Revelling in Shakespeare...

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It’s just after 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon and 18 youth theatre members are assembled at the gorgeous Clarke Hall, Wakefield exploring the plays of Shakespeare…we’ve already explored the epic nature of the language in the prologue of Henry the 5th – “Oh for a muse of fire…” etc, we’ve already had a go at creating action in the final scene of Hamlet, “The rest is silence…” and now we’re looking at character in Measure for Measure…”O! It is excellent
to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
to use it like a giant.” so we have 9 Angelos and 9 Isabellas and they’re all in different rooms in the house, battling it out to decide the fate of Claudio…they explore the text for about an hour – there’s pretty much a whole scene to do and so there’s a lot of words, character, intention, context and understanding to handle, so I’m giving them as much time as possible. At the end of about an hour we see each pair and almost immediately it hits me that the learning to be done in this observation is impressive.

One scene performed 9 times by talented, bright, committed young actors…I’m learning something about the text, the story and the characters in each realisation of the scene…the complexity of the characters comes through as each performance captures something but not all of the character…we’re able to have discussions about intensity, intention, truth, consequences, pace, energy, passion…it’s a magical thing but I get the impressions that the participants have only part of an idea about how valuable the work they are doing is and certainly how valuable the opportunity to observe is…I would guarantee that anyone watching those scenes, no matter how experienced, informed or “expert” would have got something from the observation…it’s inspired a whole cascade of thoughts for me…thoughts that will, as is always the case, become embedded into my practice…

I only hope that the participants will be as open to and inspired by the learning they were privileged to on what was a brilliant day, not education provided by me but by their peers…it’s the most powerful education I know of…

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