Shakespeare Examined Through Performance
Introduction
If a good wine needs no bush and a good play needs no epilogue, then a good Seminar or Institute needs no introduction. However, some sense of how the pedagogical materials that follow were generated may add to their usefulness for a reader.
Those familiar with National Endowment for the Humanities seminars as a genre usually think in terms of an intensive six-week session during the summer, but this particular Institute, co-directed by Audrey Stanley and myself, has met one weekend a month between September 1995 and May 1996 under the auspices of the Folger Institute's Center for Shakespeare Studies at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The sixteen participants (seven women, nine men) represent widely varied backgrounds and interests. Five are from Theatre Departments and eleven from English Departments (though several of the latter group have considerable experience with performance); three are from schools in California and three from schools in Georgia, with the rest from Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.
The wide geographical spread suggests one potential liability of the once-a-month scheduling, for our Friday-Saturday sessions were vulnerable to weather delays for travelers, jet lag, and academic compression (wherein one's teaching and other duties had somehow to be completed in a three-day week). Nonetheless, distinct advantages emerged from such scheduling. This group was not isolated long enough together to develop "cabin fever" or the normal internal frictions associated with extended contact; each weekend, moreover, was a special, distinct event--to be anticipated and then relished. Most important in pedagogical terms, teachers who encountered a new exercise or a fresh way of approaching a scene or problem could try out their discovery immediately (and could report back to the group at the next session).
The focus of the weekends varied considerably. One through-line was a Friday evening Shakespeare production seen by the entire group with each participant then writing a brief response. Those responses were duplicated Saturday morning and were the basis for a discussion of the issues raised by that production (and these discussions could be the liveliest moments of the month). Also recurring were various forms of on-your-feet scene work, for under Audrey Stanley's direction individuals worked up soliloquies, paired off in scenes, and worked through various exercises and staging problems so as to experience directly the kinds of assignments that could be given to their students. Other sessions were devoted to the performance or pedagogical implications in various historical and textual matters and to the ways scenes from productions available on video-cassette could be used in the classroom.
A major role was also played by visitors. During October and November personnel from Washington's The Shakespeare Theatre talked to the group: artistic director Michael Kahn; costume designer Marina Draghici; and actresses Helen Carey and Caitlin O'Connell. Lois Potter (U. of Delaware), who had directed a previous NEH Institute at the Folger with a similar focus, brought many rich materials, particularly her emphasis on writing about performance, to the December meeting (and also arranged a very successful play reading of Middleton's The Witch). In January Cary Mazer (U. of Pennsylvania) led several sessions on theatre history, with a special emphasis on notions of "character," and Michael Friedman (U. of Scranton) did some intensive work with scenes from All's Well (a play we were to see the next month), ending with some observations about how such performance-oriented teaching can be linked to scholarly research and publication. Members of the group themselves led the various sessions in February, with those presentations the basis of the material in this volume. March was the province of the five ACTER actors (Gareth Armstrong, Sarah Berger, Sam Dale, Joanna Foster, and Phillip Joseph) who shared their techniques for getting students on their feet and doing speeches, directed participants in their prepared scenes, and presented a five-actor Macbeth. The final visitor in April was Michael Warren (U. of California, Santa Cruz) who concentrated primarily upon the pedagogical value of working with plays with multiple texts but also dealt with the links between the academic and theatrical communities.
Such a summary does not do justice to the varied events and interactions in which participants consistently found themselves teaching each other how to be better teachers (indeed, by the end of the academic year this "director" was learning more than he was imparting). A great deal of discussion was then devoted to what kind of legacy the group should leave. Various long term notions seemed attractive (in particular a web site so that the dialogue could continue), but two ideas emerged for the present: 1) a pedagogical "recipe-book" in which performance-linked exercises or assignments could be collected and classified; and 2) a collection of projects that could represent the many interests and skills of the group. The latter items vary widely, but our hope is that teachers looking for ways to tackle Measure for Measure or metre or Shakespeare's language (to cite only three of the topics) will find here both stimulation and practical tips.
The true test of any pedagogical project is not the spirit of the group itself (which has been and remains very high) but the pay-off for students, colleagues, and others who will benefit from what we have learned and from the items in this collection. All of us have grown as teachers during these nine months. We hope that that gestation period will also produce something of value for a wider community.
Alan Dessen
May 17, 1996