Year 11 IGCSE Drama students work on Molière

Year 11 IGCSE Drama students are doing practical preparation work on one of their Cambridge IGCSE extracts of a play written by the Russian playwright, Mikhail Bulgakov called Molière. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1936. The play was controversial at the time of its production because it was seen to be presenting a critical commentary on the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. The play is set in France in the seventeenth century, and the action takes place backstage at the theatre and at the court of Louis XIV.  The central character is the playwright and actor, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin de Molière (1622 - 1673).

With their IGCSE Drama teacher, Mr Nigel Tickner, who joined us at the school in January this year, the IGCSE Drama students have already been working on creating a suitable playing space for the drama, and constructing a rehearsal room mock-up of a potential open thrust stage with three upstage doors.

Next week and for the following week, the students will work with a professional Theatre practitioner called Annie Sutton, leading them in four one hour practical workshops on acting, with special reference to the IGCSE pre-release extract of the play, Molière.  The workshops will include techniques for exploring both comedy and the grotesque, and a little bit of farce and drama in which they will learn acting techniques that are suitable for the interaction between the characters on this presentational stage that will represent both backstage at the French theatre of the time, and at the court of Louis XIV, 'The Sun King' in Versailles. The IGCSE Drama students will enter and explore the 'world of the play' in its French, Russian and present-day contexts.

Drama Department