Teachers often tell us that they struggle to find resources specifically for the most able students and this product solves this problem. This is an A4, photocopiable booklet of critical essays. You could perhaps use the essays at regular intervals throughout the year for reading homework, to ensure that your students gain sophisticated and perceptive interpretations when creating their own performance concept for the play, or hold university-style lectures using the essays as your starting point.

Each essay tackles themes, issues, style and critical interpretations of the play and encourages students to analyse the play from a directorial perspective and consider how they might present key aspects of the play to a twenty first century audience. All essays include key quotations from the play, alternative interpretations for consideration and each essay is followed by a breakdown of key directorial considerations to serve as revision of key areas for students.

The essays will prompt students to develop their own interpretations of the play further, encouraging them to consider debates surrounding the play, political thinking in relation to the text, make creative decisions, consider the use of dramatic elements and will challenge students to consider perspectives they may not have already done so. The essays will stretch your students and encourage them to reach their artistic potential with this text.

Topics covered within the booklet include:
-Looking at the play from a fatalist perspective
-Exploring the theme of fools and madness
-Analysing the use of premonitions
-Tragic elements of the play
-Woyzeck's role as a revolutionary
-Using other practitioners and theatrical styles as a source of inspiration
-Representations of gender
-Psychological realism
-The complex relationships presented in the play