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Lehrende/r: Michael A.C. Claridge
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.874.313
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
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!
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! Thus, two key formulations in the title point to our central focus: ‘Playing … in performance’, 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 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, As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice, examining the scripts and experimenting with our own ways of staging some scenes as well as playing big speeches and soliloquies: how does one involve fellow-actors; how do the speeches involve the audience? Small-group work will develop a possible staging of a couple of scenes from the play, always focussed on defending your interpretation on the basis of what is in the script.
One of our major concerns will be the question of playing a character of the opposite sex – and also the complicated situation when an actor of one sex plays a character of the other sex who is trying to act as someone of the other sex again… something that occurs in both of our plays (among others: the quote in our course’s title is from Viola in Twelfth Night)… WHY does Shakespeare use this device? What will it have meant for the late-16th-century boy-actor playing the part? We will use this to examine the whole aspect of female characters in Shakespeare, including their relationship to other females, to males, to those in authority, and to their parents (where applicable). We will look at the function of boy actors as well as the presumed use of adult male actors for some female parts, and at what cross-dressing meant in the Early Modern period and the consequences for audience and actors alike (half of the characters in Thomas Middleton’s 1613 play A Chaste Maid in Cheapside were female and will have been played by boy actors…).
Further considerations will include whether there is a ‘message’ behind each play – with the vexed question as to whether The Merchant of Venice is in fact an antisemitic play, or rather a play with antisemitic characters… one of the major disagreements among Shakespeare specialists! Will our hands-on experience in performance – as opposed to academic debate and argument – help us resolve this in any way?
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 two Saturday workshops (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to enable us to really get into what performing Shakespeare means. The dates for the Saturday workshops are 10th December, 2022, and 4th February, 2023. You will also be doing discussion work on one of our two plays in teams between the workshop blocks.
At the end of the final block session, each group will perform their staging to the other groups, revealing that the same scene, speech, character can be interpreted very differently – but also that the various ideas must then be brought together in a way that produces a seamless whole, rather than disconnected confusion and mismatch.
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 the Brexit-plagued UK can take some time:
As You Like It, edited by Juliet Dusinberre, pub. Bloomsbury Specialist / The Arden Shakespeare / Thomson Learning 2006, ISBN-13: 9781904271222 and ISBN-10: 1904271227. At the time of writing, it cost €10.49 e.g. from www.buecher.de
The Merchant of Venice, edited by John Drakakis, pub. Bloomsbury Specialist / The Arden Shakespeare / Thomson Learning 2011, ISBN-13: 9781903436813 and ISBN-10: 1903436818. At the time of writing, it cost €10.99 e.g. from www.buecher.de
Possible topics for term papers will also enable you to reach out to other contemporary plays, examing matters of performance.
Questions? Drop Michael an email at mclaridg@uni-mainz.de
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