Last weekend Cosimo and I went to see a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was put on by a local company that seems to have a canny sense of its audience: their play selections aren't especially daring (hence, MSND), and they obviously strive to keep them accessible and appealing to people who may not have much background in Shakespeare. This particular production was energetically choreographed, heavy on slapstick, and set during the "Summer of Love"--with lots of Beatles songs as incidental music. But since the troupe is also really talented, these things weren't just bells and whistles, but used in the service of smart, subtle, interesting interpretations.
Smart, but accessible! The perfect combination!
Well, you'd think. But we wound up walking out of the theatre behind a few fifty-something couples, and overheard their conversation. They'd loved the production. Then one of the husbands mentioned that their teen-aged son was studying the play in school, and one of the other husbands asked whether he or his class were going to see it.
"I don't know," the first man replied, and then laughed. "We were telling him they should--but now, after seeing it? I think this version would just confuse the heck out of the kids!"
The others laughed, shook their heads, and agreed.
Because, you know: if it's fun and has Puck wearing bell-bottoms, it must not be Real Shakespeare.
5 comments:
"Because, you know: if it's fun and has Puck wearing bell-bottoms, it must not be Real Shakespeare."
Unsurprisingly, I blame HS English teachers for this.
FLG:
You mean the parents' HS teachers? That's very possible (or at least that they're drawing on their dim memories or impressions of those long-ago classes).
And as someone who teaches a lot of kids who intend to teach public school, believe me: I often wonder/worry about how what I'm teaching them will get filtered down to their eventual lesson plans and their students. (Who will eventually be MY students, if I stay here long enough.)
Exactly, the parents' HS teachers.
I'm sure what your teaching them will eventually filter down just fine. I just hope those potential teachers have passion for Shakespeare.
I also blame the superintendent, the school board, and the PTA.
More seriously, there's a bigger problem that empowers the lackluster teachers and dampens the effectiveness of the good ones. It's a problem about the positions that our culture has assigned to Shakespeare (who is to be revered) on one hand, and to comedy (which is officially Not Serious) on the other.
Like most people who teach Shakespeare, I often have students praise me for "making Shakespeare funny." Of course, all I've done is adequately deliver a few of the four-hundred-year-old jokes in the reading. But even when I say that, Shakespeare can't get the credit for his own bits. Because Shakespeare is Great Art and great art is Serious, and comedy, by definition, is Not Serious.
"More seriously, there's a bigger problem that empowers the lackluster teachers and dampens the effectiveness of the good ones. It's a problem about the positions that our culture has assigned to Shakespeare (who is to be revered) on one hand, and to comedy (which is officially Not Serious) on the other."
Personally, I blame the missing comedy part of Aristotle's Poetics for that.
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