News

[DAS]

George Bernard Show 1856-1950 (Biography)

Part 1

 

 

   George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland on 26th July 1856. He came from middle class family and received good education. In 1876, Shaw moved to London to become a writer. He was fascinated with languages, English in particular.

    Most of his early plays focused on social problems, but the audience didn’t like it at the start. Some of his plays such as ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’, ‘Major Barbara’, ‘The Doctor's Dilemma’ and ‘Saint Joan’ got much appreciation and became his greatest successes on the stage. In 1912 he wrote his most famous play, Pygmalion, and in 1938 it was turned into a film. It was very successful and Shaw was awarded an Oscar for his screenplay. He lived the rest of his life as a famous person, interested in dramatics until his death. Shaw still remains one of the most important writers in the English language who helped to form the theatre of his time.

Part 2

 

1

     Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m.  It is raining cats and dogs. People are trying to hide in the market and in St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people. Everyone is looking sadly at the heavy rain, except one man with his back turned to the other people, who is very busy writing something in his notebook.

2

Freddy was trying to get a cab for his mother and sister, so that they could get home. But while he was looking for one he bumped into a flower girl and all her flowers fell into the mud. The flower girl is eighteen or twenty and she is not very attractive. She is wearing old and poor clothes, her boots are very dirty, her hair needs washing, too and the language she speaks can’t be called English, because it is very simple and full of mistakes.

3
The note taker.  Do you see this poor flower girl with her terrible English?  Well, sir, in three months I could teach her manners and fluent English and pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. 
The gentleman.  I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and—¬
The note taker. Are you?  Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?
The gentleman.  I am Colonel Pickering.  Who are you?
The note taker.  Henry Higgins, author of Higgins’s Universal
Alphabet.

4

Pickering [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.
Higgins.  And I was going to India to meet you. Where did you stay?
Pickering.  At the Carlton hotel. 
Higgins. Let's go to my place. We will have a talk at supper.
Flower girl. Can you buy any of my flowers? I am giving the whole basket for sixpence!
Higgins raises his hat, throws a handful of money into her basket and goes away.
Flower girl. Wow, it’s much more than sixpence here! It’s a lot of money, what a lucky day!! I am going home by taxi!

Part 3

 

1

Next day at 11 a.m.  Higgins’s laboratory in Wimpole Street. Colonel Pickering is sitting at the table.  Higgins is standing near him. Higgins is a strong, lively man of forty. He is dressed in a professional black coat with a white shirt and a black silk tie.  He is an energetic person and is very interested in science.

2

[Mrs. Pearce, Higgin’s housekeeper looks in]
Mrs. Pearce.  A young woman wants to see you, sir.
Higgins [to Pickering] Let’s have a look at her. Invite her in, Mrs. Pearce.
The flower girl enters in state. Her clothes are cleaner than last time, but they are still a little dirty and very strange.
Higgins. Why, I met this girl last night.  She’s not useful to me now.  [To the girl] Please, go away.  I don’t need you anymore.

3

The flower girl.  Listen to me first. I came here for lessons and I can pay for them, too.  I want to be a lady in a flower shop but they will not take me, if I don’t learn to speak more gently and learn manners.
Higgins.  What’s your name?
The flower girl.  Liza Doolittle.
Higgins.  How much do you want to pay for a lesson?
Liza.  Well, you are going to teach me my own language so I won’t give more than a shilling.  And that’s all I can give!
Higgins.  Pickering, She earns about half-a-crown a day and she offers me two-fifths or 40 per cent of her day’s income for a lesson.  It’s quite a lot! My god, it’s the biggest offer I ever had!

4

Pickering.  Higgins:  I’m interested.  What about the ambassador’s garden party?  You are the best teacher ever! You will teach her and I’ll pay for the lessons.
Higgins.  All right!  Eliza:  you are going to live here for the next six months and learn how to speak beautifully, like a lady. If you study well , you shall sleep in a bedroom, and have lots to eat, money to buy chocolates and take rides in a taxi. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If you’re bad and lazy you will sleep in the back kitchen with black beetles!. Is that clear? Mrs. Pearce, take her to the bath-room now!

Part 4

 

1

Eliza worked with Professor Higgins for hours every day, learning to speak the English language the way a lady would speak it. Higgins made Eliza repeat the same sounds over and over again until she was very tired, while he was walking about with room restlessly.
“Stop and say it again,” Higgins would say, roaring with anger.
“I can’t,” Eliza would .
It was hard work, Eliza often was frustrated and angry, she shouted at Professor Higgins and refused to speak anymore. If Colonel Pickering wasn’t so reassuring and gentle, Eliza would have run into the street. However, one day Higgins decided it was time to introduce Eliza to some upper-class people.

2

The big day arrived. Higgins was about to find out if he would win his bet. He and the Colonel Pickering accompanied Eliza to the Ambassador’s party.
“Are you nervous, Colonel?” asked Eliza.
“Frightfully. It is like my first time in a battle,” said Pickering.
“It’s not the first time for me,” said Eliza. “I have done this hundreds of times in my dreams. I am in a dream now. Promise not to wake me because I will forget everything and talk as I used to.”

3

As they went up the staircase, a servant announced them to the Ambassador and his wife.
“Is that your daughter, Colonel? She will make a big impression,” the hostess said to Pickering, “She speaks English perfectly.”
“I say she is a common girl taught to speak by an expert,” said Higgins, who had been chatting with the hostess.
“Oh no, I completely disagree with you!”, the hostess said. “She must be a princess at least.”

4

When the group broke up, Eliza joined Higgins and Pickering.
“I cannot do this anymore. This lady has just told me I spoke exactly like Queen Victoria. I am sorry I have lost your bet. I shall never be the same as these people.”
“You have not lost it, dear. You have won it ten times over!” said Pickering triumphantly.

[DAS]

Margaret Mitchell 1900-1949 (biography)

 

Margaret Mitchell was born on November 8, 1900, in Atlanta, Georgia, in an Irish-Catholic family. When Margaret was a child, she loved to make up stories and wrote more than 100 adventure books.
     In 1918, Mitchell joined Smith College in Massachusetts. Four months later, her mother died and Mitchell returned to Atlanta, where she met Berrien Kinnard Upshaw. They got married in 1922, but four months later Upshaw left for the Midwest and didn’t come back.

     After that, Mitchell got a job in the ‘Atlanta Journal’ Sunday magazine, where she wrote more than 130 articles. She married John Robert Marsh in 1925, but her journalist career ended quickly because of the broken leg. While Margaret had to stay at home, she began writing Gone With the Wind, a romantic novel about the history of the South and the tragedy of the war.

     Gone With the Wind was published in 1936, had huge success and got the  Pulitzer award in 1937. Mitchell became famous, and the film based on her novel came out just three years later and became a classic, too. It won eight Oscars and 2 special Oscars.

     During World War II, Mitchell had no time to write, because she worked for the American Red Cross. And on August 11, 1949, she was struck by a car while crossing a street and died five days later. Gone With the Wind was her only novel, which had a great effect on American literature.

Part 1

 

1

     Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men could never understand it. They were caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face she had the delicate features of her mother, and the heavy ones of her Irish father. Her eyes were green with long black lashes and her skin was milky-white, like a flower ‘magnolia’.

2

     One bright April afternoon of 1861 she was sitting with Stuart and Brent Tarleton near the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation. Scarlett was very pretty at that moment. She was wearing a long green flowered dress and green morocco slippers, bought by her father in Atlanta. The green eyes in her sweet face were bright, vivid, lively and very different from her polite manners, the result of her mammy’s strict discipline.
 
3

     On both sides of her, the Tarleton twins were sitting in their chairs, looking at the sunlight, laughing and talking. Their six feet tall nineteen-year old bodies were strong with muscles and full of life. They had sunburned faces, happy eyes and bright red hair. Both of them were wearing blue coats and dark yellow trousers, which made them look very much alike.

4

     In the driveway, there were two horses, red as their masters’ hair; and a couple of nervous dogs that followed Stuart and Brent wherever they went. The twins had the power and energy of country people who have spent all their lives in the outside and troubled their heads very little with dull things in books. This was the reason why they had just been expelled from the University of Georgia, the fourth university for the last two years. They knew, their mother was a hot-tempered woman and that she wouldn’t be pleased to hear the bad news and would surely punish them for that. A single thought of it made them feel uncomfortable.

Part 2

 

1

     It was dark in the library. The room was filled with dark books and it depressed Scarlett. She started to think it wasn’t the right place for her serious talk with Ashley.
     She closed the door and tried to make her heart beat more slowly. Scarlett tried to think of what she had planned to tell him, but she couldn’t remember anything. All she could think of was that she loved everything in him - from his golden hair to his dark boots. He had to love her, too!

2

“Ah, Scarlett!” said Ashley,opening the door and looking at her with a smile “What are you doing here?.
“Ashey, I’ve got a secret to tell you”
 “What is it?” he asked. “A secret to tell me?”
 “Yes-a secret. I love you.”

3

But Ashley said nothing.
 “Ashey,” she said after a moment of silence “Don’t you want to-to marry me?”
He replied, “I’m going to marry Melanie. “She is like me, part of my blood, and we understand each other. And you, Scarlett, are so young and unthinking that you do not know what marriage is. What’s more, you have a passion for life that I haven’t and will never have! Me and you are too different!”

4

When Scarlett heard about Melanie, she remembered how much she hated her, her pale face, her little hands and her manners.
“You are a coward, Ashley!” she cried - “You’re afraid to marry me! You’d rather live with that stupid little girl who opens her little mouth only to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and only talks with losers just like her! I shall hate you till I die, Ashley!”

She cried that in anger and slapped him across the face. After that she understood, she wasn’t angry with him anymore but her heart was empty.
Ashley said nothing and went away, closing the door softly behind him.

Part 3

 

1

     Scarlett sat down again trying to understand what she had done. Ashley was gone and his stricken face was still fresh in her memory. She had lost him forever. Now he would hate her and remember all that had happened.
She picked up a little china rose-vase and threw it over the sofa at the fireplace. The vase crashed into many pieces.
“This,” said a voice from behind the sofa, “is too much.”

2

    Scarlett was so afraid that she couldn’t say a word. Rhett Butler rose from the sofa where he had been lying and greeted her politely.
    He was real. He wasn’t a ghost. Scarlett tried to calm herself down but was very angry with him because he had heard everything.

3

 “Sir,” she said, “you are no gentleman!”
“Right you are,” he answered with a smile. “And, you, Miss, are no lady. No one can be a lady after saying and doing what I have just heard”. But, my dear Miss O’Hara, you are an unusual  girl, very unusual, and I respect you for that. I just can’t understand what you see in this elegant Mr. Wilkes. He should thank God for a girl with your-how did he say it?-’passion for living,’ but…”

4

“You aren’t fit to clean his boots!” Scarlett shouted in rage.
“And you were going to hate him all your life!” He sat down on the sofa and she heard him laughing.
She wanted to kill him that very moment. But instead, she walked out of the room and banged the heavy door behind her.

Part 4

 

1

The war between the North and the South has started. The Yankees were coming. The army was leaving. What should she do? Where should she run?
Suddenly she thought of Rhett Butler and calmed down. She hated him, but he was strong and smart and he wasn’t afraid of the Yankees. He was still in town. And he had a horse and carriage, too. Oh, why hadn’t she thought of him before! He could take them all away from this terrible place, away from the Yankees!
She called her servant girl and said: “Prissy, find Rhett Buttler! Only he can help!” And Prissy ran away.

2

Scarlett was waiting on the porch for Rhett to come. It seemed hours before he came. At last, she saw him far up the road and rushed to greet him. Even in this situation, Rhett was very well and fashionably dressed and in the belt of his trousers he had 2 dueling pistols.  His pockets were full with ammunition.
 “Good evening,” he said, “I heard you were going to take a trip.”
“If you make any jokes, I will never speak to you again,” she said with trembling voice “I am scared to death and we haven’t got time to talk. We must get out of here.”
“At your service, Madam. But, where are you going?”
 “I’m going home, to Tara! Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!”
 “There, there, darling,” he said softly. “Don’t cry. You shall go home, my brave little girl. You shall go home. Don’t cry.”

3

The wagon was very small and the horse was not very fast. Scarlett’s teeth chattered, she was very cold and frightened.
“Hurry!” It was the only word in her mind. Hurry! Hurry!
“Soldiers,” said Rhett Butler and stopped the horse.
The group of soldiers came down Marietta Street, between the burning buildings. They looked very tired, many of them didn’t have boots and they had bad, torn clothes.

Ahead of them was a tunnel of fire where buildings were burning on both sides of the short, narrow street that led to the railroad. Rhett whipped the horse and they jumped into it. Scarlett  thanked God for his presence. It was so good to have such a man near her.

4

“Oh, Rhett,” she whispered, “What would I have ever done without you? I’m so glad you aren’t in the army!”
He turned his head and looked at her strictly.
“We’re out of town now,” said Rhett shortly and stopped the horse, “and on the main road.”
“Hurry. Don’t stop!”
“Let the animal have a rest. The horse is tired”
Please, Rhett, let’s go home. The horse isn’t tired.”
“Just a minute. It’s only YOU who is going home. And I am leaving you.”
“Leaving us? Where-where are you going?”
“I am going, dear girl, with the army.”
Scarlett thought he was joking. But he wasn’t.
“Get out,” he ordered.
She was just looking at him. Rhett caught her under the arms and put on the ground beside him.
“I’m not asking you to understand or forgive me” he said “But our fair Southland needs every man. I love you so much, my dear Scarlett. But I must be going. I’m off to the war.”
And he kissed her.

Part 5

 

1

“Oh No, Rhett” she cried. “All I know is that you do not love me and you are going away! Oh, my darling, if you go, what shall I do?”
He waited for a moment and then said:
“Scarlett, I don’t want to pick up broken fragments anymore and stick them together. What is broken is broken. Perhaps, if I were younger- may be. But I’m too old to believe in such things. I’m too old to listen to your lies. I can’t live with you and lie to you and I certainly can’t lie to myself. I can’t even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I don’t.”
 “My dear, I don’t really care.”

2

    Scarlett silently watched Rhett go upstairs, feeling that she would die from the pain in her heart. She knew now that he had been sure about every word he said. She knew because she felt in him something strong and unusual. Something she had looked for in Ashley and never found.

3

She had never understood the two men she had loved and so she had lost them both. Now, she knew that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him. She wasn’t sure if she had ever really understood anyone in the world.

4

There was sadness in her heart now, a sadness that she knew would become a strong pain.
“I won’t think of it now,” she thought. “I’ll go crazy if I think about losing him now. I’ll think of it tomorrow.”
“But,” cried her heart, “I can’t let him go! There must be some way!”
She could get Rhett back. She knew she could.
“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.

[DAS]

    To DAS.
    For understanding the play and the musicale we need the scenes where Higgins and Pickering teach the girl how to pronounce English sounds and then the reception where Eliza does her best.

    To Ann.
    I realise you are right, but unfortunately both of these scenes aren't present in the play. It is only implied that the lessons actually took place as Eliza's pronunciation becomes better and better. The 'reception' part is also omitted - at the end of ACT III they leave for the reception, and at the beginning of ACT IV they come back.

[DAS]

My Fair Lady slides (Part 2)

 

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3

4

5

[DAS]

My Fair Lady Slides (part 1)

 

1

2

3

4

5

[asdfg]

To Ann for approval

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJr9SSJKkII" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJr9SSJKkII</a>

[Ann]

    To DAS.
    I enjoyed all the episodes you've chosen.   
    For understanding the play and the musicale we need the scenes where Higgins and Pickering teach the girl how to pronounce English sounds and then the reception where Eliza does her best.
    Of course there are  some more which are funny and unforgettable, but I am not  exactly sure we'll be able to include them all into our strict structure.

[DAS]

To Ann. Understood. What other episodes should we include?

[DAS]

1

Next day at 11 a.m.  Higgins’s laboratory in Wimpole Street. Colonel Pickering is sitting at the table.  Higgins is standing near him. Higgins is a strong, lively man of forty. He is dressed in a professional black coat with a white shirt and a black silk tie.  He is an energetic person and is very interested in science.

2

[Mrs. Pearce, Higgin’s housekeeper looks in]
Mrs. Pearce.  A young woman wants to see you, sir.
Higgins [to Pickering] Let’s have a look at her. Invite her in, Mrs. Pearce.
The flower girl enters in state. Her clothes are cleaner than last time, but they are still a little dirty and very strange.
Higgins. Why, I met this girl last night.  She’s not useful to me now.  [To the girl] Please, go away.  I don’t need you anymore.

3

The flower girl.  Listen to me first. I came here for lessons and I can pay for them, too.  I want to be a lady in a flower shop but they will not take me, if I don’t learn to speak more gently and learn manners.
Higgins.  What’s your name?
The flower girl.  Liza Doolittle.
Higgins.  How much do you want to pay for a lesson?
Liza.  Well, you are going to teach me my own language so I won’t give more than a shilling.  And that’s all I can give!
Higgins.  Pickering, She earns about half-a-crown a day and she offers me two-fifths or 40 per cent of her day’s income for a lesson.  It’s quite a lot! My god, it’s the biggest offer I ever had!

4

Pickering.  Higgins:  I’m interested.  What about the ambassador’s garden party?  You are the best teacher ever! You will teach her and I’ll pay for the lessons.
Higgins.  All right!  Eliza:  you are going to live here for the next six months and learn how to speak beautifully, like a lady. If you study well , you shall sleep in a bedroom, and have lots to eat, money to buy chocolates and take rides in a taxi. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If you’re bad and lazy you will sleep in the back kitchen with black beetles!. Is that clear? Mrs. Pearce, take her to the bath-room now!

[Ann]

     To DAS. The extracts from Bernard Shaw could be used.  Please continue to introduce the further ones and try to introduce "My Fair lady".

[DAS]

1

     Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m.  It is raining cats and dogs. People are trying to hide in the market and in St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people. Everyone is looking sadly at the heavy rain, except one man with his back turned to the other people, who is very busy writing something in his notebook.

2

Freddy was trying to get a cab for his mother and sister, so that they could get home. But while he was looking for one he bumped into a flower girl and all her flowers fell into the mud. The flower girl is eighteen or twenty and she is not very attractive. She is wearing old and poor clothes, her boots are very dirty, her hair needs washing, too and the language she speaks can’t be called English, because it is very simple and full of mistakes.

3

The note taker.  Do you see this poor flower girl with her terrible English?  Well, sir, in three months I could teach her manners and fluent English and pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. 
The gentleman.  I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and—¬
The note taker. Are you?  Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?
The gentleman.  I am Colonel Pickering.  Who are you?
The note taker.  Henry Higgins, author of Higgins’s Universal
Alphabet.

4

Pickering [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.
Higgins.  And I was going to India to meet you.
Pickering.  I stayed at the Carlton hotel.  Come with me now and let’s have a talk and a supper.
Flower girl. Can you buy any of my flowers? I am giving the whole basket for sixpence!
Higgins raises his hat, throws a handful of money into her basket and goes away.
Flower girl. Wow, it’s much more than sixpence here! It’s a lot of money, what a lucky day!! I am going home by taxi!

[DAS]

     To DAS. The slides are good. Go on like this.
     The surprise to me is: they all look much older then they are supposed to be at the beginning of the book, but it can't be helped.

Ann, thanks a lot! Oh, yes! Only sir Rhett Butler meets his age more or less.

[Ann]

     To DAS. The slides are good. Go on like this.
     The surprise to me is: they all look much older then they are supposed to be at the beginning of the book, but it can't be helped.

[DAS]

Часть 2

3) 1, 2 Бегство из Атланты

4) 3, 4, 5 Последний эпизод. Расставание Скарлетт и Ретта

 

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2

3

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5

[DAS]

Слайды "Унессенные Ветром"

Часть 1

1) 1-2   Скарлетт и близнецы

2) 3, 4, 5  Ссора с Эшли и знакомство с Реттом Батлером