Children’s Series
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Education Resources
In this production Jason makes both a physical journey to another land and a
personal journey of self belief and self esteem. Together Jason and his team
of Argonauts negotiate and overcome different problems.
This makes Jason and the Argonauts an excellent and inspiring starting point
for exploring many areas, in particular themes of transition, self awareness,
independence and interdependence. These Education Resources are
designed to explore these themes through practical, experiential learning
exercises.
Ideas for Preparatory Work
These are some ideas for work that you could do prior to seeing ‘Jason and
the Argonauts’. The exercises would also be appropriate to use as follow-up
work.
These ideas are drama based but could be used as the basis for group
discussion or writing exercises. The exercises build on each other and work
as a complete unit but we also encourage you to use the ideas as a starting
point and adapt them to best suit the needs of your group.
We hope you find them useful and inspiring.
www.visiblefictions.co.uk
1.
Hero Strut
Ask the group to walk around the room at a steady pace without talking to or
bumping into anyone else. Ask them to try and fill any space they see.
When the group is focused and walking fluidly explain that you are going to
call out a word and that you want them to freeze like a statue in response to
that word, and that when you call out ‘come to life’ they are to bring that statue
to life and walk around the room until you call out ‘normal walking’.
Work through the following words:
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•
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Hero
Villain
Frightened
Brave
Adventure
Hero on a Mission
See some of the ‘Hero on a Mission’ statues and discuss:
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•
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What makes a hero?
What sort of things do heroes do?
Is it easy to be a hero?
2.
Mission Recruitment
Divide the group up into teams of 4 or 5. Tell them that they are going to
invent a mission where something important has to be achieved. Give them a
sheet of paper with the following headings to complete:
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Mission:
Why is this mission important:
What are the dangers of this mission:
Get each team to present their mission to the rest of the class.
There are two options for the next stage. You can either select one mission
for the whole group to work on or you can pair the teams up so one team
works on the other team’s mission (this will depend on how clear and easy to
work with the missions are).
Ask the teams to come up with the ‘Ideal Hero’ for the mission they are
working on.
Give them the brief of presenting their ‘Ideal Hero’ by showing a series of
three of four still pictures that demonstrate the key skills of their ‘Ideal Hero’.
Tell the teams that one person should introduce each still picture and explain
how it demonstrates why their Hero is ideal for the mission.
Get each team to present their Hero to the rest of the group. If the whole class
is not working on the same mission then re-cap what the mission is before
each team presents.
Discuss the presentations focusing on how suitable the ‘Ideal Hero’ is for the
mission.
3.
(Speed) Mission Team Recruitment
Arrange the group so half are sitting in an inner circle and half are sitting in an
outer circle. The inner circle people should be facing outwards and the outer
circle people should be facing inwards, so everyone is sat opposite a partner.
Tell the people in the inner circle that they are to be a Hero character that is
about to set off on a mission and they need to recruit a team to go with them.
Give them a moment to decide what their Hero is called and what the mission
is.
Explain that they are to interview the people opposite them for the position of
team member.
Tell them that when you shout go they have one minute to introduce
themselves, explain what the mission is and to ask the person opposite
questions to see if they are the kind of person they want on their team.
Explain that the person being interviewed always wants to try and get on to
the team and they have to persuade the Hero that they would be a good team
member.
Shout ‘go’ and let the interviews commence.
After a minute or so stop them and ask the outer circle to move around one
space clockwise, so everyone has a new partner.
Continue to let the Hero’s interview new people for as long as it seems useful
to do so.
On the last go ask for volunteers to re-run their interviews for the rest of the
group to watch.
Re-run the exercise with the roles reversed. The people on the outer circle
are now being the heroes interviewing potential team members for their
mission.
Discuss the exercise focusing on:
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What kind of person did people need for their missions?
How do you know if you will be able to work well with someone?
What makes a good team?
Ideas for Follow-up Work
These are some ideas for work that you could do after seeing ‘Jason and the
Argonauts’.
These ideas are drama based but could be used as the basis for group
discussion or writing exercises. The exercises build on each other and work
as a complete unit but we also encourage you to use the ideas as a starting
point and adapt them to best suit the needs of your group.
We hope you find them useful and inspiring.
www.visiblefictions.co.uk
Character Recall
Ask the group to walk around the room at a steady pace without talking to or
bumping into anyone else. Ask them to try and fill any space they see.
When the group is focused and walking fluidly explain that you are going to
remind them of a character from the play and that you when you call ‘freeze’
they are to make a statue of that character, when you call ‘come to life’ they
are to walk around the room as that character, and when you call ‘normal
walking’ they are to continue to walk around the room as before.
Work through the following characters:
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Jason
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Aeson – Jason’s farther who appears to him in a dream
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Chiron – Jason’s stepfather, who looked after him after Jason’s farther
was killed.
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Pelias– Jason’s evil uncle who murdered Jason’s father and who Jason
fights for the throne.
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Hera – The queen of Heaven, who appears to Jason as an old woman
who he carries across the river of blood.
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Hercules – the strongest man in the world who thinks he should be the
captain of the Argo.
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Mopsus – an Argonaut – a natural philosopher who studies beasts and
birds and plants.
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Orpheus – an Argonaut – the greatest musician and poet in the world.
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Hylas – an Argonaut – beautiful and wise and a dab hand with a bow and
arrow.
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Medea – the witch princess, one of the guardians of the fleece who falls in
love with and runs away with Jason.
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Aeetes – The King of the End of the world, guardian of the fleece and
Medea’s father.
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Ceto – the sea monster
Character Recall Continued.
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Phineas – The wise King, blinded by the Gods for seeing the future too
clearly and tormented by the harpies.
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Harpy – The half woman, half bird creature sent by the gods to torment
Phineas.
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The dragon – who guards the fleece.
(These are all the characters form the play, if the group is getting restless and
finding it hard to focus, just work through the main characters.)
Discuss, focusing on:
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Which characters did you remember most clearly? Why do you think
this is?
Which characters did you like the most? Why?
Were there any characters you didn’t like? Why?
Character Swap
Divide the group up into pairs.
Explain that they are going to act out a conversation between Jason and one
of the other characters form the play and, like the actors did in the play, they
are going to swap roles.
Encourage each pair to find a good space to work in, it might be a good idea
to get them to draw around their ‘acting area’ with a piece of imaginary chalk.
They need to define an area where they have space to move but won’t be
entering other pair’s ‘acting area’.
Ask each pair to choose one of the other characters from the play for Jason to
have a conversation with. Tell them that they can choose one of the
characters who didn’t talk in the play (e.g. the dragon) but for this exercise
they will need to imagine that that character can talk.
They must keep within their acting area and there should be no physical
contact (thus no chasing about the room or fights).
Ask them to choose who is going to start as Jason and who is going to start
as the other character they have chosen.
Explain they are to have a conversation and that when you call out ‘swap
characters’ they are to swap over so whoever was playing Jason becomes the
other character, and vice-versa (just like the actors did in the play) and keep
the conversation running as smoothly as possible.
Run the exercise, and then watch some (or all) of the pairs. Discuss each
one focusing on:
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How smoothly did they manage the change over?
What was the conversation about?
How would you describe Jason’s relationship with this character?
Be brave or afraid?
Ask the group to recall what Medea says to Jason near the end of the play,
just before he is going to fight Phineas:
‘If you’re not afraid of anything, you can’t really be brave – you’re just stupid.
And if you’re not brave you can’t be a hero. So to be a hero you have to be
afraid.’
Divide the group up into groups of 4 or 5.
Ask them to choose a moment from the story when Jason needed to be brave
but he was feeling afraid.
Explain that they are to create two ‘tableaux’ (still pictures) of that moment,
one where Jason is feeling afraid and one when he is feeling brave.
The groups will need to think about who else is in the picture and how they
are feeling when Jason is feeling afraid and when he is feeling brave.
Explain that when they show the tableaux, that you are going to come round
and tap each character on the shoulder and they are to say what they are
thinking at that moment. This is called ‘thought track’.
Give them time to prepare and then ask each group to show the ‘afraid
tableaux’, ‘thought track’ it and then discuss:
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Why is Jason afraid?
How is Jason’s fear effecting the others in the tableaux?
What could help Jason be brave?
Next, show the ’brave tableaux’, ‘thought track’ it and then discuss:
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Why does Jason need to be brave?
What is helping Jason be brave?
How is Jason’s bravery affecting the others in the tableaux?