MINOTAUR - teacher resources (part one) - Unicorn … teacher...In the Unicorn Theatre’s retelling...

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In Crete, in an impossible labyrinth, lives a fearsome and lonely beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Only his sister Ariadne cares for him, and she dreams of setting them both free from the rule of their selfish father, the King.

But when Ariadne sees her chance to escape, she makes a terrible pact with the enemy’s son that will change everyone’s future for better or for worse.

A playful, clever and dramatic retelling of the well known Greek myth.

introDuCtionWelcome to the resources for Minotaur, for teachers working with children in years 3 to 6.

Greek myths have been the inspiration for stories, paintings, operas, films and plays for centuries. In the Unicorn Theatre’s retelling of the myth of the Minotaur, Adam Peck has created a fresh interpretation that will engage young contemporary theatre audiences and provide teachers with a rich context for further learning.

The play tells the story of the Minotaur - a terrible mythical creature; half man, half bull, who lives imprisoned in a maze. It is a story of complex relationships between a brother and his sister and between fathers and sons. It explores the boundaries between love and hate, imprisonment and freedom, loyalty and revenge.

These resources aim to help schools to get the most out of their visit to the Unicorn by supporting teachers in devising learning experiences that will enrich the curriculum and motivate and engage the class. We create activities that can be used before or after your theatre visit and that use drama, storytelling and writing as ways of exploring themes and events relevant to the play.

The work we prepare does not adopt an objective led approach; however, teachers will be able to establish links to their school curriculum and adapt them to the needs of their specific year group and their particular educational setting.

The complete resource pack will be available in October 2015, after we have developed the practical activities with our partner school. In the meantime this introduction will give you an idea of what approach the activities will take, how it relates to the play and the potential for practical classroom work linked to your visit to the Unicorn.

aCComPanYinG tEaCHEr CPD DaY: fri 27 noV 10am - 4PmThis free CPD day will be an opportunity for teachers to find out more about the production and to gain practical experience of the classroom activities before working with them in the classroom. The day will also support teachers’ development in working through drama that can be applied to other aspects of the curriculum.

SHort CourSE: DiSCoVEr WHat tHEatrE Can BrinG to Your CLaSSroom (GrEEK mYtHS)A short, practical course for teachers who are interested in finding out the learning potential o�ered by a trip to the theatre:

• Build your confidence in using drama in the classroom• Explore using drama to develop writing, particularly with reluctant writers• Discover ways to develop your pupils’ responses to watching theatre

Thu 21 Jan 5-6.30pmThu 28 Jan 5-6.30pm (7pm Minotaur press night) Thu 4 Feb 5-6.30pmThu 11 Feb 5-6.30pm

Cost: £80 p/teacher (includes all sessions, resource pack, your ticket to the show & refreshments).Schools do not have to commit to bringing pupils to see the show in order to take part in the course.

To book for either course, email [email protected]

minotaur - tEaCHEr rESourCES

minotaur: tHE oPEninG of tHE PLaY The play opens with a prologue introducing us to four of the main characters: Ariadne; her father, King Minos; Theseus; and his father, King Aegeus.

All I wanted was a son. A son to wear my crown, when I am dead and gone.

King Minos’ of Crete is angry at the death of his son who was killed during the Games in Athens; he has just fought and won a war against King Aegeus and defeated the Athenians. As the play opens, he is parading the defeated Aegeus in front of his people and demanding he pay a debt to him: every nine years seven children must be chosen and sent to Crete to be fed to the Minotaur who lives in the the labyrinth. Half man, half bull, the Minotaur is Minos’ only remaining son.

All I wanted was a son. A son to wear my crown, when I am dead and gone.

The defeated King Aegeus of Athens also longs for a son; believing that he has no son to inherit the throne when he dies. He does not know that he does have a son, Theseus, who is travelling to find him. Twenty years previously, when Aegeus had been on his travels, he had fallen in love with a princess in the city of Troezen but, before their child was born, Aegeus had to return to Athens. He left his sword with the princess and asked that, if the child was a boy, it be given to him when he was old enough. But that was twenty years ago and no news of a son had ever reached King Aegeus.

Meanwhile, Aegeus cannot face choosing which children to sacrifice, so King Minos o�ers him a deal; he will choose the children himself, but it will be fourteen children sacrificed, not seven. King Aegeus agrees to King Minos’ terms.

Back in Crete, Ariadne enters, carrying the ball of wool that guides her through the labyrinth, she is searching for her brother; calling out to him to reassure him that he need not hide from her. Only Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, knows how to get to the centre of the labyrinth and she is the only one who has ever tried to communicate with the Minotaur, her brother. She plays music to him to soothe him, tells him she loves him and tries to teach him to say her name.

But she is also disgusted by her brother the Minotaur and frustrated when he does cannot speak her name. Ariadne longs to free the Minotaur from his imprisonment in the labyrinth and for herself to be free of Crete and her father, King Minos.

In Athens as the sacrificial children are about to be chosen. Theseus arrives looking for his father, King Aegeus. He has travelled a long way over land and fought and won many fights along the way. But when Theseus hears of the sacrifice of Athenian children he immediately o�ers to go to Crete and fight the Minotaur himself.

When Theseus and Ariadne meet in Crete they see that they could work together to be free from King Minos, his labyrinth and the Minotaur…


intErViEW WitH aDam PECK: WritErThis is a transcription of a conversation with Adam about the process of writing Minotaur, recorded in March 2015.

Why did you write the play?

It was commissioned by Bristol Old Vic for children in an area of artistic deprivation and low aspiration. A lot of the children who go to the schools (we were touring to) are born there, get an education there, get a job there, and they never leave really. It seemed to me that they wanted to stay near their family, near what they knew. So the idea behind the piece was to explore the idea of home and leaving home.

Every character in the play has some reason to want to leave home, or to stay at home: Theseus sets o� to find his father; he has to leave his home Troezen to find him. Ariadne wants to leave home because she feels her father is trapping her, even though he says she is free to go at any time. The Minotaur lives in the labyrinth and his father says there are no locks or chains, he is free to leave at anytime but for some reason he chooses not to.

So there are sons or daughters who want to leave home and parents who want to keep them there. These ideas of travelling and where your home is and trying to find the place you belong were the starting point.

I was also interested in the idea of having a monster that wasn’t really a monster, who was somehow put upon in some way or was abused for being di�erent.

What in this fresh production do you think will capture the imaginations of the Unicorn Theatre audience?

Most people will be aware that there is a thing called the Minotaur and that he lived in a labyrinth. It is an evocative idea; that there is some kind of monster that eats human flesh, and which lives in a maze. I think that idea appeals to people as a metaphor for life perhaps or a weird wonderful place where this macabre thing happened.

Who is the Minotaur and what does he represent in your play?

I think he’s the ‘other’, he’s a son and a brother; a son to the King, a brother to Ariadne. But he’s also di�erent and he’s misunderstood and the people around him use him. King Minos uses him as a punishment for his enemies and Ariandne uses him as an excuse to free herself. Although it depends how you read the play; whether she does it for herself or to help him.

He’s not a monster I think, he’s just someone who’s deformed, who’s di�erent from other people; an outsider who has been outcast. His father King Minos is ashamed of him, but because he’s his son, he doesn’t want to kill him. He’s also some sort of mascot for Minos; a living myth, something that can be


used to threaten people.

I’d like people to sympathise with the character of the Minotaur, he’s ugly, uneducated, has been abandoned and the only person he has any contact with is his sister. He’s a fan of music, that’s the thing that soothes him. He’s been ignored and locked away; he’s not been able to learn anything. You hear these stories of children who’ve been abandoned in the jungle or in a flat somewhere and they emerge and people want to describe them as savage, or animal like - what do you expect if you are not surrounded by people who educate, care for and nurture you? You become what they fear; uncivilised. It doesn’t mean they are bad, or monsters, it just means they are not accustomed to the ways we’re accustomed to. It’s as a result of his father’s actions that he has become the way he is.

Tell us about the relationship between Ariadne and the Minotaur:

She has a little bit of a push pull relationship with him. She associates most closely with him in her life, as she is also the subject of their nasty father, the King. She has a special relationship with the Minotaur and she feels safe around him even though he’s dangerous. There’s a relationship of trust in some way; she trusts he won’t kill her and he is soothed by her, she eases his pain. So they rely on each other.

But I think ultimately she wants to escape the Island and her father. I think that she wants her brother to escape too; at one point she says to him, ‘you need to go now, you need to go before father returns, go on, go, go’, but he won’t move, he just stays there. And the thing that she fears the most that her father is right when he says the Minotaur stays there because he wants, I don’t think she truly believes that.

Ariadne could leave at any point, but as Minos points out she will always be his daughter. The frustration with her own life is writ large in the life of her brother. I think there is something quite cathartic for her in having her brother killed, in terms of setting herself free both literally and metaphorically.

However this is my reading of it and hopefully there are di�erent readings. I’m sure that some people would say that Ariadne is very manipulative, but other people would say she is very clever, or that she uses her wits to overcome a very di¨cult situation.

What about the relationship between Theseus and Aegeus?

I think Aegeus is a bit of a disappointment to his son and when Theseus arrives he is expecting someone much better, much stronger - the dad that he’s been waiting to meet for a long time. Aegeus is quite weak. I get the sense that he’s been stronger, but he hasn’t been able to have a son and as the years have gone by the more impotent he’s become and bullied by the people around him.

You get the sense that Athens has fallen into a state of disrepair and that the walls are crumbling around him. Aegeus feels impotent and powerless but when his son arrives, as brief as that moment is, he thinks that this could be a new lease of life and he’s energised by that. Finally this son that he’s wanted for so long has arrived, but no sooner has he arrived than he’s gone again.

It feels to me that Theseus immediately senses that cowardice from his father and he’s almost the opposite, he’s been without a father for so long. Theseus wants to prove himself to his father. That’s why he’s travelled by land rather than by sea and fought o� three monsters on the way, to show his


dad what a great man he is and how strong he is, how good he is with a sword. But when he arrives he thinks ‘why did I bother to prove myself? I’m already a fitter, stronger, a more natural leader than my father.’ In terms of character he’s a lot closer to Minos; he’s decisive, he wants to fight, he’s not in any way weak.

There are a few redeeming features of Aegeus, he reflects and considers things, I think he is quite sympathetic. I remember in the original production there were children really quite upset about Aegeus killing himself and the fact that his son has abandoned him.

Why does Theseus make the decision not to raise the sails, to tell his father that he is returning safely, at the end of the story?

Theseus is very cut throat at the end. You have to make up your own mind about why he didn’t turn the sails, but it is definitely a decision. That was deliberate on my part; I felt that a choice was more dramatic than just him forgetting. In the original he is so upset about Ariadne leaving him and choosing to be left on Knaxos. He was in love with Ariadne and that’s why he forgets to change the sail, but I don’t think that love a�air exists in my version. I think both Ariadne and Theseus use each other for their own purposes. I think they’ve got other priorities.

In your version it is all about the human story, why did you remove Gods from your play?

I’m not a believer in larger powers than ourselves and I don’t believe in determinism; we forge our own paths in life and I think that is what the characters in this play do. I don’t like that there might be some more powerful force than human choice at play or the idea of the Gods serving as puppet masters that determine how people behave or the decisions that they make.

The backstory is fascinating; Daedelus had designed the labyrinth and because King Minos didn’t want anyone to find their way out about it, or find the plans so they could find their way out, he said I’ll take your son as guarantee or you can both be imprisoned in the tower. And so Daedelus and Icarus die trying to escape.

This theme of sons is very strong; Minos’s son is deformed, Daedelus’ son is imprisoned and then dies trying to escape and Aegeus loses his son, or so he thinks, and therefore kills himself.

What were the challenges in writing your play?

Firstly how to represent the Minotaur? Do you make him look scary or do you make him look normal? Or somewhere in between? Is he more human than monster, or is he more monster than man?

A lot happens in the story; everything that takes place on the Island with the Minotaur and Ariadne, and the stu� that happens in Athens with Aegeus and Minos, and Theseus travelling on his way. It was a real challenge to know what to include and when to start the story. There is always something informing the story in Greek Myths; the story before and the story before that.

I also had an issue with the original myth with Ariadne just being rescued; she helps Theseus then he carries her o� and abandons her. I had problems with her being this passive figure who Theseus uses as a means to an end and then abandons. So I wanted her to be quite strong-willed. She is able to be quite resourceful; she is able to use people around her in the way that they use her.


CLaSSroom aCtiVitiESminotaur - tEaCHEr rESourCES

Teachers will be aware of the way in which the Greek myths are interconnected - each story links to other stories and each new encounter reveals more details about characters and their histories.

Minotaur presents teachers with the opportunity to make links to other Greek myths that will give their class a greater sense of the way in which these stories are interconnected. The story of the Minotaur is interwoven with that of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus and his son Icarus were the architects of the labyrinth that Minos had constructed to contain his son, the Minotaur. Once they had overseen its construction they were held prisoner by Minos so that the secret of the maze would not be revealed to anyone. Imprisoned Daedelus and Icarus plan their escape – one of the most famous Greek myths, which sees Icarus flying too close to the sun and plunging to his death.

A complete resource pack for Minotaur will be available in October, after the activities have been developed with our partner school. The activities will support teachers in exploring themes and events linked to Minotaur that will help prepare a class for their visit to the theatre and extend the experience afterwards.

The pre-show activities will include a focus on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus and may include:

• Creating the paintings and sculptures that decorate the palace at Knossos as a way of exploring the character of King Minos.

• Exploring what happens between Daedalus and his son Icarus when they hear that they cannot return home.

• Exploring the concept of freedom and the feelings that can arise when freedom is taken away. • There will also be opportunities for learning around Ancient Greek society and the importance

of the myths and the role of the Gods in Greek life.

Our resources always put drama at the centre of the activities. Working through drama allows children to explore things that matter to them within a fictional context; to draw upon their prior knowledge and experience and apply it to new situations; to develop language as they give expression to new understandings; to explore possibilities within the drama and to develop emotional intelligence and critical thinking as they perceive events from di�erent perspectives.

minotaurA Unicorn production

By Adam PeckDirected by Tarek IskanderResource pack written by Susanna Steele

MINOTAUR - teacher resources (part one) - Unicorn … teacher...In the Unicorn Theatre’s retelling...

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