THE DEVISING PROCESS
TERM 4 2026
Week 1 - Introduction to the Play’s themes and the 2027 Monster Year at Goat Track. In 2027, students in our Fast Track Productions will be investigating the concept of the “MONSTER” in their plays and honing in specifically on the Norse Myth of “Beowulf & Grendel”. This will not be a word for word retelling but rather a critical interpretation of the story and the ideas. We discussed the concept of THE WALL, that the wall is the physical mode of separation of a village that divides them, physically and mentally. We discovered that we needed an event to enable the separation and everyone agreed that “THE PLAGUE” was a viable option for enforcing a wall. This wall has then separated families and divided the community. This separation and the plague is what has created the monster. We presented a possible mood board so that we could narrow down the style and palette of the production: Gothic Norse, Shadow Puppetry, Movement & Physical Theatre, Live music. See MOOD BOARD pictures below.
Week 2 - We started with the game of Chinese Whispers to start the conversation about how gossip can build a character. Grendel is a construction of the villages gossip rather than a real world representation. We had discussions around the backstory of Grendel and Beowulf and the class has decided that they wanted the original family of three to be Mother, Grendel and baby (later to be discovered Beowulf). When the Wall is constructed they are separated leaving the baby behind. Hrothgar sends the baby north to covered up the fact that families have been separated as a result of his wall being built. We spoke at length about the initial opening scene which has been written up as the epilogue. See LINK.
Week 3 - Todays lesson was purely focusing on the central characters and the potential hero’s journey structure. Below is a list of characters we brainstormed and some of the ideas for the structure of the play. These will be refined and presented by Louise in the following lesson.
Week 4 - We revised the Story Structure for The Wall in class. The document link is below for the ideas shared in class. This is a working structure as I’m sure as we get through the next couple of weeks there will be new ideas that will emerge. As always your input is critical and you must keep providing ideas so we can have rigorous debate on the play.
In this devised scene we discussed that the following structure needs to be implemented: 1) initial entry into the Great Hall of Heorot with a ritualistic feel to convey the importance of the event about to take place, 2) Hrothgar retells the story of the wall and it is being presented on the table clothe via shadow puppetry, 3) Grendel attacks and Leif is killed (brother of Ysra), 4) The village demands action as the wall is no longer protecting us from Grendel. 5) Beowulf is summoned.
I really loved the comic dialogue and use of ceremonial pomp used in this scene. There was a clear sense of power and status among the characters in not only the physical set of the scene but also the dialogue used. Well done guys!
Week 5