Sandscript on Shakespeare
Sandscript on Shakespeare
Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday and it is also four hundred years since his death. The centenary is being celebrated in many places and in many ways. His words have been absorbed into most people’s lives, often without them realising. My many moments with Shakespeare on both sides of the world do not alas consist of watching our great actors live in classic stage performances, or hours spent reading and memorising sonnets. My mother never forgot her teacher who ‘brought The Bard to life’ by having the girls get up and act all the parts; my experience was more prosaic.
At my high school in Perth, Western Australia, dryly reading through Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice in a hot classroom, The Bard was reduced to total tedium; hardly William’s fault, he wrote his plays to be acted in front of lively audiences, words of wisdom interspersed with sword fights or humour to keep their attention. As a cynical teenager who spent most of my time giggling with my best friend Marjorie, the school’s attempts to bring us culture were doomed to fail.
One day a company, or more likely a group of amateurs, arrived to present scenes from Julius Caesar. We had no hall, just a quadrangle with a concrete stage, but at least Perth’s Mediterranean climate was appropriate for a Roman story. My only memory is of helpless giggling as Caesar carried on breathing after his violent death, his white robes unstained. I guess we would only have been satisfied with real blood.
Another time, the school was bussed to a suburban hall where some real English actors were presenting scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. My only recollection from that day is the interval, when one of the actors came to the front of the stage to tell us we were the rudest, most badly behaved audience they had ever played before. I cannot take full credit for this, I am sure I was loyally listening and watching. You will not be surprised to learn that our school had a bad reputation.
Later on in top year, our new and enthusiastic literature teacher arranged for his classes to attend a production of Othello and endured an evening of chronic embarrassment. We were reduced to tears of helpless laughter from the moment a puny chap covered in black boot polish walked on as Othello, until Desdemona breathed her last, curling her legs up and clinging onto a bed much too small for a death scene.
But before we left school the world of Shakespeare was brought to life with the arrival at the cinema of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, played by real teenagers like us; though obviously Olivia Hussey’s Juliet was more beautiful than my pimply, gauche fifteen year old self.
Before my return to This Sceptred Isle I acted in my first and only Shakespeare role. In a wheat belt country town there were only three things to do in your leisure time, drink, play football or netball, join the local dramatic society. The Old Time Music Hall production was an eclectic mix and included the witches' scene from Macbeth. I played a witch. ‘Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble…’ is all I remember.
Films over many decades and now television productions, give everyone a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s stories and words. Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ burst onto the screen full of colour, comedy and life, a film all the family could enjoy.
In recent years entertainment has come full circle; live theatre is broadcast live to cinemas. Kenneth Branagh’s 2013 Macbeth was produced in a small church for Manchester International Festival, tickets sold out within minutes. We went to see it at the Regent Centre, Christchurch, a lovely rescued Art Deco cinema; but however good the live relay, I’m sure the smell from the mud and straw strewn aisle of the church and the chance of having your ear chopped off as swords swung perilously close during the battle scenes, made the experience more real for the audience in the church.
Shakespeare is always open to interpretation and time travel; we loved a live production in London of Two Gentlemen of Verona set in the 1930’s, with a grand piano and songs from that era.
Finally we made it to Stratford Upon Avon and saw ‘As You Like It’ in the intimate wooden galleried Swan Theatre. As we sat down we were asked to keep bags, coats and feet out of the narrow aisles so as not to trip the actors.
2016 will be filled with Shakespeare of all sorts and I shall be looking forward to the second trilogy in the BBC Hollow Crown series starring some of our favourite actors.
Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday and it is also four hundred years since his death. The centenary is being celebrated in many places and in many ways. His words have been absorbed into most people’s lives, often without them realising. My many moments with Shakespeare on both sides of the world do not alas consist of watching our great actors live in classic stage performances, or hours spent reading and memorising sonnets. My mother never forgot her teacher who ‘brought The Bard to life’ by having the girls get up and act all the parts; my experience was more prosaic.
At my high school in Perth, Western Australia, dryly reading through Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice in a hot classroom, The Bard was reduced to total tedium; hardly William’s fault, he wrote his plays to be acted in front of lively audiences, words of wisdom interspersed with sword fights or humour to keep their attention. As a cynical teenager who spent most of my time giggling with my best friend Marjorie, the school’s attempts to bring us culture were doomed to fail.
One day a company, or more likely a group of amateurs, arrived to present scenes from Julius Caesar. We had no hall, just a quadrangle with a concrete stage, but at least Perth’s Mediterranean climate was appropriate for a Roman story. My only memory is of helpless giggling as Caesar carried on breathing after his violent death, his white robes unstained. I guess we would only have been satisfied with real blood.
Another time, the school was bussed to a suburban hall where some real English actors were presenting scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. My only recollection from that day is the interval, when one of the actors came to the front of the stage to tell us we were the rudest, most badly behaved audience they had ever played before. I cannot take full credit for this, I am sure I was loyally listening and watching. You will not be surprised to learn that our school had a bad reputation.
Later on in top year, our new and enthusiastic literature teacher arranged for his classes to attend a production of Othello and endured an evening of chronic embarrassment. We were reduced to tears of helpless laughter from the moment a puny chap covered in black boot polish walked on as Othello, until Desdemona breathed her last, curling her legs up and clinging onto a bed much too small for a death scene.
But before we left school the world of Shakespeare was brought to life with the arrival at the cinema of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, played by real teenagers like us; though obviously Olivia Hussey’s Juliet was more beautiful than my pimply, gauche fifteen year old self.
Before my return to This Sceptred Isle I acted in my first and only Shakespeare role. In a wheat belt country town there were only three things to do in your leisure time, drink, play football or netball, join the local dramatic society. The Old Time Music Hall production was an eclectic mix and included the witches' scene from Macbeth. I played a witch. ‘Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble…’ is all I remember.
Films over many decades and now television productions, give everyone a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s stories and words. Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ burst onto the screen full of colour, comedy and life, a film all the family could enjoy.
In recent years entertainment has come full circle; live theatre is broadcast live to cinemas. Kenneth Branagh’s 2013 Macbeth was produced in a small church for Manchester International Festival, tickets sold out within minutes. We went to see it at the Regent Centre, Christchurch, a lovely rescued Art Deco cinema; but however good the live relay, I’m sure the smell from the mud and straw strewn aisle of the church and the chance of having your ear chopped off as swords swung perilously close during the battle scenes, made the experience more real for the audience in the church.
Shakespeare is always open to interpretation and time travel; we loved a live production in London of Two Gentlemen of Verona set in the 1930’s, with a grand piano and songs from that era.
Finally we made it to Stratford Upon Avon and saw ‘As You Like It’ in the intimate wooden galleried Swan Theatre. As we sat down we were asked to keep bags, coats and feet out of the narrow aisles so as not to trip the actors.
2016 will be filled with Shakespeare of all sorts and I shall be looking forward to the second trilogy in the BBC Hollow Crown series starring some of our favourite actors.
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Jane
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Apr 23, 2016 04:32PM
My school experiences of Shakespeare were the same-except that I also studied some plays for O and A level English with varied results. I loved swashbuckling Macbeth and tortured Hamlet but was less enamoured with 'Henry 1Vth part 2'. Schools should teach Shakespeare first via the stories & keep the difficult language for later-and no one-but NO ONE should do 'reading round the class'!!
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Shakespeare probably endured dry learning at his school, I wonder what he was forced to read in class?
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