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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:
- | 30
Registration group: ELC 313
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
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, a key formulation in the title points to our central focus: ‘live 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 Hamlet – our core text – is not a play to be feared… it is a script that reaches out and seizes you, wanting to be actively explored in depth, rewarding you with surprises and pleasures at Shakespeare’s ingenuity as poet, character-developer, fellow-actor, and audience-wooer! You will discover the key to unlocking the great soliloquies – among the most satisfying and fulfilling speeches an actor will ever perform, and a thrill to present onstage to a live audience.
UPDATE, 3rd October: We have been given permission by the Dean to do this seminar as hands-on, face-to-face/mask-to-mask “Präsenzunterricht”, harnessing the practical aspects of performing Shakespeare and the physicality of the language in each workshop. This will take the form of three 1.5-day workshops, running from 2 p.m.-6 p.m. on Friday plus 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The dates are as follows: 20-21 November plus 4-5 December plus 22-23 January. You will also be doing online work in mini-groups between the workshop blocks. I will contact you once the 3rd registration phase is over regarding a first, online ‘meeting’.
We will actively explore actors’ strategies when working with Shakespeare scripts, and then focus on Hamlet, examining the script and experimenting with our own ways of staging some of the 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.
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.
I will make sound clips of the entire play available, and hope to be able to do the same with film versions, if copyright, funding and technology permit!
Our central strategy will be the need 1. to be open to every potential idea and interpretation in our initial ‘detective’ approach to the script, but ultimately draw out what the script itself, together with the practicalities of performing it, reveals as plausible; 2. at all times to keep the other actors/characters (including the audience, our other, unpredictable, ‘fellow-actor’) in mind: how does our interpretation help us respond to, seek a response from, interact with not only others on stage but also the audience, assembled in a 270° arc around the stage and always visible to us onstage (and vice versa!)? 3. to convey to our audience all that they need to understand the appropriate environment and setting (place and time) of a scene, assuming we have the minimalist stage-set possibilities of a Shakespearean theatre; 4. to keep in mind the times, type of audience and theatrical set-up Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists were writing for.
You will need your own copy of the script, in the RSC Shakespeare edition published by Macmillan and edited by Jonathan Bate & Eric Rasmussen, published in 2008, ISBN-13 number 978-0-230-21787-4. New copies are currently available – e.g. from two of the most-frequently used online-retailing outlets – for €10-€11. It has a brief but good introduction and good line notes, as well as an excellent section at the end on previous performances (especially at the RSC). Please note: you will need the PRINT edition, not the Kindle/e-book one – we need the SAME edition with the same pagination for in-class work, and you will probably need to pencil in comments and notes. I would also recommend this if we are only meeting ‘virtually’ – it’s much easier to work with!
Questions? Drop Michael an email at mclaridg@uni-mainz.de
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