Rehearsal
Shakespeare Out Loud Teachers - My intention in creating this series was to encourage young people to practice 12 vacuumed plays of Shakespeare, out loud. This practice and refinement of accessible Shakespearean texts, teaches the stories clearly, and allows students to play with, and invent, some of the most creative dramatic language ever written. If the new vocabulary and syntax is encouraged to be invented rather than recited, like everyday speech, it is much more likely to be stored and re-used. A significant portion of each class should be oral, not just listening to the teacher, but the students playing the parts, out loud. Assign readings early so students have time to practice. Cast creatively. They will learn the plays well with this practice!
I have always tried to invent my text, as the great actors I worked with during my Stratford years, seemed so effortlessly to do. I also have about 40 examples on my Speeches page.
Soooo, concentrate, at first, on why characters say what they do, why they choose each w0rd. Keep refining and orally practicing the thoughts that cause the words, and the plays will teach themselves. Productions will also block themselves through oral understanding and practice: the feet are easy to organize when the minds are clear. Also, accept that rhythm is a literary concept rarely discussed and never practised in professional rehearsals. Skilled actors make their text sound like heightened and invented everyday speech. That is why I formatted the words of Shakespeare not in prose or verse, but in thoughts; and why students and actors play them so naturally.
Shall I be honest?
As a professional actor I was blessed with several world class teachers and many world class fellow-actors. I am the only actor who performed with Maggie Smith in all 5 Shakespearean productions directed by the great Robin Phillips at Stratford, Ontario, from 1978 to 1981. I also played Edgar in Peter Ustinov’s King Lear in 1980 and 1981. All these productions were abridged, all were judged world class. They all sold out to huge audiences. Been there, done that, and watched it all very keenly.
Teaching is a difficult profession, but my gift. The 50 year-old lady-teacher that I live next to is a world-wind of care and industriousness. She works far more hours than I am now capable of. She works on the unique problems of the cell-phone kids. She works to get them to look each other in the eyes and not just through screens. I admire her. As a teacher of Shakespeare her ideas are typical, teaching the effects, rather than the process, but she is not a professional actor and has been tutored by bores. She was at least smart enough to use my free texts before she ever met me. People who try to teach unabridged Shakespeare to teenagers are delusional. Their ideas about the rhythmic nature of verse are nonsense. If they had ever seen and heard fine Shakespearean actors, they would hear heightened, everyday speech, freshly minted and never recited. I attempt this with my play recordings and the speeches on my monologue page. Listen. That is what the world class directors and teachers do.
By vacuuming Shakespeare, which happens in all professional productions and films; then most importantly, formatting what is left as thoughts, the text becomes much more immediately comprehensible and playable. Some of us have heard great actors be clear with Shakespeare; I contend that it is because they know how to think, then play Shakespeare’s words, how to invent them as we do in everyday speech. They are not chanted out of some dusty old book, they are from flesh-and-blood human beings. We keep re-staging these plays because different actors and directors, will bring them to life in different ways. Shakespeare was a leading actor in his troupe. Surely he did not bore, as so many university professors do. He was not interested in “scholar’s” opinions, he was interested in actor’s performances. If you were a no-talent scholar and wanted a job at the Globe, Shakespeare would tell you to piss off! He wanted good actors!
So, I contend that weighing down teenagers with what you supposedly know about Shakespeare is a waste off time. Encouraging students to bring these characters to life with readings and performances is where the truly nutritious learning lies. Talent helps a lot but if you, as a teacher, lack the confidence to direct readings, I’ll wager that there are students in your class who might take to the task. There are almost always students hidden in classrooms with more talent and potential than their teachers. I have found several shy Juliets hiding in the back of classrooms. Encouraged with the opportunity, they have brought forth readings that have astonished their fellows and me. These performative-experiences are not forgotten, but treasured as high school memories. You can be lazy and recite the blah-blah-blah of no-talent profs, or you can unearth the unique talents of your students by encouraging them to play and perform. A brilliant piece of music is loved through the ears. The same is true for Shakespeare.
You want to be loved and remembered as a teacher of Shakespeare? These texts are the tools; your job is to cast and encourage readings from your students. My Romeo and Juliet guide gives daily suggestions for such an approach.
Leaders of all professions need to speak well. To become proficient, students need practice. What better to practice then the best of our greatest writer? Sure, I created this series to spread an appreciation of Shakespeare. My real purpose, however, was to give young people a tool to unearth, and use new vocabulary and syntax. Perhaps this practice will allow them to look up from their screens occasionally, and engage real people with their spoken clarity and creativity.