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Instructors: Michael A.C. Claridge
Event type:
online: Practice class
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.211
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Registration group: ELC 211
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
NOTE: You do NOT need any previous acting experience to participate in this class!
Elizabethan actors had no director to tell them what to do, and stage sets were almost non-existent. Shakespeare filled his playscripts with hints how to perform them, and clues for his audience about when, where and why the action is taking place. He also gave his actors a range of possibilities from which to select in developing their characters, encouraging them to investigate (sometimes VERY) different options and potential interpretations of the characters. Thus, the Shakespearean actor was a ‘detective’, sifting the script for clues, reaching the most plausible solution via trial and error in rehearsal work. What strategies could he employ in this search? What further considerations did the physical context of Elizabethan theatres demand of or offer the actor – especially given the need to work together with the audience as a fellow-player and active member of the production?
How can a present-day actor – or someone interested in exploring how an ACTOR approaches a Shakespeare play – acquire and utilise these strategies (especially given the general absence of stage directions)? How can we exploit the very physical nature of Shakespeare’s language? How can we search the evidence to reveal the wealth of possibilities, and then zoom in on the most convincing solutions for our audience? In short, how does a Shakespeare play shift from being ‘words on a page’ to a live event on stage? What makes every performance a unique event; how can we involve and work with our audience as an active participant in that performance?
This series of connected workshops will explore Shakespeare scripts as an ‘enabling’ medium, opening up multiple options, rather than a ‘restricting’ one pointing to only one possible interpretation. It will also demonstrate that Shakespeare’s language – when explored in practice, when spoken and given physical life – is nowhere as difficult as it seems when simply read on the page… and is also MUCH more interesting, exciting and dynamic as a result!
Each session will use very active, hands-on experiment and experience, taking extracts from Shakespeare’s plays as our basis, assisted by a variety of ‘tools’ developed by Michael over 40 years of drama direction as well as from workshops at Shakespeare’s Globe, London. Be prepared to go where you have never gone before with Shakespeare, especially if your contact with his plays so far has been solely through the (admittedly fascinating) academic study of a literary text and/or watching Shakespeare on film – as Chorus expresses it in Henry V: “Let us … on your imaginary forces work…”
Our work will take place over five days, on 18th-19th and 21st-23rd February, 2022. We will meet from 10 a.m. to ca. 5 p.m. on each of these days. We will work partly as a full group, and partly in teams; you will be working with the same team throughout the six days, ultimately presenting your team’s interpretation of one or more short scenes from a Shakespeare play to the other teams. This will also give you a great opportunity to develop your English-language confidence, as everything will be conducted in English for the full five days!
Currently, my intention is that we work together on campus for the entire five days; if the worst comes to the worst and the course has to go online, so be it (this was how it ran – remarkably successfully – in WS 2020-21, by the way!)
Questions? Drop Michael an email at mclaridg@uni-mainz.de
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