Soap opera

This lesson begins with a warm-up sometimes known as ‘the bubblegum sketch’. In pairs, students look at delivering a duologue using a range of different styles. A selection of students show and evaluate their work. This is followed by a discussion on the main elements and characters of the soap opera genre. Students are given a scenario that they have to improvise in the style of a soap opera, in the characters they chose for the bubblegum sketch. The lesson ends with a whole group discussion.

Objectives

• To understand how style can change the meaning in a piece.
• To create a piece of drama in a specific style.
• To develop more knowledge about stock characters in a soap opera.

Starter

Prepare students to play ‘the bubblegum sketch’. Place two chairs in the centre of the performance space, next to each other, to form a park bench. Explain that the chairs cannot be moved. All performers must exit and enter from the sides of the stage. Set up a rota of performing and being the audience so that when not performing, the class act as an audience, and at the end of the activity all students have participated as performers and as audience.

Explain the scenario: One character enters chewing gum. When the flavour goes, they stick the gum somewhere on the park bench. When another character enters, they will get stuck to the gum, peel it off and then stick the gum to somewhere else on the bench. All characters should be stereotypes, eg a businessman, a school kid, etc. Encourage students to be original and choose as many different characters as possible. Explain that this is a spontaneous improvisation. The teacher can act as the first character to give an example.

This is a comedy, played as a mime but with occasional sounds or words. The idea is to make the audience laugh at the way in which the characters get stuck to the gum and how they get out of the situation. You may wish to explain that students should remember which character they played, since they will need this role later in the lesson.

What character can you play? How can you make it funny (think about your facial expression, body language and use of movement)? How can you respond in a positive way as a member of the audience?

Response

All students read the following duologues:

Pop culture: Duologues

As a class, discuss what the situations in the duologues could be.

What clues are there in the text about the situations and the characters?

Introduce the following styles of delivering a text. You may wish to use one of the duologues to demonstrate an example of each of the styles:

Pop culture: Styles

Ask the students to form pairs. Each pair should choose a duologue to work on, and a style from the selection. Alternatively you may wish to allocate a style to each pair. Students develop a duologue using a style. Circulate the class, ensuring that the students understand the differences between the styles.

How can you show this style using the text?

Choose one pair per style to demonstrate each style to the rest of the class. Ask students to watch how the style changes the drama. Hold a brief whole group discussion on how the mood of the drama changed with the style.

What were the differences between the scenes? Which were the most convincing?

Development

Introduce the main elements of soap opera. Elicit a list of characteristics, such as:

• stock characters, eg the old person who gossips, the young tearaway, the comics
• short scenes linking characters together
• continuous storylines, with shorter stories as well as long sagas
• a central location, eg a pub
• a realistic setting, with a close-knit community
• realistic acting.

Which elements are needed in a soap opera?

Explain to students that they are to develop the characters they chose in the initial exercise (the bubblegum sketch) and adapt them to the style of a soap opera.

Who were you? How can this person fit in a soap opera?

Introduce the soap opera scenario: Inform the students that all the characters have been involved in or were witness to a fire in the pub. Many of the characters may have ideas as to why this fire has happened. Students may refer to real soap opera characters and situations if they wish, for the moment, to help them understand the genre better. Organise the class into groups of three or pairs. In these groups, they should take turns to be a reporter or member of the police, and interview the soap opera characters in their group.

How would your character react to the situation? How does your character respond to the interviewer?

Extension task

Plenary

Bring the whole class together and discuss how each character suited the style of a soap opera.

Homework

Ask students to do one of the following activities from the following handout. You may wish to use the others as extension tasks in this lesson or in a future one. Students will need access to the Internet to complete the task:

Pop culture: Scripting a soap opera