Male dominance (Week Five)

Wednesday 25th March

In this session, we began by going back to the beginning of the play and working on each individual scene in detail. Today we worked on scenes two, three and four where Procne and Philomele are admiring the soldiers, Tereus takes Procne as his prize, and when Pronce is with the Female Chorus discussing how she wants to see her sister.

Scene Two

For this scene, we discussed how we can bring this to life. We talked about how Philomele is seen to be a little child and is constantly full of energy and very playful when talking to Procne. This part of the play is seen to be quite comical as they are supposed to be talking about the biology of men. We wanted to show that it was two girls giggling about men.

Scene Three

In this scene, it is clear that Tereus holds all the power, to show this, we discussed how he should stand very proud with his head held high. We thought that Tereus should be in the kings face about taking Procne as if to order him to give her away.

Scene Four

In this scene, the female chorus are considered to be quite rough looking in comparison to Procne. To show this we stood with our arms crossed, our backs slouched, mimes smoking cigarettes and our language was not considered to be properly spoken. We are also not interested in being friends with Procne as she has very little interest in them and their cultures so to show this we showed very little eye contact with her and we were always trying to move away from her.

Thursday 26th March

In this session we talked about male dominance. This is when men take control and see themselves as a higher status than women. This is one of the major themes of the play as men are always trying to over power people, especially Tereus.

• We discussed some key words/ Phrases that defied the meaning of male dominance:
• Power over women
• Rebelling against people
• Pressure
• Proud of themselves - They see power as being something to be proud of
• Intimidation - People can be made to feel intimidated by men dominating over them
• Control
• Possession - See women as trophies
• Higher status - No-one else will ever be better than them.

Three phrases that relate to the theme of male dominance

Tereus - you call this frivolous (he seizes her) ---This is showing his dominance through physical movement as Philomele tries to leave but can't as he grabs her to bring her back to where he wants her.

Niobe - The one alive who cannot speak, that one has truly lost all power. --- This shows male dominance as Niobe is discussing that silencing Philomele has took any power she had left away from her

Itys - A slave, a girl slave holding my sword! --- This shows Male dominance as Itys can't believe that a slave who is also a girl is holding his sword as if to say "as if a slave wasn't bad enough, a girl slave as well"