Developing physical theatre

Sarah Brown
Edgar Allen Poe's A Tell-Tale Heart
Working in groups for the staging and blocking of parts of A Tell-Tale Heart

1. (About the old man’s heart) "it grew quicker and quicker"

we wanted someone to play the old man who is laying on the floor and a person playing the narrator watching him sleeping and we want some people to get the sticks and make a large heart and make it pulsate slowly and then grow quicker as the narrator of the story grows closer to the old man and then play out the murder scene, we want the narrator to read the whole paragraph during the scene. Starting from that line “it grew quicker and quicker” up to end line of "his eye would trouble me no more" and for the pulsating of the heart to just suddenly stop representing the old man’s death.

2. "As the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier"

We again wanted someone to play as the old man asleep on the bed and someone playing the narrator watching him and for there to be some other classmates to stand in an orderly line and stand straight and pretend to be soldiers, but as the old man lies there and becomes uncomfortable we want them to start marching and pretending to play the drums with the sticks, to represent how the old man’s heart is becoming anxious. Whilst this is happening maybe for the narrator to shout out the line "as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier" or read out the start line “it was open—wide, wide open” up to the finishing line "as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier" and we then want to narrator to play out the murder scene and end when it is clear the old man is dead.

3."Because death in approaching him"

A person playing the old man lying on the floor sleeping and as he's sleeping a person playing the narrator standing there watching and we want some class mates to play death and approach the bed slowly and in a very sinister kind of way gather round the bed and maybe touch the old man or just circle round him at this point we want the old man to look anxious or make it seem like a bad dream as if he is sensing something there.