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Instructors: Michael A.C. Claridge
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.313
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 31
Registration group: BS/ELC 313
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
N.B. previous acting experience is NOT required for participation!
The title of this course, taken from Hamlet, points to the primary focus: close ‘detective’ work exploring the evidence in the script of a Shakespeare play concerning plot, characters and motivation, together with our own powers of imagination – in short, the approach adopted by Shakespeare actors then and now. We will sift the script for clues regarding potential interpretations of the characters and their relationships, plot developments, and staging the play – particularly given how few stage directions there are in the script!
Our approach as we take our play apart will be a very hands-on one, putting temporarily to one side more recent (sometimes more academic) theoretical approaches to the text to consider the very practical aspects of performing Shakespeare, and in particular the physicality of the language. Our central thesis – as in any detective work – will be 1. it is important to be open to every potential idea, theory and interpretation in our initial approach to the script, but the ultimate focus will be on what the script itself, together with the practicalities of performing it, reveals as plausible, 2. we must at all times keep the other actors/characters – as well as the audience, our other ‘fellow-actor’ – in mind: how does our interpretation help us respond to, seek a response from, interact with the audience, assembled in a 180° arc around the stage and always visible to us onstage? Assuming we have the minimalist stage-set possibilities of a Shakespearean theatre, what do we need to convey to our audience to create the appropriate environment?
We will be focussing on just one play – this semester, A Midsummer Night’s Dream – examining the script itself and also video extracts of live performances. Each participant will work on one character during the semester, exploring possible ideas regarding that character’s nature, relationships to other characters, motivation and tactics. In small-group work, participants will then develop a possible staging of two to three scenes from the play, always ready to defend their interpretation on the basis of what is in the script. At the end of the semester, each group will perform their staging to the other groups, underlining how there is no such thing as THE perfect interpretation of the same words – indeed, how a number of different interpretations may well be equally valid (as I have experienced in many productions of the Dream, including my own three!).
We will be using some of the hours formally set aside for Self-Study in the module description as two full-day Saturday workshops. The first – compulsory – session will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, 10th November, to familiarize everyone with basic tools for ‘mining’ the script. The date for the second one-day workshop will depend on participant flexibility, and will be settled in the first in-class session.
Participants are required to each have their own copy of the script of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Globe Education Shakespeare edition published by Hodder Education (2012), ISBN-13 9-78144-136661. New copies are currently available – e.g. from the most-frequently used online-retailing outlet – for less than €10.
Strongly recommended further reading: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A User’s Guide, by leading British Shakespeare actor and director Michael Pennington. Nick Hern Books, 2005 (ISBN-13 9-781854-598103). A very much hands-on drama practitioner points to many different potential interpretations of the play: quite simply wonderful, and extremely stimulating.
Questions? Drop Michael an email at mclaridg@uni-mainz.de
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