Students Abroad See Shakespeare Realized

Author: Laura Rockefeller

It was with a great sense of anticipation that 14 Middlebury students, myself included, set out for England on Jan. 14, 2002. These students, mainly English and theater majors, had the incomparable opportunity of spending two weeks in London and Stratford studying Shakespeare as part of the Winter Term course Shakespeare and Stratford. By participating in workshops and lectures at The Globe Theatre in London on the production of Shakespeare's plays, students were able to see the plays brought to life by the world-renowned Royal Shakespeare Company.

After spending the first week of Winter Term at Middlebury in an intensive study of the plays and their background, students in the course attended all of the Royal Shakespeare Company productions currently running in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. This enabled us to see the way that Shakespeare's plays worked when performed in very different spaces and in very different styles.

Performances ranged from a relatively traditional production of "King John," presented in the intimate Pit Theatre at the Barbican Center, to a very modern version of "Hamlet" put up on the main stage of the cavernous Center. Technologically advanced equipment in the larger theater allowed "Hamlet" director Steven Pimlott to create an incredible, almost futuristic world for his Hamlet to inhabit.

Surveillance cameras were spaced at regular intervals along the walls of the stage, and highly mechanized lights zoomed up and down the side of the stage on polished metal tracks. Both were periodically turned on the audience so that even we began to understand Hamlet's feeling of being constantly watched by his stepfather. Samuel West, known to most American audiences from his performances in movies like "Notting Hill" and "Persuasion," played a refreshingly vibrant Hamlet. He also did a remarkable job of creating two different personas for the prince: one who spoke directly with the audience and with characters he trusted, and one for situations where he felt called to put on his "antic disposition."

Our theater experiences in London were not confined to Shakespeare's plays or even to those of his contemporaries, although the class did have an opportunity to see a production of Ben Johnson's play "The Alchemist." On one of the free evenings, a few of us went to see a play entitled "The Royal Family." It boasted a truly remarkable cast including some of England's most distinguished actors like Harriet Walter, Julia McKenzie and, perhaps most notably, Dame Judi Dench.

The play told the story of a family that became a theatrical dynasty in 1920s New York and of their struggle to hold their place in the world of the stage as the new medium of film began to take America, and some younger members of their family, by storm. Although Dench's performance at the end was extremely moving, the majority of the play was hilarious comedy.

The workshops in which we participated at The Globe gave us an opportunity to experience some of the work that goes into creating a theatrical performance, specifically a production as it would have been done at the time of Shakespeare. We were able to try swordplay, perform period music and even to act on The Globe stage. A backstage tour of the re-built Globe Theatre showed how Elizabethans created special effects by using the trap door in the stage floor that lead down to the space under the stage called "hell" and the trap in the ceiling that lead up to the loft above the stage known as "the heavens."

A new look at the plays we had been reading was offered when we met with two of the Royal Shakespeare Company actors we had seen perform in "King John," Kelly Hunter and Guy Henry. Kelly Hunter, who played the role of Constance in "King John," has a notable list of theater and television credits including Rosalind in "As You Like It." Guy Henry, who we saw play the title role in "King John" and Malvolio in "Twelfth Night," also has a noteworthy and wide-ranging list of credits including Cloten in "Cymbeline," for which he won the Helen Hayes Award for Best Supporting Performance. After looking at the way Elizabethans would have produced a Shakespeare play at The Globe in our workshops, it was interesting for us to hear two modern actors discuss the process of creating a Shakespeare piece for modern audiences.

It was incredible to see so many excellent productions of Shakespeare's plays in so short a time and to be able to study them with so many resources for information about the history of the plays themselves and their production. After the week spent in close reading of the five plays, it was marvelous to be able to experience them as Shakespeare intended, given vibrant life by actors on the stage.