Stopping Shakespeare Before he Starts
My sophomore daughter is face-to-face with kids who wish they could go back in time to kill Shakespeare so that they wouldn't have to study him.
My Sandra-Dodd response, and new introduction to an article I wrote years ago:
WELL!
Having just watched Pride and Prejudice (again, the BBC mini-series which is on DVD) with Colin Firth, the first thought that popped into my mind was to recommend that everyone here immediately rent or buy the DVD called Black Adder: Back and Forth. It was the last (most recent, maybe not always last) installment of the Black Adder series, involves time travel, and Colin Firth plays Shakespeare. See how Black Adder deals with him on behalf of all school children thereafter.
I like Black Adder, and Colin Firth, and Shakespeare.
Of my kids, none fear Shakespeare. When Marty stayed with Anne Ohman's family, they saw a production of The Tempest, with an actor who's a friend of Anne's and Marty had met him beforehand. As soon as Marty got into the hotel room at the conference, he told me lots about it, and showed me the program. When we were packing to leave, he couldn't find that program, and was as close to grouchy as he had been all weekend when I didn't know where it was either. We searched, it was located (in my pile of papers) and he was happy again. He's talked to me about the play a couple of times since then. I have a Classic Comics or some other kind of illustrated version of it, and I intend to locate that and leave it on Marty's bed at some point soon.
But "studying" Shakespeare is quite different from enjoying and appreciating Shakespeare if my kids are any indication.
Another wonderful thing to get if you yourself are afraid of Shakespeare or marred by previous "exposure" or you didn't have much exposure and would like more is "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," also on DVD, by The Reduced Shakespeare Company. There are only two plays they do at length, but they... well, you'll see. And you won't be sorry if you do.
Luckily for us all, we can see Shakespeare in our own homes, done by professionals, and we can pause or rewind or fast forward, we can eat chocolate chip ice cream or hamburgers (neither of which were known to anyone at The Globe Theatre), sit on soft couches with kids in our laps, have subtitles playing... I love DVDs. And I'm grateful to anyone who has ever made a film of Shakespeare. Netflix has a DVD for rent (which means it's for sale too, but it might not be so cheap) of some of the earliest silent movies of Shakespeare plays. Sometimes it's only one scene of a play, and some were very experimental things with interesting special effects.
I can't leave this without a curtsy to Kenneth Branagh, or without telling you that he is mentioned in the conversation between Black Adder and Shakespeare in "Back and Forth."
September 2004
by Sandra Dodd
Song lyrics are meant to be sung, recipes are made to be cooked, and Shakespeare is made to be performed and watched. Reading Shakespeare from a book is an American school tradition, but it makes less sense than reading recipes you never intend to cook or taste.
Shakespeare is the fodder for many graduate degrees, and can be one's life's work, but it's not the big mystery some would like you to think it is. With very little expense or effort you can introduce your family to Shakespeare and if they have a sparkly interest, with another few dozen dollars or so (less than the cost of one college course) you can all become experts.
Here is the secret: RENT VIDEOS. That's easy. If you're around big video rental stores, you'll have no problem. If you're out in the country, you might need to use interlibrary loan, or mail order some videos. The wonderful thing about videos is that you can pause, rewind, turn them off and think for a few days. You can pause and look things up. You can pause and call your friend who knows about Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's plays are categorized as histories, tragedies and comedies. Here's my recommendation for a basic starter set. If you watch these and discuss them with your family, the kids will have had a better introduction to Shakespeare than most high school students have ever had in the U.S. All are readily available for rent. For the tragedy, choose Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli, 1968) or Hamlet (the one with Mel Gibson; Zeffirelli, 1990). History: Henry V (Branagh, 1989). Comedy: Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh, 1993) or Twelfth Night (Nunn, 1997)
Either buy used or check out from the library a Shakespeare collection (or individual little books of plays if you find those cheaper) so you can see what the plays look like on paper—what stage directions they have, who the characters are, and what sorts of things are edited out to keep the play under two hours. If that seems interesting you can rent the Brannagh "Hamlet" (1997) which has the entire text and lasts nearly four hours. If the text you've found has introductory material and footnotes that's best. If you have choices, I'd recommend The Riverside Shakespeare. If you have a "Complete Works of Shakespeare" of some sort without notes, look (in used bookstores first) for Cliff's Notes or Monarch Notes for the play. Those will discuss characters and summarize the action.
Another source for information is a book that tells the stories in prose form. One is by Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales of Shakespeare. You might find others. You don't have to read that to the kids, you could just read it yourself so you can help explain the action if the videos confuse them.
If you have the opportunity to take your children to a live performance, even a student production, that's another good plan, but New Mexico isn't a hotbed of Shakespearean production. [author's note: This was first published locally in Albuquerque, on paper, thence the comments above and below.]
If you have access to the internet, poking around for Shakespearean sites
might be fun for you and your children. Try this:
Shakespearean Insult Generator, or Green Eggs and Hamlet, both of which went around by e-mail in the pre-web-page days of yore.
After you've gone that far, you will probably have come upon lots of books
about Shakespeare's life, videos of other plays, related art, music, and
humor—all sorts of things. There is an incredible book on Shakespeare for
$10 from Usborne books. It would be the best I'd ever seen if it were three
times that price. My oldest son, when he knew I was writing this,
recommended the new "Romeo+Juliet" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Parental guidance is advised on that one, but my 11 year old son watched it
straight through and understood it and recommends it. I'd start with the
period setting (the Zeffirelli) first before going to modern setting,
personally.
At that point you could quit forever and your children would have enough
exposure to Shakespeare to know whether they would like to pursue it further.
If you keep all the activities light and fun, nothing forced or treated as a
required bit of drudgery, you might find that you AND your children will be
on the lookout for opportunities to see more Shakespeare and to find trivia
and history between plays and movies. Have fun!
This article originally appeared in Enchanted Families, a now-defunct New Mexico newsletter for homeschoolers, in 1998 or 1999. If I every find my copy, I'll settle the date. It is also at www.unschooling.com, but there's a bad link in it there, as a referenced website is long gone. I've found new sites for the version above. —Sandra
A GOOD SOURCE of information on video or DVD versions is to go to Amazon.com, look up any Shakespeare play there, and click on one of the lists on the right-hand side. There should be several people's lists of favorite Shakespeare videos with commentary/review.
