|
Lehrende/r: Michael A.C. Claridge
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.874.313
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
Credits:
8,0
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Anmeldegruppe: ELC 313
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.
Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
N.B. previous acting experience is NOT required for participation!
FOCUS:
‘Clown’, ‘jester’, ‘allowed fool’, ‘natural fool’, quite simply ‘fool’: These are all found frequently in Early Modern English drama, and thus – not surprisingly – in Shakespeare’s plays. So is there a difference between any of these?
What was the traditional role of the fool, jester, clown, in society generally in the late mediaeval period, and how – if at all – did it develop as England and Europe moved into the Renaissance? How were such roles and functions exploited by EME dramatists? Is there any difference, say, between Costard the Clown in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Feste the allowed fool in Twelfth Night, and King Lear’s fool in the play of the same name? Why, when fate seems against him, does Romeo groan, O I am fortune’s fool? Why (and with what right) does Feste tell the Countess Olivia’s servants in her presence to take away the fool – meaning the Countess, his employer? And Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: does the fact that he/she/it is a fairy mean he/she/it is NOT a fool/clown figure? In As You Like It, who is the greater fool, Touchstone the court jester, or Jaques the supposed(ly) wise man?
And how does madness come into all this? What about another, related, set of terms: ‘foolishness’, ‘folly’, ‘lunacy’, ‘madness’? What – and who – was considered mad, on what basis? How were the supposedly mad treated, both in reality and on the stage – at a time when there were plays with such titles as A Mad World, My Masters?! What consequences are there when a senior figure – even a king – apparently goes mad? What do the actors in an Early Modern play involving madness need to factor into their development of roles and how to play them?
We will be examining the background situation to spotlight these and other interesting factors, but the main drive of our seminar will be to actively consider, via hands-on work, what consequences our discoveries would have for those performing Early Modern English drama generally and two Shakespeare plays in particular, namely King Lear and Twelfth Night. What are the potential consequences for ALL the actors in these plays, in their characters’ response to the fools/clowns etc.? And if we look at Shakespeare’s various fools/clowns, why is there a significant change in their nature as his writing develops: what possible causes might there be, and how does this affect the potential playing of these clown/fool roles?
APPROACH:
Academic studies tend to focus on Shakespeare’s drama as literary works, to be scrutinized and analysed… yet he wrote his plays to be performed, heard and seen, and NOT read! So note the key formulation in the title point to our central focus: ‘Playing madness and foolery…’, i.e. working with a Shakespeare script not from some academic/theoretical viewpoint but as something living, to be acted, its prime concern to convey the ‘message’, the meaning and poetry of the script, the nature of the characters to the audience, to make words and characters come alive, leave the page, hit the stage running, at full power, and leap across the gap into the audience’s ears, eyes and minds. Our close ‘detective’ work will explore the evidence in the script, together with our own powers of imagination – the approach adopted by Shakespeare actors then and now – sifting the script for clues regarding potential interpretations of the characters and their relationships and language, plot developments, and staging the play (there are very few stage directions in a Shakespeare script!).
In this way, you will discover that Shakespeare is NOT to be feared… in fact, his scripts reach out and seize you, wanting to be actively explored in depth, rewarding you with surprises and pleasures at his ingenuity as poet, character-developer, fellow-actor, and audience-wooer! Among other things, you will discover the key to unlocking soliloquies – among the most satisfying and fulfilling speeches an actor will ever perform, and a thrill to present onstage to a live audience.
We will actively explore actors’ strategies when working with Shakespeare scripts, and then focus on our two core plays, King Lear and Twelfth Night, examining the scripts and experimenting with our own ways of staging some scenes and the foolery and madness they contain as well as playing big speeches and soliloquies: how does one involve fellow-actors; how do the speeches involve the audience? Small-team work will develop a possible staging of scenes from the plays, always focussed on defending your interpretation on the basis of what is in the script.
The approach will be hands-on, harnessing the practical aspects of performing Shakespeare and the physicality of the language in each workshop. As well as the weekly 90-minute workshops, we will also have one Saturday workshop (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to enable us to really get into what performing Shakespeare means. The date for the Saturday workshop is 3rd June. You will also be doing discussion work on one of our two plays in teams between the in-class sessions.
Each team will perform the staging of their scene(s) to the other teams in the final session of the semester.
You will need your own PRINT copy of the two scripts, in the Arden THIRD series edition. Order them AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, as delivery from Brexit-plagued UK can take some time:
King Lear, edited by R.A. Foakes, pub. Bloomsbury Specialist / Cengage Learning EMEA / The Arden Shakespeare 2013, ISBN-13: 9781903436592 and ISBN-10: 1903436591. At the time of writing, it cost €9.99 e.g. from www.buecher.de
Twelfth Night, edited by Keir Elam, pub. Bloomsbury Specialist / The Arden Shakespeare 2008, ISBN-13: 9781903436998 and ISBN-10: 1903436990. At the time of writing, it cost €9.99 e.g. from www.buecher.de
Possible topics for term papers will also enable you to reach out to other contemporary plays, examining matters of performance.
Questions? Drop Michael an email at mclaridg@uni-mainz.de
|
