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"This young company from LIPA are clearly committed to good storytelling."



- Petra Schofield, THEATRE BATH



FIRST WORLD WAR POETRY DRAMA WORKSHOP



Suitability: For children ages from 12 and up

Also for Adults of all ages


Length: 1 hour minimum - 3 hours max


Requirements: A space / studio + print outs of poem (1 sheet per 2 people)


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First developed at Rickmansworth School in 206 as part of our UK tour of Not About Heroes, we created a workshop perfect for students that spans over multiple disciplines:

  • Drama
  • History
  • English

Our workshop consists of studying First World War poet Wilfred Owen's most haunting pieces of writing: Dulce Et Decorum Est


The narrator of the poem describes witnessing a gas attack in No Man's Land and touches on themes of post traumatic stress disorder. The poem is an anti-war poem, and condemns the propaganda of the day, where children were being told "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (it is sweet and right to die for one's country).


We not only study and break down the poem with the class, but we figure out a way to stage it as a class, or split off into smaller groups.


Before working on dramatising the poem, we spend time on addressing the context of the poem, and how the First World War was different to any other war preceding or proceeding it.


When acting out the poem, we have an array of sound effects to aid the student's storytelling, but encourage the students to create their own sound effects.



DULCE ET DECORUM EST
by WilFRED OWEN (1883-1918)



Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.


Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.



BOOK A SCHOOL VISIT FOR REMEMBRANCE WEEK


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