So, I passed in a draft of what I planned to work with the kids on.  Basically, as I think I mentioned, it’s all the Lysander/Hermia/Demetrius/Helena stuff.  Plus some intro stuff on Shakespeare’s life, sentence structure and vocabulary, and then if there’s time the Insult game.

Here’s what I got back.

* Absolutely no insult game.  Against school bullying policies. Even if the game is in fun you have to assume that kids will take it out onto the playground and hurt feelings will ensue.  Fine, I guess.

* Additionally, some bits in the script that deal with name-calling are also out.  She called out Helena’s “I am your dog, beat me, whip me, treat me as you wish” sequence as something she wouldn’t want.  I’m not sure yet if that means everything.  The scene where Helena calls Hermia short is one of the funniest in the entire play.

* She did like the Shakespeare’s life bits, and the poetry/sentence structure bits.  But I don’t want to do an hour on those.  There’s no performing in those.

I proposed a couple of things.

* First, that I’d bring with me a lengthy list of “backwards” sentences from Shakespeare and we could work with the kids on untangling them so they understand what the sentences mean.  Examples like “I love thee not, so follow me not” is Shakespeare for “I don’t love you, so stop following me.”

* Second, that the teacher and I enact some No Fear style scenes, where we as the two adults perform a bit of the original text, and then we let the kids get up and perform a very modernized version of the exact same sequence.  I am dead set against just having them perform a bunch of crap that I wrote from scratch and calling it Shakespeare.  I might as well have them act out Gnomeo and Juliet if I’m going to do that.

HELP

Want to help me?  I need examples for both games.  For the first I need individual sentences from the text (preferably Dream) that mean that “this is backwards from how we’d normally say it” criteria.  It helps if all the words are modern — the “I have of late but wherefore I know not lost all my mirth” example is wonderful, but I have to explain “wherefore” and “mirth” to these kids.

Second, help me pick some snippets for the No Fear game. I need quick little exchanges that two adults could do without getting completely confused.  So for example a Demetrius/Helena exchange. 

If possible I’ll also try to get in the initial rehearsal of Bottom and his crew, but I’m afraid that the teacher will tell me the whole Pyramus and Thisbe thing is just too complicated.

Hi Gang,

I thought folks might like an update on my upcoming teaching debut.  For those coming late to the party, I actually get to do an hour of Shakespeare with my daughter’s 7yr old class, at the request of the teacher.

With literally no experience at doing this sort of thing in any structured way, I’ve been going a bit crazy trying to figure out how much to tackle without completely blowing it.  I know that there are plenty of resources out there for this sort of thing and I’ve been doing my research (thank you to my regulars who dumped all their best links and documents on me), but at the end of the day I kind of want to find my own voice, you know?  This has been something of a dream for me for, I don’t know, forever.  I don’t want to just recite somebody else’s script.

I’ve sent off my plans to the teacher (who asked for approval, to make sure that I wasn’t going to do anything that might go so far over the kids’ heads that I embarrass them).  Here’s the highlights:

* Some material on who Shakespeare was, put in context of what the kids have been taught.  Mostly of the “After Christopher Columbus but before the Pilgrims” sort of stuff.

* A lesson on poetry and sentence structure. If I can nail this I think it goes a long way toward unlocking the dreaded “Why is Shakespeare so confusing??” question.  I simply want to point out to the kids that in pursuit of poetry, you can rearrange the words in a sentence in unexpected ways.  We’ll use some of their dictation sentences as examples, maybe play a game and let them try it out (“Make the sentence work out so that ‘game’ is the last word).

* I’ve come up with highly edited versions of three scenes (which are, really, compilations of multiple scenes). One, for example, is all of the Lysander/Hermia/Demetrius/Helena sequences.  We’ll play a version of the “Woosh!” game, where every time a character enters the role will be played by whoever was the next student in line.  This means boys playing girls, girls playing boys, and general silliness.

* My scripts are still almost entirely Shakespeare.  I’ve swapped out some “thee” and “hath” to smooth things out, but never did I just scrap a line and go “modern translation”.  That’s a big deal to me, and I wrote it in the notes to the teacher that I have faith the kids even at that age will be able to understand the text.

* For fun and depending on time filler, I’ll bring along an interaction version of the Shakespeare Insult Generator where I’ll let the kids pick words out of a hat and hurl their insults at fellow classmates.

That’s the plan I’m focusing on.  I’m trying very hard to keep the performance content high, while not starting something that we won’t even get halfway through.  If we can make it through all three of my scenes, great.  I’d like to at least do 2.  I think that with three scenes, the intro material and the insult game as filler, I can easily make it last an hour (maybe a little more) without feeling like I left too much out.

The big day is Thursday December 22.  Getting closer!

I particularly enjoy reality shows on the Food channels. Is anybody watching The Next Iron Chef?  This happened last night:

(I am almost certainly going to spell some names wrong.)

Chef Anne Burrell has won the previous challenge, and her reward is that she will pick one of the “bottom two” chefs who will have to compete to stay on the program.  She picks Chef Zakarian.

The other chef in the bottom two, judged by the quality of the dishes that they made, is….Chef Anne Burrell.  Oops.

So they have a cook-off, and Anne Burrell loses and is kicked off the show.  She had the advantage, and it bit her.  In summing up, one of the other chefs, Chef Alex Guarnascelli(??), says “It was downright Shakespearean.  Chef Burrell drew her sword, and then she fell on it.”

What?

That analogy may have worked better (though still been broken) if she’d at least said “…and then she tripped over it.”

And by that I mean the Midsummer Helena, not the All’s Well Helena.  While going through the play in prep for my teaching debut, I was reminded of what appears to be a rather silly plot point.

Recap – Lysander and Hermia love each other.  Demetrius loves Hermia (who does not love him in return), but Demetrius is the one who has Hermia’s father’s permission to marry her.  Helena, meanwhile, loves Demetrius, who does not love her in return (although we’re led to believe that he did at one point).  Lysander and Hermia plan to run away into the forest, and have told Helena their plan.

So, here’s my question.  Helena says:

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

She’s going to tell Demetrius what’s going on.  I think that the first time I read through the play I thought her thinking went something like, “He will realize that Hermia is gone, and then he will love me again.”  But I noticed last night that she actually says “he will pursue her.”  So Helena knows that Demetrius is going to chase after Hermia, and she (Helena) is going to chase after him.

How exactly does she expect to end up with Demetrius, again? How does she see this plan working out? Is she so out of her head in love with Demetrius that all she’s thinking is, “I will tell him this news and he will be happy with me! Yay!”

Hello loyal readers,

Just a quick note to let everybody know that I’m taking the family to Disney World this week, so there won’t be too much by way of blog posts.  You may spot me on Twitter however!  You never know where you’ll spot a Shakespeare reference.  (Everybody knows about the Macbeth reference in Beauty and the Beast, right?  Ask Bardfilm to tell you about it while I’m gone. 🙂

See everybody when I get back!

D

P.S – I’m taking an audio version of Richard III with me to listen (and follow along!) on the plane.  If I make it through that, I’ve got Midsummer right behind. Got to start working on my teaching debut next month!