Month: April 2014

I like when they say a movie is inspired by a true story. That’s kind of silly. “Hey, Mitch, did you hear that story about that lady who drove her car into the lake with her kids and they all drowned?” “Yeah, I did, and you know what – that inspires me to write a movie about a gorilla!” – Mitch Hedberg

I’d be willing to bet that when you show a picture of Bob Hoskins around, most people think Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook or maybe even Super Mario Brothers.  But he also knocked Iago out of the park back in 1981, before any of that kid stuff.

Bob Hoskins has died at the age of 71, from pneumonia.  Perhaps Mr. Hoskins and the recently departed Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who also had a shot at Iago, can compare notes with the Master himself.

Flights of angels, Mr. Hoskins.

This year,Shakespeare is Universal is looking to prove that Shakespeare makes life better by donating money to support cancer research. Last year’s shirt was a big success and we’re looking forward to shattering our previous goal, all in the name of charity. Please take a moment, visit the site and see if I can’t convince you to show the world your love for Shakespeare and support a great cause. Not for you? Fair enough – but that’s what those Share buttons are for! Don’t leave without telling your friends and family. Surely you know somebody that would love one of our limited edition shirts. Available this year in multiple styles including long sleeve, v-neck and women’s styles. Multiple colors available!

So with the monologues done I asked whether the kids wanted to get up and act with each other, and of course got a rousing response.

A student had asked what Shakespeare’s funniest play was, because it sounded like all he wrote was death and tragedy. So we talked for a bit about Midsummer, and I learned that maybe six kids in the class were part of the Midsummer that I did last year.

So I pulled out as our first scene the opening of Midsummer.  I asked for a volunteer for Hermia, and a boy’s hand shot up.  “Really?” I asked, “You want to play the girl?”  He assured me that he did, and I let him. I explained that this was excellent, because in Shakespeare’s time all the girl roles would have been played by boys anyway.

I got a Theseus, Lysander and Demetrius (we were doing an edited scene with no Helena or Egeus) and I broke it down for them, standing behind the line with my hand over respective heads.  “YOU are Lysander.  YOU are in love with HERMIA over here.” Laughter because it’s both boys.  “YOU are DEMETRIUS, and YOU also love HERMIA.”  More laughter. “Hermia’s father has decided that he wants her to marry Demetrius, but she loves Lysander.  So they’ve come to YOU, THESEUS, who’s the law around these parts.  You get to decide stuff like this, and if you think any heads need to come off, then *eek* off come some heads.”  While they are performing I notice the teacher leans over and whispers something to Hermia, who starts speaking in a squeaky high voice, which gets more laughter from the audience. I immediately grab for my Complete Works with the thought of showing them some of Bottom’s scenes.  But then I decide against it, that I simply do not have the time to change gears like that.  Another case of *I* know what it would sound like in *my* head, but that doesn’t mean it’ll translate to reality.

They enjoy this scene, but there’s not a lot of action to it. This is just the warm up.  I tell them,  “I think it’s time to get out the swords.” 🙂

I’d had no interaction with the teacher at all before coming up with this lesson plan, so I had no idea what she’d say about swords of any kind.  So I went to the local hardware store and picked up some lengths of this foam pipe insulation stuff, cut it in half, then wrapped some duct tape around one end as a handle.  Sure it was pretty floppy for a sword, but it gave them something to brandish and I knew that nobody was going to take it in the eye.

I bring out Gertrude’s bedchamber scene.  One death to start.  I ask who wants to be Queen, and get a volunteer. I ask for a Polonius, saying “You get to die.” Lot of volunteers. I ask for a Hamlet saying, “You get to kill Polonius.”  I actually offer Hamlet here as a prize, letting the teacher pick the student she feels has earned it.

I explain the scene in terms appropriate for this age group and attention span.  “Hamlet’s dad died.  Worse, his mom married his uncle.”  <beat, as that sinks in>  “Yeah, that’s all kinds of messed up. Hamlet’s the prince, and everybody knows, the king dies, the prince becomes king, right? Not so fast, Hamlet. Hamlet’s away at college, so he comes back to collect his crown and guess what? Mom’s already remarried. Worse, she’s remarried her husband’s brother.  Yes, ewww is appropriate here. So Hamlet and Claudius, that’s his name, Claudius, they do not get along at all. In fact, there was just a show at the castle and Hamlet completely ruined it, totally upset Claudius, he stormed out all mad.  So now Gertrude, the queen, your Hamlet’s mom, and your job is to smack some sense into your son. You’re still his mother, and you still expect him to listen to you.  Now you, Polonius, you know that Hamlet’s been acting a little crazy lately” (ASIDE TO AUDIENCE: “He has no idea!”) “and he’s come to the Queen’s room to protect her in case Hamlet does anything strange” (ASIDE TO AUDIENCE: “It’s not going to end well for him!”) “Meanwhile Hamlet, you just don’t really care about any of these people. You’re mad at your mom because she married that guy, and you’re mad at Polonius because he works for that guy, and you’re just in general having a bad day so you don’t really care about what your mom has to say to you.  Ready?  And….action!”

Best scene yet. The chosen Hamlet is the first kid to actually attempt to act.  It’s funny, I’ve written into the stage directions that Gertrude starts sitting, stands up to yell at Hamlet, and then he forces her back down. Hamlet gives her a shove on the shoulder and she flings herself to the ground, I love it. From the ground she yells “Will thou murder me?” Polonius yells “help, help!” and gets run through with a piece of foam pipe insulation.  Great stuff.

For fun we do that scene again with a different set of kids. I encourage them, now that they’ve seen it, to play it differently. Most importantly to play it big and bold.  When you’re angry, be angry like you want to kill somebody. And when you die, give it a minute.  Work the stage.  Most people in Shakespeare who died get a few lines before they go, so work with it.

Well my new Polonius takes that to heart, bursting forth from behind the arras and staggering out into the middle of the classroom before keeling over. This causes the student that he has landed on to start kicking him.  “Don’t kick dead Polonius,” I tell him. But this then gives me an opportunity to talk about exactly how Hamlet defiled Polonius’ body. They all agree that this is both gross and also not nice, and I can see that they start to get a clue about what Hamlet’s all about as I tell them, “Well, that’s kind of the whole point. Hamlet starts out as the good guy, but as the play goes on and the stuff that happens around him it gets darker and darker and he gets crazier and crazier and starts killing people.”

We end on the fight scene from Romeo and Juliet, which gives me a chance to put swords in the hands of four kids at once (Benvolio, Mercutio, Tybalt, Romeo).  Again I explain the context, how Romeo is only one who knows that he has joined the houses and doesn’t want to fight, and how Tybalt and Mercutio see that as him being a coward and so on.  The best part came when I got to choreograph (for lack of a better word) the fight itself.  “Mercutio, Tybalt, fight!  Have at it!” They start whacking at each other with foam swords.  “Benvolio!  Romeo!  Try to break it up!  Beat down their swords!” Enter more foam, whacking at foam.  “Now, Romeo, get right in Mercutio’s way!  Hold him back, get in the way of his sword!”  Romeo does so. “Tybalt!  You’re the bad guy, take your cheap shot! Mercutio’s arms are held, stick him with your sword!” Cute moment as they all pause and look at me as if to say, “But that’s dirty fighting, his sword’s not up.”  “That’s the whole point, you’re the bad guy, take your cheap shot!  Now, away in triumph!”  For Tybalt’s part he actually did strut away in triumph, gotta love that.

I switch out my cast (since we are running out of time and some kids have not been up yet) and let the scene continue. “Romeo, it’s your fault your best friend is dead. You tried to be the peacekeeper and it didn’t work. Here comes the guy that killed Mercutio, what are you gonna do about it?” My new Romeo ends Tybalt pretty quickly, and Benvolio urges him to flee.

That’s all the time I had, so I had to leave Julius Caesar and Henry V behind. Which I think was the right move, because I am well aware that I am still setting the bar very high at this age (and the kind of time frame we’re talking about). With no rehearsals, prep time or do-overs, it’s a lot to ask to give an nine year old Antony’s speech at Caesar’s funeral. He’ll be lucky to read through it. I would have loved to give a lesson in how the crowd gets manipulated, but I expect they only would have gotten it from what I said, not from the text.  Same with Henry V.  I get shivers down my spine every time I hear that speech, but I’m well aware that the kids almost certainly will not. At least, not yet.

My goal as always has been to introduce the material and to take the scary edge off.  These kids, at nine or ten years old, have now gotten more Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Midsummer, Taming of the Shrew and even a little Coriolanus. That’s more than most of their fellow students will have by the time they get to high school. If any of them develop an appreciation for the material that makes them want to go experience more?  Mission accomplished.

This year,Shakespeare is Universal is looking to prove that Shakespeare makes life better by donating money to support cancer research. Last year’s shirt was a big success and we’re looking forward to shattering our previous goal, all in the name of charity. Please take a moment, visit the site and see if I can’t convince you to show the world your love for Shakespeare and support a great cause. Not for you? Fair enough – but that’s what those Share buttons are for! Don’t leave without telling your friends and family. Surely you know somebody that would love one of our limited edition shirts. Available this year in multiple styles including long sleeve, v-neck and women’s styles. Multiple colors available!

So this time I got to return to the fourth grade for a rare “Part 2” lecture on Shakespeare.  I first visited my daughter’s class back in February, and they were by far the best grade level I’ve yet dealt with. Just the right combination of academics, attention span and politeness. Too young and it’s too hard for them to understand the material and/or pay attention when other kids are reading.  Too old and it’s harder to keep their attention, they want to show how cool they are by ignoring the speaker.

What to do now that I’ve run through my usual array of props and biographical stories?  Performance!

I brought with me a selection of monologues (Midsummer, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Coriolanus, Hamlet, etc…) but more importantly some scenes to act (opening of Midsummer, Gertrude’s bedchamber, Romeo/Tybalt/Mercutio fight, Brutus/Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral, etc…) and some props — my Yorick skull (of course), but also some homemade swords I made from foam pipe insulation.

So, the kids remember me and are happy to dig back into Shakespeare. I’m pleasantly surprised by the reaction I get.  They are embarking on a school play (not Shakespeare) and the whole reason I’m here is to encourage them to get up out of their seats and practice reading a script in front of an audience.

I take volunteers.  We start with the opening to Romeo and Juliet, since I figure they’ll all recognize it (and they do). Of course, after the student reads it, I ask who understands it and nobody does.  They get that there’s two families that don’t like each other and that a boy and girl fall in love, but they could just as easily be getting that from their knowledge of the play. So I read it again to them, explaining that this is a gigantic spoiler, that right here in the first lines of the play Shakespeare has already told us that they’re going to die. They find that quite curious.

Then I let somebody try Hamlet’s Yorick speech.  I set the stage for when and why this speech occurs, but it’s obvious that at this age they’re going to be more impressed with “The gravedigger is getting rid of the old bones to make room for new ones” than any sort of existential crisis poor Yorick is going through.  So I let the next student start the speech, but then I stop him and break out the skull for him to talk to.

Again, at the end, nobody really *gets* it.  I ask if they recognize anything. I read “borne me on his back a thousand times” and ask if anybody knows what that means. I tell them that there’s pretty good odds that some of them have done this recently.  One kid ventures, “piggy back rides?” and I tell him, “EXACTLY!” and go on to talk about growing up prince and having your own personal clown to play with.

I let one of the girls try Kate’s speech from the end of Taming of the Shrew. Again, the fun for me is in setting up the scene.  “Ok, you’re Kate, and you’re a shrew.  Know what a shrew is? Not a very nice girl. All the boys don’t want to have anything to do with her, which is fine with her because she doesn’t want anything to do with them either! But her father is trying to marry her off, and she’s having none of it. Every boy that he brings into the house, she throws things at him until he runs away. Until along comes this new guy, Petruchio, who says he loves a challenge and marries her anyway. Because that’s how it worked back them, you as the girl didn’t get to say who you wanted to marry. If your dad says you’re marrying this guy, well, you married that guy.  The whole play is about these two fighting over who is going to back down first.  But at the very end a funny thing happens. They’re at a wedding, and there’s three husbands hanging out at a table comparing who has the best wife. So the first husband tells a servant, ‘Go tell my wife to come here, I need her.’ Servant leaves, comes back, says ‘Your wife says what do you need?’ and the whole wedding says OOOOOO!!!!!!  So the second husband says I’ll show you how its done, tells the servant, ‘Go in the other room and tell my wife I order her to come.’  Servant leaves, comes back, says ‘Your wife says that if you need her you should go to the other room where she is.’ Wedding is all OOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!  Finally Petruchio, who married Kate the shrew, says to the servant, ‘Go and ask my wife to please come here.’ Servant leaves, and in comes Kate, dragging the other two wives with her by the ear.  This is the speech that she gives them on how a wife is supposed to act.”

She delivers the monologue and I tell them a little bit about the ending, using the expression “she’s got him wrapped around her little finger” until I discover that they don’t know what that means. Oh, well.

At this point the teacher fires up the projector to share a video I brought. I’d come with Coriolanus’ “Common cry of curs” speech, but I thought it would be fun to show a video of this speech being performed, and then let them have a go at it.  (I also brought Henry V, but this one was shorter so I started here). Funny thing, though, is that I tried to grab Ralph Fiennes’ version (since I own that one on DVD), but late last night I realize that I’d actually downloaded Tom Hiddleston’s version!

So I put the speech in context.  I say, “Who here knows Captain America?”  Every hand shoots up.  “Ok, now imagine Captain America a few thousand years ago. Here’s this super soldier standing at the front of the Roman Army, leading all the charges into battle, singlehandedly crushing every enemy.  Literally, the battle starts, he runs ahead, and by the time the rest of the army shows up, the enemy is already defeated.  That’s this dude Coriolanus. Well, the politicians start thinking, what do you do with a war hero? You make him into a politician.  Only the problem is, he doesn’t want to be a politician. He hates the idea. Doesn’t like hanging out with regular people. He wants to be out there on the battlefield. And his political enemies know this.  The tide turns on him, and before he knows what’s happening, the people that he’s spent his life defending are now demanding that he be the one who is banished from the city!  This is what he has to say to them in return…”  *play*

After the speech I ask, “Did that guy look familiar at all?”

One kid’s hand shoots up.  “Is that Ralph Fiennes?”  He even pronounced in “Ray”.  Well, I suppose “Rayf” is probably more accurate.

I give him a double take.  “No, but nice pull! How did you guess that?  Ralph Fiennes actually did another movie version of Coriolanus, that I almost brought. But no, this is not Ralph Fiennes’ version.”  I’m still not sure how the kid had that name ready.  He obviously didn’t know the movie, because he would have known that this is not him. But he must also have known that it existed.  Not too many people see “Ralph” and know to pronounce it.

The kids eventually figure out that it is Loki from the Avengers movie and that same kid says, “Tom Hiddle…something.”

I get the feeling that I’m losing them with the monologues. The hands are still shooting up to come up to the front of the class and read something, which is good, and I have a whole bunch more to choose from … but I realize that when one kid is reading and not really understanding what they’re saying, there’s 20 kids trying not to be bored.  I’ve tried to tell them to move around and to emote a bit, but it’s not working.  They need some stage directions.

Time to bring out the swordplay.

To be continued!

And now, a break for our fundraiser.  This year, Shakespeare is Universal is looking to prove that Shakespeare makes life better by donating money to support cancer research. Last year’s shirt was a big success and we’re looking forward to shattering our previous goal, all in the name of charity. Please take a moment, visit the site and see if I can’t convince you to show the world your love for Shakespeare and support a great cause.  Not for you? Fair enough – but that’s what those Share buttons are for!  Don’t leave without telling your friends and family. Surely you know somebody that would love one of our limited edition shirts.  Available this year in multiple styles including long sleeve, v-neck and women’s styles. Multiple colors available!