Sorry About This ~ Early Evening Thoughts

I will be away until quite late this evening -- I will continue the story of the Shakespeare Experiment tomorrow ... But let me leave you with a picture that STILL causes me to laugh (probably because I have a Blackberry, and can relate!!!)




You can click the picture to enlarge it somewhat ....

---back tomorrow

The Course Of - Whatever - Never Did Run Smooth (2) ~ Late Evening Thoughts

---Continuing from last night

While Bottom's ass, or rather his line containing the word ass was becoming a major sticking point between the teacher and I concerning the Midsummer Night's Dream script adaptation ... the 5th graders were beginning to get VERY interested in just what and who Julius Caesar was going to be and what kind of play this might turn out to be.

This was going to be a first for both classes, before plays had been done in the main auditorium Parker Hall, but these were going to be done with scenery, lights, costumes and above all else ~ programs. Big stuff...as this meant there would need to be rehearsals outside of class and a performance outside of the elementary school quad area and timetable. The dining room (students and staff) , four dormitory staffs (5th-6th grade girls and boys, high school boys, high school girls), staff and administration all wanted their piece of the action and planning.

Parker Hall was the school's main purpose "rumpus" room - as I like to call it. There were innumerable concerts, recitals, meetings, plays and such. One year in the last four weeks of school there were 18 different events ... all of which required several rehearsals, settings, lights, a dress rehearsal and ticketed performance. As most of the seats weren't numbered and were plastic stackable chairs at that - this entailed a lot of number/row painting on the floor. If you think that politicians have turf wars, just imagine trying to standardize performance seating charts for each of the departments of a school that had been going their merry way for over 150 years. As the saying goes: "It was so not going to happen ... in anyone's lifetime."

I assembled some props, and the 5th grade students were given their scripts to read. Now, here comes the part where real life intersected with the class room. These students worked not only on their regular school work, which was intense but also time in the day was found to read the script and after the casting was done to learn and rehearse the script. I saw these students once a week for a little over an hour, so much of the work was going to fall on the classroom teachers. Fortunately, this is something they were aware of and welcomed (at first anyway).

I meet with the 5th graders and showed them the cute little paper model of the Globe theater and did my story about what plays would have looked like and sounded like during that time. We laughed over the fact that King Lear and Hamlet take four hours to do the complete script today, but at that time they managed to get through them in a little under 2 hours. (that was my story, and I'm sticking to it!!) I also talked about the children's troupes that used to perform Shakespeare to highly appreciative audiences and we talked about what that might have been like.

In all honesty, I was not looking forward to a discussion of the play. I was thinking that it was going to be somewhat difficult to explain the over reaching theme(s), the types of people these folks were, etc. I should not have worried ... I told them we would start at the first scene and talk about the play. I decided that I would ask a (what I was sure would a rhetorical ) question about the crowd in the first scene. Almost everyone's hand went up. I chose a smiling young lady who informed me that "The crowd represents just how fickle people can be. They are all excited and thrilled with someone and want them to be everything to them and then just a quickly can turn on them and want them dead ~ or kill them themselves."

All I could think of was the fact that I had high school students taking my Shakespearean Tragedy class that took a couple of days and a lot of coaxing to figure out that one concept. At that point I knew we were not going to have a single problem figuring out the play.

The next point that had to be dealt with was the fact the 1) there were a large number of girls in the class and 2) there were only two parts for women in the show neither of which was exactly lengthy. I assured them ~ in a moment of total brain failure ~ that they would not only be able to participate in the crowd scene(s) but the battle(s) as well. The look from the teacher will simply be recorded in this space as "the look."

--more tomorrow

which may include the story of the bayonets and the battle of the ages

The Course Of - Whatever - Never Does Run Smooth ~ Late Afternoon Thoughts

Marja at her delightful blog "Dutch Corner" did a 4th of July post about being introduced to one of Shakespeare's zanier comedies "Midsummer Night's Dream." And I had left a comment about "Years ago (in a galaxy far away) my 6th grade drama students did an adaptation of this wonderful play." --> her post is here <--

This week as I was moving things around, under the guise of "getting rid of somethings" .. I found the "gift" they had given me after the performance. And for a second time a flood of memories charged back demanding to be written down.

This occurred while I was teaching in India.

At that time, I was a teacher of English, Speech and Drama. The English, Speech portion involved grades 10-12 and Drama was divided up into Creative Drama grades 1-6 and Drama grades 10-12. Yes, there was a three year gap, but neither my schedule or the syllabus allowed for much more than doing a week long intensive theater performance with the 7th graders once a year.

The Shakespeare "experiment" started, as things so often do, on the way to somewhere else.

The 5th and 6th graders had done short plays before, and I was really not thrilled with what we had done, and they were a little dissatisfied with the level of plays available to be done. I was a little gun-shy about writing a couple of plays for them. I had done that twice for my High School students and while they loved them and "got" them, the administration was not terribly enthusiastic about them. 'Twas a quandary...and a puzzlement!!

I don't know how many of you are acquainted with "My Weekly Reader **" but when I was growing up, it's arrival in the classroom (we each got our OWN copy) was 2nd only to the Weekly Reader book sale ~ as I remember, once or twice a year. For years in school, this little newspaper brought fun, learning and insight to all who received it. When I was teaching at Woodstock School, I knew that it was available, but didn't realize that the students enjoyed it just as much as I had.

As I remember, it was in the staff dining room where the 5th grade teacher showed me a issue that contained a very short (10 or 12 lines) of one of the speeches from Julius Caesar and the article accompanying the adaptation (if that's the right word for it) about Rome and current affairs. As we were talking, (cue the theme from ANY Judy Garland, Micky Rooney "Let's put on a show" movie here.") One thing led to another, And I had agreed to adapt the play to their level, and do a Shakespeare segment as their drama classes. The 6th grade teacher, not to be outdone, wanted a play for her class as well. Well, why not (cue violins from Psycho shower scene here) ... why not a comedy - Midsummer Night's Dream wasn't being done anywhere around ... so, why not.

The major "why not" was the script(s) ... my agreement meant that I not only had to come up with two adaptations of major theatrical works, but would now need to stage them as well. Any student of Theater or Theatrical Literature knows the Julius Caesar text to use - and I don't think the cover has changed much in over (a certain number of years) ... And Midsummer Night's was available almost anywhere, so I set to work. Interesting enough, it was the adaptation of Midsummer Night's Dream that proved to be the most difficult.

As a play that is basically one big "romp" ... it is full of sexual innuendos and some not-so innuendo. And taking away completely everything that might ring slightly off would turn the play into a big nothing. Then, there is the magic, fairies and sprites wandering around ... this being a school high in the Himalaya Mountains depending on mission boards for teachers, support and some income (to say nothing of a stream of students!!) was somewhat vexing.

The teacher and I worked closely and sometimes contentiously about the wording. The most amusing part was what to do with Bottom's famous line (after being released from his donkey's head) that "sometimes a man might still be an ass." That line went in and out of the script more times than most people breathe in a day!! And was still a problem up to the final rehearsals ...

--- more to come ...

** FYI ~ (My) Weekly Reader has been in continuous publication since 1928 ~ to quote Wikipedia: The first edition was produced for the fourth grade, and appeared in September 1928. Its cover story was entitled "Two Poor Boys Who Made Good Are Now Running for the Highest Office in the World," and focused on the childhoods of Herbert Hoover and Al Smith.

-- and yes, that is a picture of Woodstock School ... I just wish it was mine!