is placedon our individual freedom and a resposibility for the path our lives take, thisleads us to feel a great deal of “existenangst,” despair, dread, and anxiety.

An emphasis is placed on “TheAbsurd”: the notion that there is nomeaning to be found in life beyond wmeaning we give it.

THE PLAY IN CONTEXT


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THE PLAY IN CONTEXT“The Theatre of the Absurd attacks thecomfortable certainties of religious or

political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring itface to face with the harsh facts of the

human situation as these writers see it.

But the challenge behind this messageis anything but one of despair. It is achallenge to accept the human condition

as it is, in all its mystery and absur-dity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly,

responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of ex-istence, because ultimately man is alonein a meaningless world. The shedding ofeasy solutions, of comforting illusions,

may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is

why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.” MARTIN ESSLIN, introduction, Absurd Drama

The Theatre of theAbsurdThe term Absurdist Theatre was coinedby writer Martin Esslin in his book ofthe same name. It was an outgrowth of

existential philosophy. This style of the-ater rejected the conventional “realistic”representations of the human experiencethat audiences had become accustomedto at the theater, and questioned thestandards by which theater had beenjudged for centuries. Such standardsincluded: logical dialogue, recognizableor motivated characters, and a tradi-tional three-act structure that containeda beginning, middle, and end that tiedup neatly. Contrarily, the practitionersof Absurdist Theatre took the ideas andarguments of the existential thinkers

and philosophers and applied them totheir playwriting, dramatic structure,character choices, directing styles, anddramaturgical choices.

Absurdist Theatre wascharacterized by…Minimal, strange, and abstract physicalsurroundings which the characters seemtrapped in.

Non-illusory theatre, theatre that refer-ences in the staging and dialogue that

the plays are plays, the characters areperformers, and the audience membersare spectators.

Non-linear dramatic structure; action thathas no clear beginning, middle, or end.

The present experienced as futile and thecharacter memories of their pasts andtheir hopes for the future as futile.Little distinction between characters’individual identities.

An emphasis on language in which it isused repetitively, rhythmically, sparingly,and comically to play up the existentialthemes of anxiety about isolation and thepointlessness of existence.

Broad vaudeville elements and physicalcomedy combined with disturbing and

tragic situations.TO DISCUSSWhile many of the criteria above applyspecically to visual theater, challengestudents to apply the criteria to theperformance of All That Fall. How doesBeckett use language, music, and soundeffects in such a way that could be con-sidered absurdist? How is the plight ofDan and Maddy absurdist?

MAKING CONNECTIONS:THE INFLUENCE OF MODERNISM

Beckett’s writing, always innovative andoriginal, has often been examined for itsmodernist attributes. Known for pushingboundaries in form, content, and style,Beckett’s foray into radio drama was nodifferent. In fact, new technology hadto be invented in order for Beckett touse sound effects the way he did in

All That Fall.

The Modernist movement, like Absurd-ism and Existentialism, was a reactionto the horrors of war, albeit in this case,WWI. Artists, philosophers, and writers

like Marcel Proust, whom Beckett wroteabout extensively, felt betrayed by thewar and the institutions which led theworld into its atrocities. Like existential-ists, modernists questioned institutionsas being a reliable means to access themeaning of life. Instead they turned with-in themselves to discover the answers.

Modernism was characterized by….A strong and intentional break withtradition, including established reli-

gious, political, and social views.

A belief that the world is created inthe act of perceiving it—it is whatwe say it is.

The conviction that there is no such

thing as absolute truth. All things arerelative.

An emphasis on the individual andinner strength.

The belief that life is unordered.

A concern with the subconscious.

Modernist artists and writers…Adopted complex and difcult newforms and styles.

Experimented with perspectiveand content.

Wanted to rupture realisticconventions.

Favored the avant garde, unique-ness, originality, and individuality.Explored their feelings of alienation,loss, and despair in their work.


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GlossaryDeath and the Maiden: A classic piece ofchamber music written by Franz Schubertin1824 after suffering through a seri-ous illness and realizing he was dying;Schubert’s testament to death.

Hinny: The offspring of a male horse anda female donkey. Because of cross-breeding they have an uneven number ofchromosomes and an incomplete repro-ductive system, making them sterile.

Dung: Manure

Laburnum: A small tree that has chainsof yellow owers. All parts of the tree andits owers are poisonous.

Doily: A small table napkin.

Protestant: A member of a WesternChristian church whose faith and practicedeny the universal authority of the Popeand afrm the Reformation principles of

justication by faith alone, the priesthoodof all believers, and the Bible as the onlysource of revealed truth.

Lusitania: A British ocean liner launchedin 1907 that sank after being struck by aGerman U-Bomber; 1,195 people died.

Matterhorn: A mountain inthe Pennine Alps on the borderbetween Switzerland and Italy with one ofthe highest peaks in the Alps.

Fixture: A sports match or socialoccasion.

Nip up: To spring up to a standingposition.

Guff: Verbal abuse.

Blancmange: A cream and sugar based

dessert with the consistency of pudding.

Agog: Very curious or eager to hearsomething.

Arcady: A region offering rural simplicityand contentment.

Grimm’s Law: A linguistic formula cre-

ated by Jakob Grimm that explained de-velopmental and pronunciation changesin certain German words.

Lunatic specialist: A psychotherapist.

Bogey: A person or thing that causes fearor alarm.

Elevenses: Tea or coffee taken at mid-morning and often accompanied by asnack.

Cretonne: A strong cotton or linen clothused for curtains and upholstery

ENRICHMENT ACTIVThe Words

Before attending the performance, havstudents stand in a circle and say the lthat follows together. After the studenare comfortable speaking the line andcan recite it from memory, go aroundthe circle, and one at a time have stu-dents recite the line experimenting wieach of the vocal tools below.

Do not imagine, because I am silent,that I am not present, and alive, to allthat is going on.

VOLUME:How loud or soft the actor speaks—suas a whisper, a shout, casual tone, etc.

PITCH:Where the actor places the sound intheir vocal mechanism—high, low,mid-range, etc.

TEMPO:How quickly or slowly the actor speaand paces the words.

EMPHASIS:Which words the actor chooses to putemphasis on and how that changes themeaning or emotion behind the text.

INTENTION:Who the actor is speaking to, how thefeel about them, what the circumstancare, and why they are speaking at thatmoment.

After students have had the chance toexperiment with the tools in the circlediscuss how the actors who did the recording of All That Fall might have uthese tools in order to express the fullrange of their character’s emotions.

Standards: Blueprint: Theater Makin

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS


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THEMATIC ELEMENTSSamuel Beckett is the most written aboutplaywright other than Shakespeare. Thereason that Shakespeare and Beckett’sworks transcend time and resonate withus today as strongly as they did whenthey were originally performed is becauseboth had the ability to tap into universalthemes, longings, questions and experi-ences that are so rooted in our humanexistence that they never grow old.

ENRICHMENT EXERCISEIn addition to using the questions pro-vided below for a classroom discussion,have students complete the “SupportingEvidence from the Play’s Text” column inthe table provided in their student guide.

Standards: CCR6-12 Reading 1-7; Writing 1; Listening1-6; Language 1-6; Blueprint : Making Connections

THE THEME FOR DISCUSSION SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FROMTHE PLAY’S TEXT

Weightiness, Exertion, & Intertia How does Beckett use the characters, events, and sound ef-fects to create a heavy, foreboding mood throughout the playthat is palpable, despite the fact that we can’t see anything?

What is the larger meaning or metaphorical meaning ofweightiness, exertion, and inertia as they relate to the charac-ters’ lives? Of the human condition?

Examples: The unmoving hinny; the unresponsivecar engine; the delayed train; and Maddy’s laboriofootsteps.

Absence / Invisibility Beckett said the following: “I once attended a lecture by [Carl]Jung in which he spoke about one of his patients, a very younggirl. After the lecture, as everyone was leaving, Jung stood bysilently. And then, as if speaking to himself, astonished by thediscovery that he was making, he added: In the most funda-mental way, she had never really been born. I too always hadthe sense of never having been born.”

How does this idea thematically tie into All That Fall?

Examples: Maddy’s statement, “Do not imagine,because I am silent, that I am not present, and alivto all that is going on;” the dead child referred to Maddy’s story about the conference; and Minnie,Maddy and Dan’s deceased child.

Death References to death and despair pervade in this play. How canthis prevalent theme be linked to the philosophical movements(Existentialism, Modernism, and Absurdism) and Beckett’s

experiences in WWII?If you were to stage this play or lm it, what visual imagerywould you use to convey this theme?

Examples: The child falling onto the tracks; Mr.Slowcum running over a chicken and killing it;and Maddy’s insistence on continuing to speak

a “dead” language.

Sterility If looked at metaphorically, sterility can refer to the lost op-portunities or ruptured possibilities of the characters, a themeBeckett often explored. In what ways is this true of the charac-ters in All That Fall ?

Are there any moments in the play that use the opposite ofsterility—sexuality—to poke fun at the characters and bring inan element of humor and parody?

Examples: The hinny (a sterile cross-breed of a dokey and horse); Mr. Tyler discussing his daughterhysterectomy; and the lack of affection between Dand Maddy when she meets him at the station.

Symbols & Metaphors How are some of the audio choices that Beckett makes (musicand sound effects) symbolic?

Why do you think Beckett chose to name the play All That Fall?

What is the signicance of the following bible passage thatDan quotes: “The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up allthose that be bowed down.”

Examples: Falls/Falling; “Death and the Maiden;”laburnum; the hinny; the train; and the wind.


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This American Life

Direct students to the website for thepopular National Public Radio programThis American Life (www.this american-life.org/) and for homework have them

choose one episode to listen to and writea short report on the episode they chose.The report should cover the following:the episode title and date, why theychose it, what the topic was, what theylearned from listening to the episode, andan overall assessment or critique (whatthey liked or disliked). Students shouldbe encouraged NOT to multi-task whilethey are listening (no emailing, texting,tweeting, etc.) and to listen to the onehour program uninterrupted. The nextday, have students share their reportswith the class and discuss the following:

How would you rate your experience oflistening to a radio program for an hour?

What was challenging about it? Whatwas rewarding?

Were you able to just listen withoutdoing any other activities?

With visual media widely available, whydo you think people still tune into thisprogram on the radio?

Standards: CCR6-12 Writing 1-5; Speaking & Listening1-3; Language 1-6; Blueprint : Making Connections

War Of The Worlds

Listen to the classic radio play War ofthe Worlds by Orson Welles based onH.G. Wells’s science-ction novel of thesame name and have students researchwhy it has gone down in history as be-ing one of the most famous radio playsbroadcast.

Standards: CCR6-12 Speaking & Listening 1-3; Lan-guage 1-5; Blueprint : Making Connections

Re-Creating Radio

Have students work in small groups towrite and record radio dramas using allof the components listed on the “RadioDrama Components” table in this guide.After writing scripts, have studentsrehearse and perform them live, andif possible, do audio recordings of theperformances that the students can listento after. (The voice memo application

on most smart phones works well forrecording.)Standards: CCR6-12 Writing 3-6; Blue-

print : Theater Making, Theater Literacy

Exploring Existentialism

Use the list of existential thinkers andartists provided below and in the studentguide and have students choose one per-son to do further research on. Studentscan present their ndings in a traditionalresearch paper; an essay that links thatperson’s ideas to Beckett’s All That Fall, an oral presentation or a compare/con-trast essay.

Søren KierkegaardFriedrich NietzscheMartin HeideggerGabriel MarcelJean Paul-SartreSimone de BeauvoirFranz Kafka ( Metamorphosis )Albert Camus ( The Stranger )Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( The BrothersKarmazov , Notes from the Underground )Jean Genet ( The Balcony )Eugene Ionesco ( The Bald Soprano,The Chairs )Arthur Adamov ( The Confession )

Standards: CCR6-12 Reading 1-9;

Writing 1-9; Speaking & Listening 1-6;Language 1-6; Blueprint : Making Con-nections

BEYOND ALL THAT FALLRead another play by Beckett, such asEndgame , Waiting for Godot, or HappyDays . Have students write an essaycomparing All That Fall with one of theseother selections.Standards: CCR6-12 Reading 1-9;Writing 1-9; Language 1-6; Blueprint :Theater Literacy, Making Connections

BECKETT ON FILMAll 19 of Samuel Beckett’s plays werelmed with some of the best and bright-est acting and directing talents of ourtime in a series called Beckett on Filmproduced by director Michael Colgan.Choose one or two lms to view withyour students. Standards: Blueprint :Making Connections

Selected Bibliography

Banville, John. “The Painful Comedy ofSamuel Beckett.” November 14, 1996.The New York Review of Books on theweb.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/ archives/2009/apr/30/the-making-of-samuel-beckett/

Dickstein, Morris. “An Outsider in HisOwn Life.” August 3, 1997. New YorkTimes on the web.http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/ reviews/970803.03dickstt.html

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Vintage. New York. 1961.

Kunkel, Benjamin. “Sam I am: Beckett’sprivate purgatories.” August 7, 2006.The New Yorker on the web.http://www.newyorker.com/ archive/2006/08/07/060807crbo_books

O’Neill, Joseph, “I’ll Go On.” April 2,2009. New York Times on the web.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/ books/review/ONeill-t.html

Matlin, Leonard. The Great AmericanBroadcast: A Celebration of Radio’sGolden Age . New York: Dutton, 1997.

McDonald, Ronan. The CambridgeIntroduction to Samuel Beckett. NewYork: Cambridge UP, 2006.

Wartenberg, Thomas E. Existentialism: A Beginner’s Guide. Oneworld. NewYork. 2008.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS


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Documents

All That Fall Teacher Guide