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Shakespeare
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OU Summer Shakespeare SchoolA Tutor's ViewI spent the week of 12th to 18th July 2003 tutoring on an Open University Shakespeare summer school. The week is an integral part of a nine-month course on the OU's undergraduate degree programme. Based at Queen Mary College, Mile End, east London, we spent most of the week on campus, doing academic work. But the name of the course is "Shakespeare: Text and Performance", so the practical element was never far away. In addition to close analysis of the plays and sonnets, and study of the critical heritage, we looked at film and video interpretations of Shakespeare's plays, students worked in small groups on a production project, a visiting theatre company demonstrated their rehearsal techniques, we spent a day at Shakespeare's Globe, taking part in workshops and attending a performance, and at the end of the week those who felt brave and reckless enough put on an evening of entertainment, consisting of readings and comic sketches. One of the early milestones of the week, on the Sunday evening, was a showing of the BBC Shakespeare Cymbeline. This film is about twenty years old now, and lasts a gruelling three hours. One scene in particular never fails to produce howls of disbelief and shrieks of laughter as Imogen (Helen Mirren) wakes up beside the headless body of Cloten, puts her hand on what's left of his neck (as you do) and proceeds to wipe the blood off her fingers onto her face. And the final recognition scene, with revelation piled on top of revelation, is all the funnier because it is done in such an earnest way. Which is not to say that there isn't some excellent acting, which becomes all the more apparent from repeated viewing (I must have seen it four or five times over the years), in particular from Mirren, Michael Pennington as Posthumus and Robert Lindsay as Iachimo. On the Monday evening we enjoyed a visit from the Principal Theatre Company, whose The Taming of the Shrew runs from 22 July to 9 August at Grovelands House, Southgate, London N14. As in previous years, the company's Director, Chris Geelan, and four actors, gave a fascinating insight into their rehearsal process, using scenes from Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream to illustrate the building of character and motivation. This included an entertaining parody by the inimitable Sarah Knight and Paul Gladwin of the Macbeths discussing the possibility of murdering Duncan. On the Tuesday afternoon I had an opportunity to run my first ever actors' workshop, with ideas shamelessly borrowed from Cicely Berry, Clive Barker, Fiona Shaw and David Hunt. After half an hour of warm-up exercises and improvisation, we worked on a sonnet, using various rehearsal techniques to explore the language, rounding off the session on a high note by performing the sonnet in unison in Victorian melodramatic style. Then came what is always for me the highlight of the week: our Wednesday visit to Shakespeare's Globe. We left the campus by coach just after lunch, arrived at the Globe, were given an introductory talk by Patrick Spottiswoode (Director of Education), took part in a choice of two out of three workshops, and stayed for the evening performance. The workshop on Costume was run by Ruth Goodman: the Globe is well known for the historical authenticity of its costumes in most of its productions. Modern materials such as nylon and velcro are out, as are modern dyes, and the linen shirts are hand-washed with traditional soap, rather than slung into a washing machine with a cupful of Ariel. During the session a student was selected as a model and dressed in doublet and hose. In the "Talking Theatre" workshop Patrick Spottiswoode interviewed Will Keen, who plays the part of Aeneas in Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. Will kept us all enthralled for an hour and a half, talking about his work as an actor, and specifically about his involvement in various productions at the Globe. He described how the Globe's unique performance space alters the actor's relationship with the audience: whereas in a modern theatre the audience sit in the dark, the daylight setting at the Globe means that the actor can see the audience, and this leads to a change of focus, and a great deal of eye contact. And of course it's very different for the audience too, since in the circular space it's possible to look round and see other people's reactions to what's happening on stage -- distracting at first, perhaps, but something that I've got used to. In fact there's a wonderful sense here of belonging to a refreshingly unstuffy theatregoing community. In the verse speaking workshop, Tom Cornford got us all up onto our feet, "walking" a speech in iambic pentameter, with instructions to change direction at every line ending and punctuation mark -- we had to do our best in a crowded room not to bump into each other. Physically experiencing the lines in this way, rather than just reading them off the page, is a useful technique: it really does bring them to life and give them concrete meaning. Equally helpful was Tom's highlighting of how different vowels and consonants change the facial expression of the speaker, thereby contributing to the emotional impact of the words. After a brief interval, which gave us all an opportunity to enjoy some fresh air, light drizzle and a view of the river, we returned for the evening performance of Marlowe's Dido (previously reviewed by Philip Fisher). Having seen mostly traditional interpretations here in the past (eg Hamlet, Twelfth Night), it was a little strange to walk into the Yard before the play began to see large pieces of modern metalwork (a slide, a climbing frame and a swing) taking up so much space on the stage between the two front columns. Some critics have complained that, since this play is hardly ever done, it might at least have been presented in a straightforwardly historical way, but somehow the idea of the gods as naughty children playing games with the lives of the mortals did work, thanks to some inspired acting from Caitlin Mottram (Juno), Clare Swinburne (Venus), James Garnon (Jupiter/Cupid) and Dave Fishley (Mercury). What could have been quite a dull play thus benefited from a great deal of visual humour. Rakie Ayola and Will Keen as Dido and Aeneas convincingly demonstrated the painful conflicts that can result from a clash between love and duty; so caught up was the audience in their developing relationship that their first, passionate kiss was greeted with cheers and shouts of encouragement! Then, on the Thursday evening, came the "student event", with some dazzling performances from ten students and three tutors. We were especially fortunate in our compere, Mike Rossé of the Makeshift Theatre, Yorkshire, wearing one of the most brightly patterned shirts I think I've ever seen. Although there had been little time available for planning and rehearsal, some inspired improvisation and creative writing took place, as well as some frantic scouring of the www for performance material. And despite not being entirely familiar with the tune to "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", we all went ahead and sang it anyway -- ouch! Friday morning saw us back in our classrooms, with different groups of students presenting their projects, and here too there were some wonderfully inventive ideas. My own three groups spent over an hour and a half explaining and demonstrating their production concepts for Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night and King Lear. We had a Hollywood gangster style suicide ("Aw, I shot myself in the foot -- do me a favour, pal, finish me off with a slug, willya?"), a mobile phone text message love letter for Malvolio, and a parodic Radio 4 style version of the Lear hovel scene, containing topical references to homelessness and the social security system, with the disguised Edgar speaking in a French accent (a deliberate alienation technique), which shed a totally new light on his line: "Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog". By my calculation this was the ninth OU summer school I have tutored on, and I can truly say that, from a personal point of view, this was the most enjoyable and most successful week I have ever taken part in. Exhausting at times, yes, because the pace of summer school can be frantic, with so much to do and so little time to do it in (opera longa, dies brevis), but it was exhilarating too, and I've returned home buzzing with new ideas and (after a longer night's sleep than usual) full of energy for putting those ideas into practice.
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