Edexcel GCSE Drama: Designing Drama

DESIGN TIP Think which character(s) you would like to design a costume for. ‘Hansel and Gretel’ has the structure of a nightmare. A few domestic objects – buckets, a knife, a blanket, a plate, a jug, an axe – create both the house and the forest and appear in the Witch’s house. The Mother also reappears, grotesque, as the Witch. A chorus of three is always present, and active. […] The story is one of starvation, terror and catharsis. The rhythms of speech are taut and violent, containing the fearful tensions and, finally, joyous release of the drama. Night after hungry night, he lay in bed next to his thin wife, and he worried so much that he tossed and he turned and he sighed and he mumbled and moaned and he just couldn’t sleep at all. […] Hansel Now, Hansel and Gretel had been so hungry that night that they hadn’t been able to sleep either, and they’d heard every cruel word of their mother’s terrible plan. […] And when their father and mother had finally gone to sleep, Hansel got up, put on his coat, opened the back door, and crept out into the midnight hour. […] Hansel bent down and filled his empty pockets with as many pebbles as he could carry. […] Mother Then she gave each of them a miserable mouthful of bread: ‘There’s your lunch; think yourselves lucky, and don’t eat it all at once, because there’s nothing else.’ Gretel Gretel put the bread in her apron pocket, because Hansel’s pockets were crammed with pebbles. Father Then the whole family set off along the path to the forest. COSTUME Style? – Germanic? Period? – Victorian? Modern? Times of famine, hunger, starvation Freedom of movement Woodcutter: Poor; works outdoors – manual Outer clothes: Boots? Waistcoat? Belt? Pouch? Nightwear? Wife: Thin: angular silhouette – a hard woman Hansel: 8? Coat: Threadbare – with pockets – size? Gretel: 6 or 7? Apron with pocket – size? Father It was no more than once upon a time when a poor woodcutter lived in a small house at the edge of a huge, dark forest. Now, the woodcutter lived with his wife and his two young children – a boy called Hansel and a little girl called Gretel. It was hard enough for him to feed them all at the best of times – but these were the worst of times; times of famine and hunger and starvation. […] Where does the bread come from? Chapter 6 Component 2: Designing for the Performance from Text 185