This Volpone teachers’ pack accompanies Tangle Theatre Company's current UK tour. It is easy to access and well laid out in four main sections: ‘About Tangle’ explores the company's ethos including the Bantu term ‘ubuntu’ meaning human kindness. There is a very interesting section on township theatre and how Tangle's productions combine Southern African township and collective techniques with Western approaches.
The background information section looks at the historical context of Volpone as well as exploring Ben Jonson and the Renaissance and includes a detailed plot summary and list of themes. In addition, the pack touches on language, poetic forms, sonnets and songs.
‘Tangle in Performance’ explores Tangle's style and production values and includes interviews with the theatre and sound designers as well as the music designer/composer and the director. This section in particular would be useful for KS5 if Volpone was going to be the live performance used for examination work. This section ends with a range of themed exercises/activities and some text extracts. These include warm up exercises, vocal work and movement activities used by Tangle which would also be a useful resource for GCSE or A level classes.
The final section of the pack includes resources, activities and lesson plans some of which are explicitly linked to the Arts Award which offers young people the opportunity to use their interests in the arts to gain a qualification.
The tasks and activities are predominantly suitable for use in KS2/KS3 across a range of subjects including drama, English, art and design, music, dance, PE, humanities, RE and PSHE. Many of the KS2 activities are based on ideas from history, art geography, RE, music and PSHE and don't rely on students having seen the play, meaning they could be used in conjunction with the plot summary, historical information and text extracts in the pack.