Classroom Activities
Before seeing the play





What expectations do you have of Cling to Me like Ivy?
What do you imagine the set might be like? How would you design a set with
both a domestic setting and a woodland scene?
How would you portray the relationships between Malka (a Jewish
grandmother) and Rivka her granddaughter? And between David and Rivka
who are engaged to be married?
What part might music and sound play?
Do you have any ideas how lighting might be employed?
Write down your ideas and look at them again after seeing the REP’s
production. What was the same? What was different? Did anything surprise
you?
After seeing the play
Still Images
After seeing the production, create five still images of what you consider to be the
most important moments of the play.
Explain to your classmates why you have selected these images. What might the
characters in your images be thinking during the moments you have selected?
Interview The Director
Imagine you have the opportunity to interview Sarah Esdaile, the Director of Cling to
Me like Ivy. Think of five questions you would like to ask her. You may want to
include questions about anything you found confusing or challenging when you saw
the production. Swap questions with a partner. Imagine you are the director and
provide a response. Focus on the detail on the production you saw.
Focus on Malka’s speech
Malka’s speech is littered with Hebrew words. Try and find out what some of the
following mean,
“He probably just wants a zaftig girl, some flesh to squeeze.”
“Like a dream you look, kayn eynhoreh”
“That noodnik.”
“She’s broigus with the Katzes. They’re coming tomorrow.”
“Who knows what he liked? He was a nebbish.”
What effect does this style of speech have? What does it tell us about Malka as a
character?
Exploring the Characters
Give one of the names of the characters from Cling to Me Like Ivy out to each
student. Ask each student to write a profile of that character, adding words that they
feel describe or that they associate with the character plus any key quotes, from
them and about them.
Pair up the students who have worked on different characters and pool ideas adding
more comments. Group students together who have worked on the same character
and discuss similarities and differences.
Use these profiles as a resource when writing in role, or when being hot-seated.
Hotseating
Hotseating is where a character is questioned in role.
Ask students to take on the following roles and encourage the rest of the group to
ask them questions at these key moments:
 Rivka after her night in the woods.
 Malka after she has told Rivka about her affair with a woman
 Shumley at the end of the play
 What other key moments could you explore?
Hopes and Dreams
What are the dreams and aspirations of Rivka and David, Leela and Patrick? Create
improvisations that depict what the characters want for themselves. Do they want
similar things, or are they very different?
Disappointments
The various characters feel they have let down their families in different ways. For
example,



Shumley feels he broke from his family when he became a Rabbi but he felt
he had no role model from his father.
Conversely, David feels he betrayed his father when he decided not to
become a Rabbi, and was ostracised by him because of it,
“When I left the yeshiva, he wouldn’t talk to me. A whole year. I’m living in his
house. Like, ‘will you tell your son to pass the salt”
The discovery that Malka had had an affair with a woman clearly shocked her
family but she considers herself lucky, – her husband was prepared to take
her back.
Now consider Rivka, Leela, and Patrick’s actions.
In small groups, take on the role of the family members when each of these dramatic
decisions or discoveries were made. How do you imagine the families reacted?
Would your own family react in a similar or very different manner?
Truth and Lies
Ask the students to make a list of some of the deceptions that we see in the play.
They might identify something as dramatic Rivka spending the night with Patrick, or
Malka’s relationship with the young woman or something more minor like the hiding
of OK! magazine when Shmuley enters the house.
Replay these moments through improvisation. Use the technique of thought tracking
so that we can hear the thoughts behind the actions
Family Album
Make a list of key moments in the life of Rivka’s family. Create still images of these
moments, to represent photographs in a family album. You could start with a very old
image of Malka’s parents who were Russian immigrants.
Some images might be posed for a photographer, others more natural with the
characters ‘off guard’.
Present these in sequence. What might be written underneath these photos in the
album? What might be written on the back of the pictures?
Letters
Ask your students to imagine they are the characters below and write these letters,
From...
 Rivka’s mother to her daughter before she died. Perhaps it is a letter she
wanted her to read on her wedding day.
 David’s father to David when he decided to leave the yeshiva (Rabbinical
school)
 Malka’s husband to her after he discovered the affair
 Leela to Rivka after the end of the play
 David to Rivka after the end of the play.
Monologues
Choose Shmuley or Malka and choose a moment from the play.
Imagine it is that day and they are looking back over their life. Write a monologue
about their thoughts at this point.
Think about the following;

Malka seems to struggle with herself a great deal. At the start of the play she
is quite liberal. She enjoys the gossip of Leela’s magazine, and treats Leela
like one of the family. Then we see her turn against her when she feels her
family and culture are threatened
When Rivka challenges her over living her life for other people Malka admits
that her life has been ‘oysegevapt’ - “Like champagne when the bubbles go.
No fizz. Just nothing. Flat”

Shmuley is criticised by Malka throughout the play for being indecisive, yet at
the end he makes his own choice about the wig. He says, “Sometimes I wish
God would just tell us what He wants! It’s tiring, to live with doubt” His religion
demands interpretation and that is very hard. It is obvious that he wants
something different for Rivka