Rock 'N Roll Curriculum Guide

Limelight TEACHER LITERARY & CURRICULUM GUIDE 2008-2009

s ’ d r a p p o t S Tom

Directed by New England Premiere November 7 - December 7, 2008 B.U. Theatre

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY IN RESIDENCE AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Carey Perloff

huntington theatre company in residence at boston university Peter DuBois

Michael Maso

Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director

Managing Director

STAFF This Teacher Literary and Curriculum Guide was prepared for the Huntington Theatre Company by Marisa Jones, Education Consultant With contributions by Donna Glick, Director of Education

Rock ‘n’ Roll

by Tom Stoppard Directed by Carey Perloff Table of Contents 2

Synopsis

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Tom Stoppard: A Multi-Layered Life

Lynne Johnson, Associate Director of Education

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Tom Stoppard at the Huntington Theatre Company

Charles Haugland, Stone Literary Fellow

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From Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution: Václav Havel and the Rebirth of a Country

Ilana Brownstein, Assistant Professor at Boston University’s School of Theatre

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Tumult and Terror: The Year that Changed History

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Music Meets Politics: 1967-1990

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Audience Etiquette

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Characters & Objectives

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Preparation for Rock ‘n’ Roll

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Arts Assessment

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Mastery Assessment

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Related Works and Resources

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Open Response & Writing Assignments

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Lesson Plans

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For Further Exploration

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Handout 1: Vocabulary

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Handout 2: Glossary of Terms

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Handout 3: Marxism VS. Capitalism

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Curriculum Framework Ties

Paul Cereghino, Artistic Intern Alexandra Smith, Professional Intern Meg Wieder, Education Department Manager Melissa Wagner-O’Malley, Layout

The production co-sponsor: Dola Stemberg

SYNOPSIS

Rock ‘n’ Roll I

t’s 1968 and the people are rising up. Across the Western world, the youth are instigating a generational seismic shift. In France, the “Mai 68” student strikes bring the De Gaulle government to its knees and usher in a new liberalism. In the U.S., the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy are juxtaposed against the civil rights movement, an unpopular war, a presidential election, and violence against protesters at the Democratic National Convention, as well as on college campuses nationwide. Student protests spring up in Rome, Poland, Berlin, and Mexico City, and most end in violence.

And in Czechoslovakia, the installation of Alexander Dubcek as First Secretary of the Communist Party ushers in “Prague Spring” — an alltoo-brief period of liberalization and reform.

Jan, a Czech doctoral student at Cambridge University, can’t stay away from the excitement and vitality of Prague Spring any longer. He leaves England and his mentor Max, a dyed-in-the-wool Communist, behind. Once he arrives home, however, he finds his “socially negative” record collection, the only thing he brought with him from Cambridge, under scrutiny. The Rolling Stones, Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, and especially the homegrown Plastic People of the Universe are far too subversive, and as Dubcek’s reforms are swiftly overturned by nervous Soviet officials and their occupying troops, Jan, his friend Ferdinand, and numerous intellectuals and musicians are caught up in the purges and arrests.

Meanwhile, back in Cambridge, the years roll by. Esme, Max’s oncerebellious rock-obsessed daughter now has a daughter of her own, though her marriage to Nigel is on the rocks. Max’s marriage, too, has its ups and downs. All the while, he maintains his dedication to the Communist party, even as the practical applications of Communist ideology and methods fail over and over, most obviously in Czechoslovakia, where Jan continues his fight for democratization and the right to rock out. Despite the miles between them, Jan and Max can’t seem to escape each others’ orbits, especially not if Milan, an officer for the secret police, has anything to say about it.

By 1990, Prague’s Velvet Revolution has overthrown the Communist government, and long-jailed intellectual Václav Havel has become President. Max has left the party and found new love with Lenke, a former classmate of Jan’s who never returned to Czechoslovakia. Esme still yearns for the romantic rebellion embodied by the reclusive progrock star Syd Barrett, though fears she’ll never find it. That is, until the day Jan finally returns to Cambridge, with a mysterious package for Max and a proposition for Esme.

Will the Rolling Stones prove stronger than politics? Can rock and roll save a generation? For that matter, can it save a soul? Tom Stoppard plumbs the depths of history and the heart in this wild ride through the latter half of the 20th century. – IMB ^

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Art: Mark Kurlansky

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Huntington Theatre Company

Tom Stoppard

TOM STOPPARD:

A Multi-Layered Life C

ontemporary playwright Tom Stoppard is known internationally as the prolific author of more than eighteen plays, in addition to numerous screenplays and dramas for television and radio. Behind his varied canon, though, his biography illuminates an individual with many layers of private history — a trait Stoppard shares with the complicated characters he creates onstage in Rock ‘n’ Roll. The diversity of the drama he writes is suggested by his own complex heritage, shifting the author between identities and countries much as his highly verbal plays might shift between deft turns of phrase.

Though often referred to as a wholly British playwright, Stoppard was born in Zlin, Czechoslovokia as Tomás Straussler on July 3, 1937. “I don’t feel Czech,” says Stoppard of his heritage, “I wasn’t two years old when I left the country.” His parents, Eugen and Martha Straussler, moved with Tomás and his brother from Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazi invasion in 1939. They fled to Singapore, only to

be relocated again to Darjeeling, India after the Japanese attacked in 1942. During that period, Eugen died in Japanese captivity, and Martha subsequently remarried to British officer Kenneth Stoppard in Darjeeling.

Kenneth Stoppard adopted the Straussler boys, and the family returned to England.

Even with these years spent as a child in Asia, Stoppard remembers an immediate connection with England, and the family ultimately settled in the port city of Bristol: “I just seized England and it seized me. I had no sense of being in an alien land. I embraced the language and landscape.”

Following years of education in England, Stoppard quit school before university and focused on his gift for words. He began working as a journalist, and during a stint as a reporter for the Western Daily Press and Bristol Evening World, Stoppard transitioned into writing theatre reviews. In the early 1960s, he moved to London, working as a freelance critic for Scene magazine. With

years of theatre-going as his practical education, he set to writing plays of his own.

Stoppard has remarked, perhaps facetiously, that he “started writing plays because everybody else was doing it at the time,” yet he quickly developed a reputation of being decidedly different than everyone else.

Stoppard soon became known for his ability to imagine new possibilities for the stage, filled with heady linguistic landscapes.

His first hit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead — born out of his 1964 one-act called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear — wittily recasts the classic Hamlet through the eyes of the two courtiers and friends of the Danish prince. Produced first by the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in 1966, the play ran in London at the National Theatre the following year. The American production won the Tony Award for Best Play — the first of Stoppard’s four wins (to date) — and set the stage for further acclaim. Critic Clive Barnes, in his original review of the modern classic, confessed that he found it “impossible to re-create the fascinating verbal tension of the play — Mr. Stoppard takes an Elizabethan pleasure in the sound of his own actors — or the ideas, suggestive, tantalizing, that erupt through its texture.” Stoppard himself describes his plays as his attempt to “make serious points by flinging a custard pie around the stage for a couple of hours” — a humorous suggestion of his desire for his plays to, in essence, be fun for audiences. He asserts that theatre at its core should be diverting, recreational: “It can be much more, but unless it’s recreation, I don’t see the point of it.”

Simple pleasure has never been the focus for Stoppard critics, though; the playwright has been known widely for the difficulty of his plays. In reference to a revival of his 1974 work Travesties — which imagines an intersection of such historical luminaries as James Joyce and Lenin — The New York Times marveled at how the play “blazes at such a high wattage, and for such a long time, that exhaustion is a problem.”

Through the years, Stoppard’s theatrical stamina has been matched only by his enthusiasm for thorny ideas. The selftaught scholar’s 1994 play Arcadia connects physics, landscape architecture, and love across two centuries of British history. His Limelight Literary and Curriculum 2008-2009

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Tom Stoppard at the Huntington Theatre Company 1982-1983 Season NIGHT AND DAY Directed by Toby Robertson (the Huntington’s inaugural production) Rufus Collins and Meg Gibson in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of The Real Thing; photo: T. Charles Erickson

recent three-play cycle, The Coast of Utopia, staged at the National Theatre and Lincoln Center Theater, delves so deeply into the history of Russian revolutionaries that its New York production provoked a surge in sales of obscure books on its subjects.

(Stoppard’s wry response: “What kind of madman would write a play that requires the audience to read a dozen books in advance? Come as you are; you’ll be fine.”)

In his career, Stoppard has been keen to emphasize his interest in deep drama created by ideas, rather than any desire to make a specific philosophical point. Supporting his preference to write for the theatre, he says, “If I were to write an essay instead of a play about any of these subjects, it wouldn’t be a profound essay.”

Rock ‘n’ Roll finds Stoppard returning to a subject he has covered in several plays — the political dissidents of his birthplace. In 1977, Stoppard and conductor-composer André Previn co-wrote the musical play Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, drawing inspiration from real-life Czech political prisoner Viktor Fainberg. In the absurdist play, two Czech prisoners — one believed mad and the other a political dissident – argue over the nature of their incarceration, taking apart concepts of political tyranny and the freedom of speech. Stoppard returned once again to the Czech and Russian conflict in the television play Professional Foul, and for the backstory of a character in his 1988 play Hapgood.

His onstage interest in Czech issues is companion to a real-life advocacy for those affected by Soviet oppression. During the 4

Huntington Theatre Company

occupation, Stoppard circulated petitions of his own, much like Ferdinand in Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Most enduringly, he prizes his relationship with Czech playwright, dissident, and former president Václav Havel. On reading Havel’s speeches, Stoppard noted, “I was left with an overwhelming sense of humility at having a friend of such bravery, humanity, and clear-sighted moral intelligence, who, moreover, was as complex and subtle in his long paragraphs as he was adroit in his dialogues.”

Stoppard has said before that Havel’s essays and interviews provided the center around which Rock ‘n’ Roll crystallized.

Yet, throughout the play, audiences can find pieces of Stoppard’s own biography interwoven with the rock songs and the philosophical debates of the 1960s. As a starting point, Stoppard lent the character Jan his own story of emigration from Czechoslovakia. “I was quite intrigued by the idea of writing a kind of pseudo-autobiography based on the supposition that I’d gone back to Czechoslovakia where I was born, after the war, rather than coming to England,” Stoppard says — though he is also quick to point out for any event he translated from his own life, he has created many more. The consistent ability to re-contextualize and reconfigure his varied inspirations is a trait that Rock ‘n’ Roll director Carey Perloff celebrates as unique to the playwright. “His plays are always a tapestry of many, many different threads,” she says.

“What’s breathtaking about them is that the threads actually coalesce. I don’t think there is anybody quite like him.” – PC & CH

1983-1984 Season ON THE RAZZLE Directed by Thomas Gruenewald 1986-1987 Season JUMPERS Directed by Jacques Cartier 1990-1991 Season TRAVESTIES Directed by Jacques Cartier 1992-1993 Season UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY Directed by Jacques Cartier 1996-1997 Season ARCADIA Directed by Jacques Cartier 2005-2006 Season THE REAL THING Directed by Evan Yionoulis 2008-2009 Season ROCK ‘N’ ROLL Directed by Carey Perloff

FROM PRAGUE SPRING TO THE VELVET REVOLUTION

Václav Havel and the Rebirth of a Country O

that decentralized the economy, introduced ideas of democratization, limited the power of the secret police, and loosened restrictions on free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of movement. These brief few months came to be known as Prague Spring, and Dubcek sought to create a country that practiced “socialism with a human face.”

The Soviets were not pleased. By March, representatives of Warsaw Pact countries (Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and East Germany) met to discuss Dubcek’s reforms. Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, hoped to quell Prague Spring through a series of negotiations, and in early August, the Warsaw Pact nations met with Czechoslovakia to sign the Bratislava Declaration, which scholar Jaromír Navrátil describes as having affirmed the dedication to Marxist-Leninist ideals, as well as the ongoing fight against bourgeoise anti-socialism. Brezhnev was not satisfied, however, and in the middle of the night of August 20, over 200,000 troops from the Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. Dubcek, who was arrested that night, called upon Czechs to cooperate, but popular opposition was soon expressed in numerous acts of nonviolent resistance. International reaction to the invasion was negative in the extreme.

On September 4, 1968, The New York Times reported on a desperate radio transmission from Václav Havel, received by Radio Free Europe and addressed to Western intellectuals, including Arnold Wesker, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Max Frisch, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Aragon, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Arthur Miller. The Times wrote, “Recalling that Czech writers were in the forefront of the democratic reforms of the Dubcek regime, Mr. Havel said: ‘No doubt they will be among the first again to suffer ^

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“At this hour, I urge you to add your voice to all those who condemn the aggression perpetrated by the states of the Warsaw Pact.”

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Václav Havel

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ne of the plot threads running under the surface of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll is the persecution and triumph of playwright and politician Václav Havel, a central figure in Czechoslovakia’s struggles for democracy and liberalization.

Václav Havel’s family supported the intellectual and humanitarian ideas that the Czechoslovakian communist government worked hard to suppress, especially in the 1950s as Havel was coming into his own as young man. Despite political pressures that forbade him from pursuing post-secondary education in the humanities, Havel found forums through which to express himself, including literary and theatrical periodicals.

After two years military service, Havel returned to Prague to work first as a stage technician, then as a student of drama at the Faculty of Theatre of the Academy of Musical Arts. In 1963, his play The Garden Party received its premiere at the famed Balustrade Theatre and brought him international acclaim; it was shortly followed by The Memorandum in 1965, and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration in 1968. As his plays and other writings gained prominence, his anti-Marxist views came to the attention of government authorities. Havel’s absurdist plays of the 1960s displayed what scholar Marketa Goetz Stankiewicz called “metaphysical anguish” mixed with “low-life clowning.” It was exactly the kind of subversive theatre that, when aimed at those in power, brings the attention of authoritarian censors.

Centralized Communist rule sparked a tumbling economy in the 1960s. As tensions rose late in the decade, the reformer Alexander Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on January 5, 1968. Dubcek and his followers initiated a period of reforms

Limelight Literary and Curriculum 2008-2009

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persecution and incarceration by the occupying powers.’” Havel continued, “At this hour, I urge you to add your voice to all those who condemn the aggression perpetrated by the states of the Warsaw Pact. This deed is an unprecedented attempt at using violence in order to change the way of life of a country against the will of its legally instituted authorities and its people.”

In early 1969, Dubcek was officially replaced by Gustáv Husák, and a period of “normalization” began, in which all of Dubcek’s reforms were rolled back, and liberal members of the Communist party — as well as public officials, writers, and intellectuals who sided with Dubcek — were purged. Political commentary was forbidden in the media. What followed was twenty years of suppression of democratic liberal ideals, and the persecution of those who dared to argue for their freedoms. Writers and intellectuals like Václav Havel (and musicians like The Plastic People of the Universe) bore the brunt of this oppression.

Havel spent years in and out of prison, and when he wasn’t incarcerated, he was under rigorous supervision by members of the secret police, who followed him 24 hours a day. All the while, he refused to curtail his writing. In 1971, his play The Conspirators was handed off in a men’s room to a cultural attaché, who smuggled the manuscript to Havel’s agent in Germany.

Beginning in 1968, Havel was banned from working in the Czech theatre; during the following years he lived primarily off the proceeds from international productions of his work. In 1975, Havel penned an open letter to President Husák, protesting the spiritual and moral crisis in the country.

The letter went unanswered, but circulated widely amongst the government’s opposition. Later that year, through subterfuge, Havel managed to stage his own adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera for one night only; afterwards he was found out, and Husák responded by placing greater restrictions on theatres.

In 1977, Havel founded Charter 77, a group of 300 Czechs who issued a call for the human rights supposedly granted under the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Havel’s writing of the Charter 77 document was prompted in part by the 1976 arrest of underground

progressive rock band The Plastic People of the Universe, for playing music that subverted the Communist Party’s power over Czech youth. Havel had become friends with the Plastics, in particular with their manager Ivan Jirous and member Paul Wilson, who later became Havel’s translator and biographer (Havel was also a great fan

of the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and Frank Zappa). The government’s response was expected: Havel and other Charterists were arrested for subversion.

Two years later, Havel was imprisoned for a sentence of five years, during which he was allowed to write nothing but one 4-page letter per week to his wife (not even drafts of

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Huntington Theatre Company

A poster taped to a window after the invasion of Prague; photo: Josef Kouldelka/Magnum Photos

letters were allowed) in an attempt to silence his political writing. Through Czech officials, Joseph Papp of New York’s Shakespeare Festival offered Havel a one-year position as writer-in-residence; the government was ready to release him and allow travel to New York, but Havel refused, knowing he would never be let back into Czechoslovakia — that was a sentence he could not live with. In 1983, faced with international pressure due to reports of Havel’s failing health, Czech officials finally released him from custody; he returned immediately to both public and private writing. A year later, Papp visited Havel and delivered his OBIE Award (won in absentia for The Memorandum), which Papp had smuggled under a false bottom in his suitcase.

Despite political pressures and the constant threat of incarceration, Havel never stopped using his status as an internationally respected playwright and intellectual to further the ideas of liberalization and democratization of Czechoslovakia. On January 16, 1989, Havel was arrested, this time for his participation in a protest on Wenceslas Square, held in commemoration of a student who had immolated himself on that spot twenty years earlier in protest of the Soviet invasion. Upon news of Havel’s arrest, A.R. Gurney, John Guare, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, F. Murray Abraham, Betty Buckley, Joe Papp, and others mounted an immediate night of theatrical protest at New York’s Public Theater and delivered a written protest to Czech author-

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Upon news of Havel’s arrest, A.R. Gurney, John Guare, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, F. Murray Abraham, Betty Buckley, Joe Papp, and others mounted an immediate night of theatrical protest at New York’s Public Theater.

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Memorial in Wencelas Square to Jan Palach and Jan Zájic, who immolated themselves to protest the Soviet invasion

ities, signed by Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Grace Paley, among others.

He was held for four months, and as the year progressed, the sweeping tide of reform that came to be known as the Velvet Revolution threatened to break like a tsunami over Czech politics.

On November 17, 1989, the Velvet Revolution burst into existence with a peaceful protest that was violently stormed by police. Two days later, in the grand tradition of his Charter 77, Havel created the Civic Forum, a revolutionary group open to anyone who wished to join. On November 19, the Prime Minister agreed to a meeting with representatives of the Civic Forum, but refused entrance to Havel. The next day, Havel addressed a crowd of 20,000 from a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square.

On the 26th, the Prime Minister agreed to meet with Havel. Later that day, he appeared with Havel and Dubcek on the Wenceslas balcony to an audience of over a million people, but was booed so vociferously, he was forced to retreat, leaving Havel and Dubcek to address the crowd. By December 7, the Prime Minister had resigned; by the 10th, the Civic Forum had nominated a reluctant Václav Havel as president of Czechoslovakia. Six days later, Havel appeared on Czech television and announced he’d accept the presidency only until free elections could be initiated. On December 29, Havel was elected to the presidency unanimously by the Czech parliament. Havel’s first act was the release of all political prisoners.

In June of 1990, Czechoslovakia’s first free elections were held, and Havel was elected in a landslide. For the first time in decades, Havel’s plays were staged by theatres around the country. In 1993, the Czech and Slovak republics split in the non-violent Velvet Divorce; Havel was elected president of the Czech Republic, and reelected in 1998. He stepped down from politics in 2003, but continues to advocate for the rights of the oppressed worldwide. He is rightly considered a champion of world democracy, and undoubtedly a front-runner for an eventual Nobel Prize — his influence on the arts, letters, and politics of the last half-century cannot be denied. – IMB Limelight Literary and Curriculum 2008-2009

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n many ways 1968 seemed like the end of the world. Early in the year, war raged in the jungles of southeast Asia. The Tet Offensive — one of the central periods of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War — began when the Viet Cong launched attacks in major cities in South Vietnam, in violation of a three-day cease-fire that had been previously announced in honor of Tet Nguyen Dan, an important Vietnamese holiday. The rebel guerilla forces, sponsored

by North Vietnam, staged their attacks throughout the first months of 1968, and surprised the U.S. with their here-to-fore unknown capabilities in organizing such a large operation. In time, the U.S. military succeeded in squelching the Tet Offensive, but despite this victory, it became clear to President Lyndon Johnson that war was essentially unwinnable. While international riots and protests against the Vietnam War plagued cities around the world, Johnson began a new reduction in troop numbers and bombing raids. In a televised announcement on March 31, Johnson declared his intention to seek a negotiated peace, and surprised America with his decision not to run for re-election.

In the months that followed, the country was shocked and devastated by the assassina-

tions of two major leaders in the prime of their lives. On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed — a major blow to the civil rights movement. Just two months later, on June 5, Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy was shot moments after announcing a victory in the California primary.

Student protests at colleges around the country threatened to boil over, and in August, Richard Nixon was named the Republican nominee for President. The tensions of a country in the grip of crisis exploded in late August at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where televised broadcasts showed 10,000 protesters brutally confronted by over 25,000 National Guardsmen. In the tumult that followed, Richard Nixon was elected President in November of 1968.

Internationally, 1968 was no picnic either.

For the first time, the media offered comprehensive coverage of events in Africa — in this case, the desperate famine that erupted in the midst of the Biafran War. Photographers exposed images of unbelievable human suffering in a war that used starvation as a weapon. In Paris, protests escalated as students, backed by workers, went on strike. Five thousand people marched through the Latin Quarter of Paris, injuring

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The Year that Changed History I

more than 40 people, on the day known as “Bloody Monday.” Students and workers alike were upset with the leadership of their country and were inspired by the anti-war protests in the U.S., as well as the protests of Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. They jeered French President Charles de Gaulle, naming him “assassin,” demanding higher wages for workers, and calling for an end to the spread of communism in Europe as well as an end to the police state in France.

Czechoslovakia faced trouble of its own.

The Communist Party was undergoing huge shifts since the economic downturn in the early 1960s, and Alexander Dubcek took over the leadership of the party at the beginning of 1968. Shortly thereafter, Antonin Novotny — the president of Czechoslovakia since 1957 and the general secretary of the Communist Party since 1953 — lost the presidency and resigned from his leadership position in the Communist Party, alarming Soviet leaders in Moscow. The next day, five countries involved in the Warsaw Pact — an organization of communist states in Europe — met in Dresden. Six months later, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops, effectively ending Prague Spring and bringing about a period of oppressive “normalization,” in which the Soviets tried to restore the government oppression that existed prior to Dubcek’s liberalizations.

In a fitting end to such a tumultuous year, the Apollo 8 team orbited the moon for the first time in December of 1968 and captured the very first pictures of the entire Earth from space. A telegram sent to the spacecraft during the journey read simply, “Thank you for saving 1968.” – JC & IMB ^

TUMULT AND TERROR

Draft protest in America; photo: Imperial War Museum, London; “Bloody Monday” in Paris; and May Day in Prague; photo: Josef Kouldelka/Magnum Photos

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Huntington Theatre Company

1971 Jim Morrison of The Doors

MUSIC MEETS POLITICS

dies of drug overdose.

1967-1990 Velvet Underground releases White Light/White Heat.

Czech writers sign a petition calling for liberalization of the Communist government.

1968 Syd Barrett makes his last appearance with Pink Floyd.

Dubcek is replaced by Gustáv Husák as secretary of the Czech Party.

The Czech students’ union is dissolved.

Man walks on the moon. ^

at the Gates of Dawn.

in protest of the Soviet regime, and dies three days later. ^

1967 Pink Floyd releases The Piper

The U.S. Supreme Court votes unanimously to back busing in order to end segregation in public schools.

Students fight police in Paris, supported by striking workers.

Dubcek is ousted from government. “Normalization” begins under Gustáv Husák.

Soviet troops move to Czech border.

Charles Manson and his group are arrested.

Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia.

1969 Woodstock Festival is held in U.S. The Rolling Stones give free concert in Hyde Park. Over 250,000 people attend.

Czech teenager Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Wencelas Square

1970 Jimi Hendrix dies.

Syd Barret releases The Madcap Laughs and later Barrett.

The Beatles formally split up.

Kent State shootings leave 4 student protestors dead after the National Guard opens fire.

Communist leaders gather in Prague for Communist Party Congress.

Former Head of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Krushchev, dies.

1972 Syd Barrett gives his last performance at the Corn Exchange, Cambridge.

Czech Journalists’ Union announces that 40% of journalists have been dismissed since August of 1968 for not following the government line.

Richard Nixon becomes first U.S. President to visit a Soviet leader; meets with Leonid Brezhnev.

The Watergate scandal erupts.

1973 The U.S. agrees to stop fighting in Vietnam.

Nixon admits White House’s role in Watergate cover-up.

1974 Nixon resigns, Gerald Ford is sworn in. Ford gives Nixon a pardon.

Václav Havel works in brewery for nine months, which inspires his play Audience.

1975 Czech leader Antonin Novotny dies.

President Ford declares an end to Vietnam effort.

Margaret Thatcher becomes England’s Tory leader.

Havel writes his “Letter to Dr. Husák.”

1976 Seven members of the Czech

August 21, 1968, outside the Prague radio station; photo: Josef Kouldelka/Magnum Photos

underground rock scene receive prison sentences for spreading anti-socialist ideas. Seven Czech Limelight Literary and Curriculum 2008-2009

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writers sign a letter to German Nobel Prize-winner Heinrich Boll appealing for solidarity with rock musicians on trial.

1977 Elvis Presley dies.

The Soviet Union adopts new lyrics for the national anthem, which has not been sung for 20 years because it glorified Stalin.

Czech writer Pavel Kohout, whose Poor Murderer ran on Broadway, is arrested in Prague for involvement in human rights.

Leonid Brezhnev is named the first Soviet president.

240 people sign Charter 77, accusing the Czech government of violating the human rights standards it had agreed to uphold when it signed the Helsinki Agreement.

1978 Havel rekindles dissident

1979 Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols dies at 22.

Margaret Thatcher becomes the British Prime Minister.

Eleven “Chartists” (signors of Charter 77) are arrested, including Václav Havel. Six receive prison sentences.

1980 John Lennon is shot and killed in

perestroika speech, despite the fact that Soviet TV is available in Czechoslovakia. In April, Gorbachev visits Prague.

Andy Warhol dies.

In December, Margaret Thatcher and Gorbachev meet in London.

Husák resigns from Czech party leadership but retains his presidency.

New York.

1988 Syd Barrett releases Opel.

Soviets and Mujahideen guerrillas clash in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion.

1989 The Berlin Wall falls.

1983 President Ronald Reagan deems the U.S.S.R. an “Evil Empire.”

1984 AIDS virus is first discovered.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the new Soviet leader.

1987 Gorbachev announces perestroika (reconstruction). Czech leadership refuses to publish Gorbachev’s 10

Album cover, Syd Barrett / Opel; Harvest/EMI/ Capitol Records

Huntington Theatre Company

Czech Communist leadership resigns.

Thousands take to the street in a pro-democracy rally in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

In December, the U.S.S.R. and four Warsaw Pact countries condemn the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The first non-Communist Czech government for forty-one years is

sworn in by President Husák, who resigns immediately afterwards.

The federal Assembly, under the reelected chairman Alexander Dubcek, unanimously elects Václav Havel as President of the Republic. ^

debate in Czechoslovakia with The Power of the Powerless.

1990 The Rolling Stones play in Prague.

Mikhail Gorbachev wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Czech government appoints Frank Zappa as Czechoslovakia’s representative of trade and culture and tourism; the appointment is later rescinded as “overenthusiastic.”

President Havel meets Soviet leader Gorbachev in Moscow to agree to the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia.

– JC

BU Theatre by T. Charles Erickson

Audience Etiquette Because many students have not had the opportunity to view live theatre, we are including an audience etiquette section with each literary/curriculum guide. Teachers, please spend time on this subject since it will greatly enhance your students’ experience at the theatre.

1. How does one respond to a live performance of a play, as opposed to when seeing a film at a local cinema? What is the best way to approach viewing a live performance of a play?

What things should you look and listen for?

2. What is the audience’s role during a live performance? How do you think audience behavior can affect an actor’s performance?

3. What do you know about the theatrical rehearsal process?

Have you ever participated in one as an actor, singer, director, or technical person?

4. How do costumes, set, lights, sound and props enhance a theatre production?

Prague; photo: Davio Lucarini

BACKGROUND

& Objectives Use the following synopsis and objectives to inform your teaching of Rock ‘n’ Roll curriculum.

J

an is a rock-and-roll fanatic in a country, Czechoslovakia, where the Communist government regards such music as dangerously subversive. Although initially drawn to Communism by his mentor, Cambridge University professor Max Morrow, Jan experiences a loss of faith after being jailed as a dissident by his country’s tyrannical regime. Max can only watch in dismay as his chosen pupil, and ultimately the entire Soviet bloc, breaks away from the movement that he holds dear. With rock-and-roll entering the mainstream and Communism fading into the counterculture, both Jan and Max must reflect on why movements rise and fall.

OBJECTIVES Students will: 1. Identify key issues in Rock ‘n’ Roll including: • Personal and political freedom • Teacher and student exchange • The political machine 2. Relate themes and issues in the play to their own lives.

3. Analyze the themes and issues within the historical and social context of the play.

4. Participate in hands-on activities that enhance understanding of the production.

5. Evaluate the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

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PREPARATION FOR

Rock ‘n’ Roll Note to Teachers: Use the following ideas to engage your class in thinking about Rock ‘n’ Roll and its major themes.

TOM STOPPARD Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia, but was forced to flee with his family to Singapore when the Nazis invaded in 1939.

His father died fighting the Japanese during the invasion of Singapore in World War II. By that time, Stoppard and the rest of his family had already evacuated to India.

His mother later married a British army major, Kenneth Stoppard, who relocated the family to England. Given his turbulent childhood, it may come as no surprise that Stoppard would be interested in writing about characters from Czechoslovakia and England who must adapt to a changing political landscape.

Identify Mr. Stoppard’s views on plays, politics, and patriotism. Mr. Stoppard rarely gives interviews, and therefore, those written and oral dialogues that do exist prove to be a rich treasure trove of insight. Using interviews, determine what personal and historical events in the area of arts and politics have influenced Tom Stoppard.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND To appreciate Stoppard’s play, it helps to understand the historical context in which it takes place. Rock ‘n’ Roll spans twentytwo of the most turbulent years in Czechoslovakian history (1968-1990).

During the 1960s, Czechoslovakia suffered a severe economic decline that threatened to undermine the strength of its Communist government. There was a surge in dissident activity, particularly among the country’s youth. To win back popular support, the government began a reform movement under the leadership of its new president, Alexander Dubcek. Dubcek offered a plan for socialized democracy and briefly eased the country’s censorship laws, in a ^

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period that became known as “Prague Spring.” But these steps outraged the Communist leadership. Less than eight months later, the Soviets invaded the country to bring an end to the reform. It is at this point in history that Rock ‘n’ Roll begins. The character Jan decides to return to Czechoslovakia, infuriating his mentor in England, Professor Max Morrow.

About a month after the Soviet invasion, a rock band called the “Plastic People of the Universe” formed. Seen as a threat to the status quo, this psychedelic rock band paid a heavy price for its music. The government revoked the band’s professional license, confiscated its instruments, and banned it from being paid for performances. After nearly a decade of oppression, the Plastics’ manager/artistic director, Ivan Jirous, organized a major rock festival in March of 1976.

At this festival, the secret police carried out dozens of arrests. Jirous was jailed and put on trial with three others. In Rock ‘n’ Roll, Jan also gets caught up in the pandemonium and thrown in jail.

Outraged by Jirous’s jail sentence, the playwright Václav Havel, along with many other artists, intellectuals and sympathizers, formed a human rights organization called Charter 77. Their manifesto, with the same name, became a famous human rights petition and resulted in Havel’s imprisonment. Rock ‘n’ Roll makes reference to the Plastics having recorded and performed music at Havel’s farm – a historically accurate depiction of their human rights struggle against the government.

Almost a decade later, in the summer of 1986, Czechoslovakia hosted another rock festival that included many banned musicians and artists. The Plastics were told that they could perform if they changed their name. The band became so divided over the issue that they eventually broke up.

Nevertheless, the liberalization of the country had been set in motion, and only three years later Czechoslovakia experienced the

“Velvet Revolution.” Students began a nonviolent protest, which exploded into a large group of 300,000 passionate citizens demanding the fall of Communism. After less than a month, they succeeded in achieving their goal. Havel took over as president in December 1989.

Do you believe that the Plastics and other rock bands played a key role in the transformation of Czechoslovakia’s political system, or were they merely a symptom of that transformation? How do art and politics intersect? And who should ultimately be given credit for the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia?

KEY ISSUES Personal and Political Freedom Jan has some difficulty being a “good Communist.” His fascination with psychedelic rock music gets him in trouble with the Secret Police, and one concert too many lands him in jail. It is not that Jan wholly disagrees with Communism in principle, but he disagrees with how its principles are being enforced by the government. Jan would rather be unemployed than banned from attending a rock concert. He says to Max during a heated debate: “What you have your heart set on … is that the workers own the means of production. I would give it to you gladly if I could keep the rest.” Do you believe that personal freedoms must be sacrificed under a Communist regime? Why or why not?

Teacher and Student Exchange Max and Eleanor are brilliant professors who take their teaching very seriously and who have high expectations for their students.

Often, these high expectations lead to disappointment. For example, Max takes a special interest in Jan because of his obvious intellectual ability and political interests, but ultimately is disappointed when Jan rejects his Communist views. Similarly, Eleanor is unhappy with her first student who studies the poet Sappho. She sees greater promise in another student, Lenka, but Max is skeptical even of Lenka’s ideas, despite his affection for her later in the play. Do you believe that Max and Eleanor are too harsh or close-minded toward their pupils? Why or why not? Do

Arts Assessment The following exercises are interactive, hands-on challenges in Drama, Music, Design, and Visual Arts. They aim to give students a better understanding of the many tasks that contribute to a theatrical production.

ARTISTIC CHALLENGE/INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS The conclusion of the “Prague Spring” (a brief period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia under the leadership of President Dubcek) was followed by strict censorship laws and outright oppression of free speech. In order for bands to play concerts, gatherings were planned in secret and hearty fans traveled through harsh weather conditions and miles of dark woods to attend.

Another way to bypass the law was to name the concert something else, like an art exhibition. Jan talks about how a lecture on Andy Warhol was a front for the Plastic People of the Universe to perform. The Plastics would “explain” Warhol’s art through their musical performance. The Czechoslovakian government quickly banned such activity.

Select a piece of music from one of the following bands mentioned in Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Plastic People of the Universe, Pink Floyd, The Fugs, Cream, The Beach Boys, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, or The Velvet Underground.

Find a piece of art that you believe is explained by the music you have chosen. You are not limited to Andy Warhol’s work (but investigate why his paintings were often the ones presented at these musical gatherings.)

Do you think art and music fit together like dance and music? How might these art forms complement each other? Present your painting/music piece to the class.

The official website for London production of Rock ‘n’ Roll (rocknrolltheplay.com) provides the soundtrack for the play and should be used as an additional resource. ^

photo: Janusz Gawron

their different areas of expertise (brain science for Max, ancient poetry for Eleanor) warrant different teaching styles?

The Political Machine Jan and Ferdinand disagree about how best to bring freedom to the people of Czechoslovakia. Ferdinand believes in working through the system to effect change. But Jan mocks his attempt to influence President Husák, saying: “It makes no odds whether [you write] a love letter or a protest letter …. [You] are playing on the same board.” Jan believes that the greatest challenge to the established leadership comes from outsiders, like the Plastic People of the Universe, who cannot be “bribed” into submission and who demand only “to be left alone.” Who is right? Does it matter whether the system you’re trying to change is a dictatorship or a democracy?

In the last six months, the United States has experienced political change, economic upheaval and witnessed uncertainty regarding what the future holds for its citizenry.

The same statement could be made for Czechoslovakia in 1968. Considering two contrasting forms of government and a time span of 40 years, are there similar political and social dialogues occurring in Czechoslovakia of 1968 and the United States of 2008? If so, what elements of universality exist between the two?

STAGE COMBAT All fight scenes must be carefully choreographed so that the actors can simulate a physical confrontation without suffering any bodily harm. Even if there is no physical con-

tact any use of a weapon must be carefully rehearsed. Mastering this choreography can take hours of physically demanding practice, which continues until the very day of the performance. Just before the curtain rises, a fight captain (usually a stage manager) runs one last rehearsal, called a “fight call,” to remind the actors of the necessary muscle movements. Not having undergone this training, you are not ready to perform stage combat at full speed. In groups of four, select either Max’s fight with Stephen or Alice’s assault of Candida. If possible, consider inviting a stage combat professional to your classroom to discuss this important component of the rehearsal and performance process. Consider the following questions: (a) How do you create the illusion of physicality? (b) How do you remain in character while also communicating safety issues with your partner?

CREATING CHARACTERIZATION Have each student choose a character from Rock ‘n’ Roll to portray. As if preparing for the role in rehearsal, ask students to answer the following questions about their characters: (a) What is my objective in the play, and which obstacles stand in my way? (b) How, if at all, does my character transform during the course of the play? (c) Are there any contradictions inherent in my character? (d) What do other characters think of my character, and what does my character think of them?

MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN Music, as the title of this play suggests, is the most important design element of a Rock ‘n’ Roll production. Stoppard has gone to great lengths selecting appropriate pieces of music for each scene transition. Select either Act One or Act Two and compile the music list for each scene change within the act. Choose one transition to explore in greater detail. Why did Stoppard choose this particular piece of music? Describe the song and a brief history of the band. How does it relate to the scene before and scene after it? In general, how does Stoppard use music to communicate with his audience?

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MASTERY

34. Who does Esme’s “Pan” actually turn out to be?

Assessment

35. Nigel is a correspondent looking for a story. What does Jan tell him about the “John Lennon Wall”?

36. How is Nigel related to Alice?

ACT ONE 1. How do the opening stage directions describe Esme?

21. Who is Eleanor tutoring? What poet are they studying?

37. What does Jan give Nigel to take to Esme?

22. According to Lenka, where is Jan?

38. What is Jan’s “dissident story” that excites Nigel?

2. Who does Esme think she’s seen on the garden wall?

23. What was Max asked to sign? Did he sign it?

39. What is Esme working on that she finds frustrating? Who helps her?

3. Where is Jan going?

40. Who is Alice’s boyfriend?

4. What is Max’s political affiliation?

24. Who lets Jan out of jail, and where is he dropped off?

5. What surgery did Eleanor have that makes people feel uncomfortable?

25. Describe the condition of Jan’s apartment when he returns home.

41. Alice is having her father and his new wife over for dinner. Which two people has Max invited to join them?

6. What subject does Eleanor teach?

26. For what document is Ferdinand collecting signatures?

42. According to Stephen, when did Communism go wrong?

7. Why did Jan leave Czechoslovakia before the Nazi occupation?

8. Why did the Ministry of the Interior want Jan to stay at Cambridge rather than return to Czechoslovakia?

9. Why didn’t Jan report the subversive comments that Lenka made at a reception?

10. What collection does Jan have that makes Ferdinand envious?

11. Which important political figure does Ferdinand see at the Beach Boys concert?

12. Who are “The Plastic People of the Universe”?

13. Max and Jan meet again in February 1971. What news does Max share about his wife and daughter?

27. What is the sad news about Eleanor?

28. What does Max want Milan to do for Jan?

43. What is the name of Syd Barrett’s new album? What is Syd Barrett’s real name?

29. What is Ferdinand planning to do with his charter?

44. Jan presents Max with a file about him.

Where is it from? Does Jan have a file?

ACT TWO

45. Who is the subject of a controversial article by Candida?

30. Why does Esme feel she needs to stay with Max? 31. Esme and Nigel have separated. Where does Esme want Alice to live?

32. Who won the election to become prime minister of Great Britain?

Is Max happy with the result?

33. How does Max resolve Alice’s problem of her “gap year”?

46. Who hits Candida with the newspaper?

47. Describe the development in Max and Lenka’s relationship. How does this change affect Esme?

48. Where does Jan ask Esme to go?

49. Who meets Jan, Esme and Ferdinand at the stadium’s bar? What is happening in the stadium?

14. What happened when Jan refused to sign a loyalty pledge while working at the paper?

15. What did Jan say in class that cost his mother her job at the shoe factory?

16. Why is Jan late to his meeting with Magda?

17. What did Ferdinand borrow from Jan? 18. In the spring of 1974, what has happened to Jirous?

19. Who comes to Jan’s apartment with the police?

20. How is Alice related to Eleanor and Max? 14

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Related Works and Resources You might explore the following works as supplements to this guide: Plays by Tom Stoppard Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) Travesties (1974) Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977) Night and Day (1978) The Coast of Utopia (2002)

Books The Unbearable Lightness of Being

by Milan Kundera (1982) Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990 by Václav Havel (1992) Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order Amid Chaos by John Flemming (2003)

OPEN RESPONSE & WRITING

Assignments OPEN RESPONSE ASSESSMENT

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

Instructions to the students: Please answer the following as thoroughly as possible in a wellplanned and carefully written paragraph.

Remember to use topic sentences and examples from the text.

1. Jan tells a story about his mother losing her job at a shoe factory.

What innocent comment did he make that cost her employment?

What impression might this episode have made on Jan’s young classmates?

1. Do you think Rock ‘n Roll is a fitting title for this play? Why or why not?

2. Is Eleanor a “good” teacher? Support your answer with examples from the text.

3. Does Max think highly of Nigel?

Why is Max of interest to Nigel?

4. Why did Jan return to Czechoslovakia instead of staying at Cambridge?

5. What do Ferdinand and Jan have in common? How do they disagree, politically?

6. Why did Magda give Max’s STB file to Jan? 7. How does Alice protect Syd Barrett?

Why does she lash out at Candida?

8. Do you think Jan and Esme make a good couple? Why or why not?

9. Who do you think is the waiter at the end of the play?

1968: The Year That Rocked the World

by Mark Kurlansky (2005) Rock and Roll: A Social History

by Paul Friedlander (2006) Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett & The Pink Floyd by Julian Palacios (2001) DVDs The Lives of Others directed

by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (2006)

2. Nigel, a Western journalist, is proud of his free speech rights. But do you think the need to sell papers limits what he can write? How might a free market prevent journalists from covering important stories?

3. Early on in the play Eleanor reveals that she’s been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She wants Max to accept that she is more than her dying body. Max maintains that we only have our brains. Do you think Max changes his mind as he acquires the problems of old age including dementia?

4. What deficiencies in the Capitalist system does Max allude to by his comment, “everyone’s free to have lunch at the Ritz and it’s absolutely legal to be unemployed.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being directed by Philip Kaufman (1988) CDs Muz bez Usi by the Plastic People of the Universe (2002) Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett (1970)

5. Do you agree with Jan that school kids into rock music “didn’t pick a fight” with the government because they lack a political agenda? Why does listening to or attending a concert of “socially negative music” threaten the political establishment?

6. Select one of the following quotes and discuss it in essay form.

“There are some among us who thought we’d liberated reason from our ancestral bog of myth and claptrap. Inspiration doesn’t exist either, by the way, except as so many neuron-firings whizzing about the cortex.”

“If capitalism can be destroyed by antiracism, feminism, gay rights, ecological good practice and every special interest already covered by the social democrats, is there a lot of point in being a Communist?”

“All this ‘human rights’ is foreigners thinking they’re better than us. Well, they’re not better than us.”

“Grief sucks value out of the world like a bomb sucks out the oxygen.”

“Altering the psyche has no effect on the social structure.”

7. Max is angry at Milan for how events unfolded in Czechoslovakia, arguing that treatment of groups like “The Plastic People of the Universe” resulted in negative attention to the political system from the West. Where does Max think Milan and others went wrong?

8. Nigel remarks that “brains” skipped a generation, suggesting that Esme, the link between her mother and daughter, lacks intelligence. Is this assessment unfair? How does Esme’s educational experience compare to her mother and daughter’s? What does Esme understand that Eleanor and Alice don’t? Do you think Nigel’s second wife, Candida, is smarter than Esme? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

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Lesson Plans Teachers’ note: Choose activities that are appropriate for your classroom period. All assignments are suggestions. Only a teacher knows his or her class well enough to determine the level and depth to which any piece of literature may be examined.

ONE-DAY LESSON PLAN introduces students to the context and major themes of the production.

DAY ONE - Introducing the Play 1. Distribute Mastery Assessment (P. 14) for Rock ‘n’ Roll for students to read before the performance and to review again after attending it.

Optional: Distribute Handout 1: Vocabulary and ask students to complete. A vocabulary test could be administered after viewing the play. Students should also review Handout 2: Glossary before seeing the play.

2. Read the Synopsis (P. 3) of the play. Discuss other works students have studied with similar themes and issues.

3. If time allows, discuss further pages from the literary guide, narrating highlights for students.

FOUR-DAY LESSON PLAN introduces students to the production and then, after viewing the performance, asks them to think more critically about what they have seen. Includes time for class discussion and individual assessment.

DAY ONE - Introducing the Play Same as Day One above; completed before seeing the production.

DAY TWO - The Production Attend the performance at the Huntington Theatre Company.

Homework: Students should answer the Mastery Assessment (P. 14) questions.

DAY THREE - Follow-up Discussion Discuss Mastery Assessment answers in class.

DAY FOUR - Test Individual Assessment: Choose either several questions from the Open Response (P. 15) or one question from Writing Assignments (P. 15) for students to answer in one class period.

Optional: Students may choose one of the For Further Exploration (P. 17) or Arts Assessment (P. 13) tasks to complete for extra credit.

SEVEN-DAY LESSON PLAN completely integrates Rock ‘n’ Roll into your schedule. Within seven school days, you can introduce the play, assign reading and vocabulary, and assess your students on both a group and individual level. Students will ideally view the play after completing Mastery Assessment questions.

DAY ONE - Introducing the play Same as Day One above.

Optional: Distribute Handout 1: Vocabulary due on Day Three.

Homework: Read the Act One and answer corresponding Mastery Assessment (P. 14) questions.

DAY TWO - Act One Discuss the first part of the play and answers to Mastery Assessment questions.

Homework: Read Act Two and answer corresponding Mastery Assessment questions.

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DAY THREE - Act Two Discuss the second half of the play and answers to Mastery Assessment questions.

Optional: Complete Handout 1: Vocabulary for homework..

DAY FOUR - Group work Complete Handout 3: Marxism VS. Capitalism. Leave time for class discussion.

Optional: Review Vocabulary Handouts.

DAY FIVE - Attend Performance Optional: Students may choose one of the For Further Exploration (P. 17) or Arts Assessment (P. 13) tasks to complete for extra credit.

DAY SIX - Review/Preparation Students should answer the Open Response (P. 15) questions as preparation for their test the following day.

DAY SEVEN - Test Individual Assessment: Choose two questions from the Writing Assignments (P. 15) for students to answer in one class period.

For Further Exploration Note to Teachers: The following ideas and questions can be used to further explore the text. They can be used as prompts for class discussion or additional writing assignments.

1. Stoppard revised portions of Rock ‘n’ Roll during its time at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. A continuation of the editing process is highly unusual after a play enjoys success in both London and New York. How did Stoppard change the play? What motivated these last-minute revisions? Stoppard discusses editing Rock ‘n’ Roll at length in his interview on the XM Satellite and American Theater radio program “Downstage Center,” which should be used as a primary resource as you begin your research on this topic. The interview can be found at www.americantheatrewing.org/ downstagecenter/detail/tom_stoppard.

2. Sappho was an Ancient Greek writer who set her poems to lyre music. She wrote about romantic love for both men and women.

So inspirational was her work that Plato called her a “muse.”

Unfortunately, much of Sappho’s work has been lost during the 2,000 years since her death. The remains include fragments of songs that are difficult to translate without the proper context.

Research Sappho and her influence on the poets that followed her.

Have any of Sappho’s poems remained completely intact? Find one poem fragment (search for multiple translations) and present it to the class. What was Sappho trying to express?

3. As described in greater detail in the Huntington’s Literary Guide, playwright Václav Havel has been a central figure in

Czechoslovakia’s struggles for democratization and liberalization, even serving as president of the country. The Literary Guide notes that he is considered a front-runner for an eventual Nobel Prize.

Research the criteria for winning the Nobel Prize and the list of past winners. Do you believe that Havel deserves to join the list? Why or why not? Can you think of any other contemporary leaders worthy of the Nobel Prize?

4. Shirley Temple, the famous child actor, held the position of United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution.

How are ambassadors selected? What qualifications must they have? What are their main job responsibilities? Find one interesting story from Shirley Temple Black’s time as ambassador.

5. Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. What important economic events contributed to her campaign’s success? Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. During that time, how did Thatcher acquire her nickname the “iron lady”?

6. In 1993, the nation of Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two separate countries: The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Why did this split occur? What are diplomatic relations between the two countries like today?

7. Stoppard vowed in his early years to “stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application.” He said that his plays “must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness.” Do you think Rock ‘n’ Roll has any social application or usefulness?

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Name:_______________________________________________________

Handout 1

VOCABULARY Ameliorate

Libel

Amnesty

Mandate

Angst

Matriculate

Banal

Mirth

Bemuse

Obliterate

Bureaucrat

Paradox

Buxom

Philistine

Cauterize

Phlegmatic

Censorship

Precedent

Cerebral

Proprietor

Cognition

Queue

Dissident

Rancid

Elision

Rebuke

Etymology

Salacious

Fraternal

Sickle

Garrison

Sniveling

Hegemony

Sovereignty

Heresy

Subversive

Impregnable

Taut

Insufferable

Trounce

Interrogate

Truncheon

Laconic

Utopia

Date:________________________

Name:_______________________________________________________

Date:________________________

Handout 2

GLOSSARY OF TERMS Apparatchiks:

loyal subordinates working within the Communist party

Bourgeois:

within Marxist philosophy, the property-owning middle class

Dockland Conversions:

condominiums

Dvork:

Czech composer of romantic music

The Fourth Estate:

term used to refer to the press/media

The Fugs:

American band with some political music, popular in the 1960s

Gaol:

jail

High Table:

at Oxford college, table used by fellows and their guests

Jirous:

Czech art historian, artistic director for The Plastic People of the Universe

I Ching:

“Book of Changes,� oldest known Chinese text

Klamvoka:

youth hostel in Prague

Kraftwerk:

influential electronic music group (German for power plant)

Perestroika:

program of Russian political reform, begun by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986

Proletariat:

within Marxist philosophy, the property-less working class

Plutarch:

ancient Greek essayist, historian

Skol:

a toast

Statni Bezpecnost (STB): Czech state security service Swan Hellenic Cruises:

British company offering upscale cruises

Velvet Revolution:

non-violent overthrow of Communist government in Czechoslovakia in 1989

Name:_______________________________________________________

Date:________________________

Handout 3

GROUP WORK MARXISM VS. CAPITALISM: A COMPARISON OF POLITICAL SYSTEMS In groups of two or three, fill in the table below by identifying a counterpoint to the political philosophy expressed in the opposite column.

MARXISM

CAPITALISM Free markets are efficient because they distribute products according to supply and demand.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Consumers have a choice about products because the government does not dictate what is produced.

The current class structure will ultimately be replaced by a society that evenly distributes resources.

A centrally planned economy will misallocate resources because it is too complex for the government to set prices.

In a capitalist society, the worker is exploited by those who own the means of production.

Workers have “at will” employment. They can quit their jobs if they want, and the company can fire them if it wants.

Share your responses with the rest of the class. After all of the groups have shared their responses, the class should debate which system is preferable and whether democracy is more compatible with one system than the other.

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORKS TIES

T

he Huntington Theatre Company’s Student Matinee Series provides an invaluable opportunity for teachers, students, and families looking to increase young people’s understanding of and interest in dramatic literature and the performing arts. This section contains a list of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Theatre and English Language Arts that are addressed fully, in part, or are supplemented by attending the Huntington’s production of Rock ‘n’ Roll and utilizing this study guide as a pre- and post-show resource.

THEATRE Acting • 1.7 Create and sustain a believable character throughout a scripted or improvised scene

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Grades 5-8 • 8.19 Identify and analyze sensory details and figurative language • 8.20 Identify and analyze the author’s use of dialogue and description • 8.23 Use knowledge of genre characteristics to analyze a text • 8.24 Interpret mood and tone, and give supporting evidence in a text • 8.25 Interpret a character’s traits, emotions, or motivation and give supporting evidence from a text • 9.5 Relate a literary work to artifacts, artistic creations, or historical sites of the period of its setting

• 1.10 Use vocal acting skills such as breath control, diction, projection, inflection, rhythm, and pace to develop characterizations that suggest artistic choices

• 10.3 Identify and analyze the characteristics of various genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short story, dramatic literature) as forms with distinct characteristics and purposes

• 1.11 Motivate character behavior by using recall of emotional experience as well as observation of the external world

• 17.3 Identify and analyze structural elements particular to dramatic literature (scenes, acts, cast of characters, stage directions) in the plays they read, view, write, and perform

• 1.12 Describe and analyze, in written and oral form, characters’ wants, needs, objectives, and personality characteristics • 1.13 In rehearsal and performance situations, perform as a productive and responsible member of an acting ensemble (i.e., demonstrate personal responsibility and commitment to a collaborative process) • 1.15 Demonstrate an understanding of a dramatic work by creating a character analysis • 1.17 Demonstrate an increased ability to work effectively alone and collaboratively with a partner or ensemble Technical Theatre • 4.12 Conduct research to inform the design of sets, costumes, sound, and lighting for a dramatic production. For example, students select a play from a particular historical period, genre, or style and conduct research using reference materials such as books, periodicals, museum collections, and the Internet to find appropriate examples of hairstyles, furnishings, decorative accessories, and clothing.

Critical Response • 5.5 Continue to develop and refine audience behavior skills when attending informal and formal live performances • 5.12 Attend live performances of extended length and complexity, demonstrating an understanding of the protocols of audience behavior appropriate to the style of the performance

• 17.5 Identify and analyze elements of setting, plot, and characterization in the plays that are read, viewed, written, and/or performed: setting (place, historical period, time of day); plot (exposition, conflict, rising action, falling action); and characterization (character motivations, actions, thoughts, development) Grades 9-10 • 9.6 Relate a literary work to primary source documents of its literary period or historical setting • 11.5 Apply knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on life, and provide support from the text for the identified themes • 17.7 Identify and analyze how dramatic conventions support, interpret, and enhance dramatic text Grades 11-12 • 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal events of its time • 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme • 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme • 17.9 Identify and analyze dramatic conventions (monologue, soliloquy, chorus, aside, dramatic irony)

Š Huntington Theatre Company Boston, MA 02115 October 2008 No portion of this Teacher Curriculum Guide may be reproduced without written permission from the Huntington Theatre Company’s Department of Education.

Inquiries should be directed to: Donna Glick, Director of Education Huntington Theatre Company 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115