Activities

The following questions and activities incorporate various components of the Sunshine State Standards for Theatre, Language Arts and Social Studies for grades 6-8 and 9-12.

Theatre - Grades 6-8

TH.C.1.3.2 and 3:

• Where was playwright Nilo Cruz born? What influence does his native country have on his writing? Consider the setting, characters and plot of such plays as Anna in the Tropics and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.
• Name another Latin playwright. What are some of his or her plays about? Does this playwright’s native country play a role in his or her writing?

TH.D.1.3.1 and 2:

• After seeing the production of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, consider the following: Plot and Conflict. What theme or themes emerge from these elements?
• Compare the adult characters of the play (i.e. Pelayo and Elisenda) to the children, Momo and Fef é. What are their views toward the old man with enormous wings? What motivates their actions and beliefs?

TH.E.1.3.4:

• Consider the role of the costume, lighting and scenic designer in a production of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. Pick one or two elements that each of these designers should consider when designing the costumes, lighting and set for the play.

Theatre - Grades 9-12

TH.A.1.4.1 and TH.B.1.4.1:

• In groups of 3, recreate (through improvisation or an original scripted scene) the moment when Momo and Fef é discover the old man. Create a clear beginning, middle and end. Before you begin, answer the following:
• What does each character want?
• What obstacle(s) do the characters face?
• How do they communicate to each other?

TH.D.1.4.2:

• What in the play was symbolic? How was this symbol defined (i.e. Through words? Action? A design element?). Describe in detail.

TH.E.1.4.5:

• In 2003 Nilo Cruz won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for what play? What is significant about his receipt of this prize? Name 3 more plays by Nilo Cruz. What theme(s) emerge in his writing?

Language Arts – Grades 6-8

LA.A.1.3.2:

On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.

(opening paragraph of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garc í a M á rquez)

• Read the opening paragraph of the short story above. What information do you discover about the following:
• Setting
• Characters
• Weather
• What is the tone of the story, based on this opening paragraph?
• How many of your senses does the author engage in this opening? Give examples.

LA.E.1.3.2 and 3:

MAN WITH THE PANAMA HAT:

Back in the time that got lost in a hundred years, it rained for forty days in a small town close to the Caribbean Sea. From all the rain the grass and the trees grew so much that the carpets and walls of green leaves, roots and flowers covered all the roads that led to this town. The whole place drowned in an endless jungle and nobody could find his way in or out of the little town. It is precisely in this isolated area where we are setting our play.

In this forgotten place, where people started celebrating the lunar eclipse, the moon was the only one that had managed to make her way down from the sky on her blue bicycle and visit the town.

(opening lines of dialogue from A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings adapted by Nilo Cruz)

• Compare the opening of the short story with the opening of the play. What are the similarities and differences in the tone, setting and characters?
• After you have seen the play or read the short story, define the main conflict. How is the conflict resolved?
• Focus on the character of the Spider Woman. How is she similar to the Old Man With Enormous Wings?

LA.D.2.3.4:

• After seeing the play, write down 5 things about the production that you liked or remembered most. Why do these images stay with you? If one of those elements were removed from the production, would the story be the same?

LA.E.2.3.1 and 2:

• Compare the point of view of the children and their father toward the Old Man With Enormous Wings. How do their viewpoints toward the Old Man contribute to the story’s conflict? Is there a theme that emerges from this conflict?
• Does the character of the Old Man and his conflict remind you of anything from real life? Describe the similarities.
• Pretend that you’re the Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. What would you tell the children if you could communicate to them using words?

Language Arts – Grades 9-12

LA.A.1.4.1:

1. What does the title tell you about the story? What images come to mind?

LA.A.2.4.2:

MAN WITH THE PANAMA HAT:

Back in the time that got lost in a hundred years, it rained for forty days in a small town close to the Caribbean Sea. From all the rain the grass and the trees grew so much that the carpets and walls of green leaves, roots and flowers covered all the roads that led to this town. The whole place drowned in an endless jungle and nobody could find his way in or out of the little town. It is precisely in this isolated area where we are setting our play.

In this forgotten place, where people started celebrating the lunar eclipse, the moon was the only one that had managed to make her way down from the sky on her blue bicycle and visit the town.

(opening lines of dialogue from A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings adapted by Nilo Cruz)

• Read the first page of the play, above. What point of view does the playwright give us? What do you think the purpose is of having such a description?
• How does this description and point of view compare to the opening of the short story of the same title?

LA.D.2.4.2 and 3:

MAN WITH THE PANAMA HAT:

Because of the moon’s iridescent glow and the magnetism of her presence; not only mariners, vagabonds and gypsies started to find their way to this corner of the earth, but also lost winds, hurricanes, clouds of miracles and unanswered prayers. But to be more precise, a very old man with enormous wings found his way into this town one day.

(from A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings adapted by Nilo Cruz)

• After reading the narrator’s (aka MAN WITH THE PANAMA HAT) second set of lines in the play, what conclusions do you draw about the setting? Give examples of the language that made you draw those conclusions.
• After watching the play, which production elements helped convey the imagery created by the author’s words?

LA.E.2.4.3 and 4 and 5 and 6:

On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.

(opening paragraph of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garc í a M á rquez)

• Read the opening paragraph from the short story by M árquez (above). Give an example of personification. What does this and other imagery contribute to the overall tone of the story?

Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with mute stupor. He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather had taken away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor’s voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.

(second paragraph of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garc í a M á rquez)

After reading the first two paragraphs of the short story, what emotion do you think the author was hoping to get across? How do the images and sounds contribute to your overall impression of the characters and setting?

• After viewing the play and reading the short story it was adapted from, give examples of magical realism. Read about M árquez’s works in this study guide. How else has magical realism been used as his overall writing style?
• What character or situation do you most relate to in the story or play? How similar was a situation or person in your own life?

Social Studies – Grades 6-8

SS.B.1.3.1:

• The character called the Man With The Panama Hat in Nilo Cruz’s play tells us the setting is “a small town close to the Caribbean Sea.” Later in the play, the character of Elisenda says: “From Belize and Cartagena blows a wind that warms my heart.” Using maps of the Caribbean, Central and South America, along with these clues from the script, make your own prediction of where the characters in this play might live.

SS.B.2.3.1 and 4:

• What brought settlers to the Caribbean islands? How, with time, did these islands grow in terms of population, agriculture and economy?

Social Studies – Grades 9-12

SS. A.1.4.2:

• Look at the timelines on Cuba and Columbia provided in this guide. What themes in these timelines have crossed the boundaries of time and culture?

SS.B.1.4.4:

• What technological characteristics have advanced and/or divided Cuba, Columbia or the Caribbean Islands? Where did these technologies come from and where did they spread?

SS.B.2.4.1:

• Research the identities of Columbia’s settlers known as coste nos and cachacos. Give examples of the cultural, economic, and environmental factors that contribute to their separate identities.
• M árquez associated with the costen os. What cultural elements of these settlers die he and Nilo Cruz incorporate into the story/play A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings?