Lesson Plan Two
Starter Activity
Look again at Act One Scene One. Read it through in groups of three: one person should read and consider each of Hardy and Osborne and the third the Stage Directions, which are crucial here in setting the scene. Do not proceed until you are very confident about the tone and register of all that is said and, especially, where the scene gets to.
Main Activity
We have already established that the scene tells us about three critical issues: the imminence of the German attack, the arrival of a ‘new officer ‘and two points: the leadership skills and alcoholic proclivities of Stanhope.
What more do we learn which prepares us for what is to follow and where exactly, later in the play, do they reassert themselves?
You may come up with some or all of the following:-
- Hardy: They simply blew us to bits yesterday. Minnies — enormous ones; about twenty. Three bang in the trench. I really am glad you’ve come; I’m not simply being polite.
- Hardy : By the way, you know the big German attack’s expected any day now ?
- Osborne : It’s been expected for the last month.
- Hardy : Yes, but it’s very near now ; there’s funny things happening over in the Boche country. I’ve been out listening at night when it’s quiet. There’s more transport than usual coming up — you can hear it rattling over the pave all night; more trains in the distance — puffing up and going away again, one after another, bringing up loads and loads of men.
- In the trenches impressions are formed as much by hearing as by sight which is very much more restricted: getting out of the trench was near certain death; magnifying ‘Field’ glasses were of limited use, as were periscopes. Air observation and reconnaissance grew in effectiveness throughout the…
