oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2002
- Posts
- 56,017
I am pleased with the responses so far that have been helpful for my consideration of what I should talk about with the student.
My greatest difficulty is my own experience of A levels over 50 years ago. They were very different then, and the questions about Shakespeare expected a very deep knowledge of the specified play in context of all Shakespeare's plays AND the Elizabethan theatre generally.
We would have known the set text in detail, and we would have been able to identify the Act, Scene and speaker from a short quote, to put it in context and discuss how that quote moved the action forward.
One of my set works was Macbeth. I attended a special production for schools (I won't name the company - they have improved their standards greatly in the last 50 years). It was a disaster. They had the most informed audience they were ever likely to play to, and messed it up.
Actors forgot their lines and even an entrance was missed. By the end of Act 1 the front row were acting as prompters even though they did not have the text with them. They didn't need the text. They knew it intimately.
We expected cuts, variations of interpretation, some stage business not in the text and an intelligent production. We wanted to consider what the producer/director had changed, why, and whether each change was a valid decision that enhanced our understanding of the play.
What we actually had was the company's under-rehearsed second tier actors fumbling their way through. It would have been a disgrace at a first read-through.
We had a master class in how NOT to perform Shakespeare.
At the end the producer came on stage to apologise. He needed to. He had drastically underestimated the audience.
Next year, the set Shakespeare play was performed by the same company AFTER they had already played it for a fortnight before the public. The difference was obvious even if it still didn't meet the expectations of the students.
Now? Several versions of almost any Shakespeare play are available on line and on DVDs. Students have no excuse for not knowing how a particular play can be presented.
But some students are still too lazy to seek out those productions...
My greatest difficulty is my own experience of A levels over 50 years ago. They were very different then, and the questions about Shakespeare expected a very deep knowledge of the specified play in context of all Shakespeare's plays AND the Elizabethan theatre generally.
We would have known the set text in detail, and we would have been able to identify the Act, Scene and speaker from a short quote, to put it in context and discuss how that quote moved the action forward.
One of my set works was Macbeth. I attended a special production for schools (I won't name the company - they have improved their standards greatly in the last 50 years). It was a disaster. They had the most informed audience they were ever likely to play to, and messed it up.
Actors forgot their lines and even an entrance was missed. By the end of Act 1 the front row were acting as prompters even though they did not have the text with them. They didn't need the text. They knew it intimately.
We expected cuts, variations of interpretation, some stage business not in the text and an intelligent production. We wanted to consider what the producer/director had changed, why, and whether each change was a valid decision that enhanced our understanding of the play.
What we actually had was the company's under-rehearsed second tier actors fumbling their way through. It would have been a disgrace at a first read-through.
We had a master class in how NOT to perform Shakespeare.
At the end the producer came on stage to apologise. He needed to. He had drastically underestimated the audience.
Next year, the set Shakespeare play was performed by the same company AFTER they had already played it for a fortnight before the public. The difference was obvious even if it still didn't meet the expectations of the students.
Now? Several versions of almost any Shakespeare play are available on line and on DVDs. Students have no excuse for not knowing how a particular play can be presented.
But some students are still too lazy to seek out those productions...