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ARIEL:                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Your charm so strongly works ’em                                                                                                                                                                   That if you now beheld them, your affections 
Would become tender.

PROSPERO:                                                                                                                                                                                                        Dost thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL:                                                                                                                                                                                                                Mine would, sir, were I human.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        –The Tempest, Act V, Scene I

Looking back on my incredible trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and London, it is hard to synthesize what I have learned, simply because I have learned so much.

On a practical level, I have taken away several games and techniques for teaching Shakespeare that I am excited to apply in a variety of milieus, including a workshop which my fellow undergrad and I will be putting together for our peers. From our myriad of guest artists I learned concrete ways to bust into Shakespeare’s text which will be more than handy as I begin to prepare audition material for Macbeth in the fall, not to mention if I were to land a part in the production.

On a creative level, I learned from both the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and of The Taming of the Shrew the importance of embracing the contradictions in the text and working out meaning for yourself as an actor or director. I learned that a whole world of hitherto unrecognized possibility lies under each line of Shakespeare, and that is so exciting and amazing!

On a personal level, as corny as I’m sure it sounds, I learned quite a few lessons in maturity this week as well. I got to have the scary but exhilarating experience of navigating myself around London a few times. Now I know I can do it, if falteringly, and that feels pretty good. I learned the importance of working in a group where–gasp–everyone doesn’t think exactly like me. I learned that the finished product will not be exactly what you pictured, and that is a good thing! I learned the importance of letting every voice be heard and contribute. I also learned to let go of my perfectionism in that. That goes to a greater lesson I learned which is to begin to think of myself as a collaborator in a room full of collaborators rather than an individual in a room full of individuals. That was something that everyone at the RSC, but particularly Rachel, cemented in us throughout the week.

If I had to boil down everything I am taking away from this past thirteen days down into one sentence, though, it would have to be: Be implicated.

Rachel talked about this on our very first day in relation to the importance of teaching kids to empathize with characters as a way into the texts, but it has stuck with me in a myriad of ways. Not only is implication and empathy a great teaching tool, it is a great life tool. If I can implicate myself in the struggles of Caliban or Helena, I can begin to implicate myself in the lives and opinions of my group members. I can begin to implicate myself in the lives of my friends and fellow travelers who may not be having the greatest day. I can begin to implicate myself in the world around me and the greater cultural conversations that are happening.

I like the verb implicate so much more than empathize, because it implies a messiness. The dirty work of digging into someone, whether that someone is a real person or a lifelike creation of Shakespeare’s. Because feeling for another person is never easy, but, in the same way a child feels after playing around in the mud, it is so rewarding. This is an amazing thing to teach children, and it is the most important thing I feel like I’ve learned myself along this journey. Besides carrying along the practical, creative, and personal lessons I have learned this week, I know I will continue to dig deeper and deeper into muck and soil of humanity until I am myself covered in it.

With a reminiscing smile, I say goodbye to England and this blog.

And place your hands below your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease. -Kate, The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene II

I am writing this post from back at my house in Columbus while attempting to catch up from jet lag. A conclusion post will be forthcoming in a couple of days.

My second day of London was just as enjoyable and enlightening as the first, if not more so since I got to check an item off of my bucket list by getting to see a play at The Globe Theatre.

I started off the day with a bit of shopping and then met up with my friend at Marble Arch in Hyde Park. I felt like such a Londoner, sheltering from the pouring rain, waiting for my friend to arrive, under an iconic landmark, no less. We toured the park and tried to stay as dry as possible. My friend studies architecture so he wanted to take me to the Serpentine Pavilion in the park. Every year, the Serpentine Gallery chooses one cutting-edge architectural design to be built next to the gallery. This year the design was by Bjarke Ingels, a Danish architect. He says the pavilion is meant to look like an “unzipped wall”. Here is a picture of the overhead view from inside. It was an amazing structure because being inside it felt both like being enveloped in a cosy cave and being in nature with the air coming in through the open windows the fiberglass boxes created.

From Hyde Park, we went to the Southbank where we saw the new addition to the Tate Modern which was only opened last week. The tenth floor of the structure has the most amazing view of the city.

That evening, I got the joy of seeing a play at the Globe. We got five pound “groundling” tickets which means we stood for the whole show. Though my body was really aching from a week of walking and acting and lugging my bags, all of my soreness seemed to melt away for those three hours. I could pay attention to nothing besides what was going on in front of me–literally two feet in front of me.

I got a great spot slightly off center to the right in the second row of the crowd. There were several  moments when the actors were so close I could see the clear mic tape on their temples.

This Irish take on the production, set in 1916 after The Easter Rising, began with Kate (played by Aoife Duffin) coming out on stage and singing a stirring ballad which came deep from within her. As she sang, each actor came on stage and took his or her shoes which were set on the stage before hand and put them on.

Director Caroline Byrne’s choice to set the production when and where she did was an amazing one. The fact that all of the actors were Irish allowed there to be highlight on the short tempers of all of the characters, not the least Kate. However the time characterized Kate and the other female characters’ anger as having more to do with their lack of rights. Women in the UK would go on to receive suffrage in 1920, so the fight was really boiling at this time.

Byrne chose to guide the ladies’ anger in one direction and make the male characters hot-blooded in a different way. Lucentio, normal portrayed as the sweet, romantic youth who would rather eschew his position and be a schoolmaster to be close to Bianca than pursue her from afar as himself, was, in this production, only concerned with laying his hands on Bianca. He struts around stage panting and swooning. Equally as concerning, Petruchio (Edward MacLiam) was characterized as someone who simply wants a wife and wants to make some money doing it. He is a cocky fellow who believe he can always get what he wants. The first half of the play closed after Duffin, just getting married off to Petruchio against her will, sings another heart-wrenching song as she sinks waist-deep into a hole in the stage. She comes out and walks off-stage at the end of her song. The hole was full of dirty water which has stained her wedding gown halfway up. She takes sullen leave of the stage.

At intermission when my friend asked me what I thought, I said I wasn’t sure. I said so because I wasn’t sure where the production was going. So far I had seen Kate and her sister abused by all of the men in their lives who shape their destiny without letting them have a word in edgewise. I wasn’t sure how the production was asking me to think about these relationships yet.

Then everything made sense in the final half. Petruchio’s house was squalid. The table was at a broken-down slant and Kate’s “bridal bed” was on a heap of coal. Petruchio tells the audience how he plans to “tame” Kate–she will not be allowed to eat, bathe, sleep, or change clothes until she submits to him. As this abuse goes on, we see a changed Kate emerge–she staggers with hunger, is covered with dirt, and her once-white wedding dress is dirty and shredded, exposing her underdress. When Petruchio refuses to let her see her father unless she agrees that the sun is the moon and a male traveller is a female, Kate finally gives in, a shadow of herself.

Then came the final scene. It is the banquet for Bianca’s wedding to Lucentio, and the men are bantering and drinking. The women have one by one retired. Petruchio suggests that his wife, once a shrew, is now the most obedient of all the women. He bets money that when they call their wives, Kate will be the only that will come. Sure enough, she is. As Kate walks down a large staircase, she delivers the famous closing speech of the play. It is a speech that, on paper, is a simple admission of her submissiveness to Petruchio and an admittance that women are weak and stupid in comparison to men. However, Kate’s words about the husband being lord of the wife become a farcical indictment when the audience can see how “well” Petruchio has looked after the weak, half-naked Kate. Her speech causes the men to realize just how poorly they are treating their women if Kate is what a portrait of submission truly looks like. I then understood why the men in the play were so terrible–it was to heighten Kate and Petruchio’s struggle from a personal one to a societal one.

Toward the end of the speech, Kate kneels down right in front of me. Petruchio joins her on his knees, and, after she finishes, they stare into each other’s eyes. The play disintegrates into a reprise of Morna Regan’s “Numbered in the Song” in which Kate is joined by the whole cast.

Not only was it an incredible opportunity to get to see a play in the setting people would have enjoyed Shakespeare in during his day (And so up close too!), it was incredible to get to see  a play at each of Britain’s, arguable two best Shakespearean companies. Seeing Taming at The Globe and Midsummer at the RSC gave me a magnificent opportunity to compare their styles and think about greater issues surrounding Shakespeare performance in this day and age.

Both companies used updated settings to add a new layer of meaning to their performances. Taming was set during the Easter Revolution in Ireland to forefront the societal tension between men and women and women’s tooth and nail fight for equality. Midsummer was set during post-World War II England to forefront how disparate groups come together after tragedy the way the fairies and the mortals must after disturbances in each of their realms in the play. Both also featured incidental music which bolstered the most dramatic moments of the production.

There were two big differences between the two productions. The new Artistic Director of The Globe, Emma Rice, has said she wants to make Globe productions 50% male, 50% female, so many female actors played male roles, including Tranio, Biondello, and Grumio. At the RSC, gender roles were kept in tact besides a women playing Peter Quince and the already ambiguous Puck. The acting style between the two productions was also a lot different. At The Globe, the actors took gesture, annunciation, and physicality to a realm that could almost be described as “overacting” or “farcical”. The Globe also added in bits and small lines in modern speak. For example, Tranio borrows and audience member’s water bottle at one point to splash on a swooning Lucentio. The RSC, by turn, focused on speaking the reality and emotion of the text in all of its subtlety and complexity. It also did not add bits for the most part, although I do recall a funny moment in which their Puck crawls through the audience, taking a sip of one person’s water before her “Through the forest have I gone”.

While I enjoyed the RSC’s serious treatment of the text a bit more, after some thinking I realized that what was behind the Globe’s work was wanting to preserve that entertainment-for-all ethos Shakespeare’s plays had when they were first preformed. Those plays were for everyone, regardless of intellectual or social standing. Therefore, I was able to respect the way The Globe did things even if I would choose the RSC’s style in a head-to-head match.

The Globe after the show. 2016 is the Theatre’s “Wonder” season.

Thus closes the journal of my final day in London. As I said before, a conclusion post will be forthcoming after I am finished collecting my thoughts on this once in a lifetime experience.

I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends. -Bolingbroke, Richard II, Act II, Scene 3

Today was a lovely, relaxing day exploring England, and a pleasure I never would have had without the Braver Fellowship. I  have a friend who spent the previous semester studying architecture in London, so we met up and spent the day together.

Despite getting turned around twice on the twisty crescents and lanes of London, I made it for breakfast at the Waterside Cafe in Little Venice. After breakfast and catching up, we went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, two places I had been longing to visit since I didn’t get the time on my previous trip to London in March. Next came lunch at Covent Garden, followed by dinner at a historic pub in Chelsea, gelato, and a bit of shopping.

Today was the loveliest kind of travel day. I was traveling with a companion I hadn’t seen in a while and was anxious to catch up with, but also a companion who knows the city since he has been studying there since January. We did a mix of must-see tourist attractions (National Galleries and Covent Garden) mixed with exploring the areas where actual people live (Little Venice, Chelsea). I felt like I really got to know more of the city today. In March, our days were scheduled, so we rushed about from place to place. I got to see a lot, but didn’t always have time to take in the present moment of being in London, England. Today, we just got to move leisurely at our own pace. If we saw something we wanted to look at or a shop we wanted to go into, we stopped.

The beautiful St. Luke’s Church, Chelsea.

Besides getting to catch up with my friend, two of my favorite moments of the day were those kind of unexpected travel moments. First, at the National Gallery, in the 18th century gallery, which I said I was fine to “fly through,” I turned a corner and was gobsmacked by the most beautiful painting. There was a wall of what turned out to be J.M.W. Turner paintings. Despite having been to a lot of art museums in a lot of cities, I have never had the pleasure of seeing a Turner painting. The one that really stands out from the three I saw was “Evening Star.” The way the star just glints in the middle of the blue expanse of sky and is reflected in the water, and the little boy with his dog who begs you to ask why he is on the beach as the sun goes down is so compelling. The painting was mesmerizing and I was not expecting in the least to see it.

The second such moment was while walking to the pub in Chelsea when we came upon St. Luke’s Church. Suddenly, ahead of us there were these incredible gothic spires and this beautiful garden. We stopped and took it in and snapped a few pictures before continuing on our way.

Despite just having a relaxing vacation day, it was great to get to experience the city in a slightly more realistic and leisurely way. It is a pleasure to be able to be surprised by something. Perhaps allowing more time for surprise in my life is something I should consider. Perhaps it could even improve my crafts of acting and writing.

What do I fear? myself? there’s none else by: 
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.  -Richard III, Richard III, Act V, Scene III

I am sitting on the couch in the common room of our London student townhouse, reflecting back on today, our last day in Stratford and last day of working with the RSC. Myself and my fellow undergrad, the graduate students, and the MFA actors got the incredible opportunity to work with RSC Associate Artist Alison Bomber in a prolonged acting workshop.

The theme of her work that sticks out for me is a phrase she repeated multiple times: “The Architecture of the Language”. The whole workshop today served to help us to discover and make the most out of this architecture, this concrete structure, through physicality, voice, and visualization. There are two exercises from today which really stick out to me and which I think really speak to the architecture of the language.

The Shakespeare quote above comes from one of England’s most bloody and cruel tyrants. After doing several exercises to get us into the text including reading it aloud and stopping at end punctuation and turning on other punctuation marks, Alison had us try staying in place and reading the monologue. Here’s the catch: on the first line we had to connect with one of our imaginary audience, and deliver that idea out to them, then on the second thought we deliver the line inwardly, as if taking it from outside ourselves. It was tricky to get a hang of this exercise at first, but it did a lot in helping me to see the possible meanings and motivations in this text I had never studied before.

The most interesting moment I had came from the line above:

Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.

When I first did the exercise, “Richard loves Richard” and “I am I” were taken outward, so it took on this sort of “think what you will, this is who I really am” sort of tone with the “that is” in the middle spoken inwardly showing a certain level of inner uncertainty Richard might not be willing to share with his audience. The second time we did it, the main phrases were taken inward as if the first phrase slipped out unexpectedly, the middle was a clarifier to the public, and the final was an acknowledgment inwardly that what was said first was true if not shocking. Playing with the text in this way, Alison told us, allows us to not get too bogged down in the meaning of the text but rather to focus on the language first and on finding meanings and readings naturally that our judgmental actor brains may have prevented us from seeing otherwise.

My second favorite exercise of the day happened right when we got back from our lunch break. She had us partner up and hug our partner. First we just did this simple action which was actually difficult for a lot of people in the room, myself included, because of the level of knowledge we had with our partners. I suppose it was a great exercise for something Aileen talked about as well–in the room, you are two actors and nothing should be taken personally. After simply hugging, Alison gave us the directive to hug on an exhale and hold the hug until we ran out of breath. After doing this a few times we moved on to hugging on an inhale and releasing when all of the breath had been breathed. Finally we hugged and held our breaths, the pair deciding together when to release.

Though this exercise really necessitated me breaking out of my comfort zone, I got a huge amount of use out of it. She directed us during this process to allow our actions to create a story if they do for us naturally. I was stunned at how different each type of hug was. The exhale hugs felt soothing and comforting, like I was releasing a trouble that the other person was going to help me bear. The inhale hugs, contrastingly, felt like the moment of contact had urgency and a sort of fullness of tension. Finally, the held breath hugs felt massively emotive. Simply the physiological shift of hugging without breathing in and of itself caused to to be at the brink of tears. Those hugs felt saturated with heavy, dramatic emotion.

Both of the exercises above as well as many others Alison did with us focused on directing attention in different ways. In the first it was inward versus outward. In the second it was inward, outward, and stopped. She really opened up a whole new world of possibility when it comes to line delivery in Shakespeare for me. She unearthed this concrete structure for us–the architecture that lies beneath the poetry we see–and it is such a tactile and playful yet incredibly intelligent way to approach a Shakespeare text.

As our session with Alison concluded and we boarded the train to London together, with Stratford getting ever-farther in the distance behind us, I sat and reflected on the many encounters with amazing artists I have experienced throughout this week.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear. -Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I

I cannot believe that today was the last day working with the teachers and Rachel Gartside. It has really been a fabulous week. We started right off working in our learning groups to put together a lesson plan that synthesized and implemented the skills we had been learning throughout the week.

In my group with my fellow undergrad and three MFA actors, we decided to focus our lesson on college students with the end goals of having them feel like Shakespeare’s text is accessible to them, like they are comfortable with his language, and like they have ownership of the piece on which they are working.

After creating our one-hour lesson plan, it was amazing to see how we were able to take bits from not only Rachel’s work with us, but also that of Aileen Gonsalves, Michael Corbridge, and Miles Tandy and incorporate it all seamlessly. That is when it really hit me just how many tools have been added to my actor toolkit, so to speak, this week.

From Rachel, I have learned to view the other people in the room, whether they be students, teachers, or peers, as equals in a process of collaboration. From her I also learned the importance of play and image in breaking down Shakespeare’s text. From Aileen I learned that real acting work cannot be done unless my attention is focused on the my other and what I am trying to get them to do. From Michael I learned to approach the text with attention to language first and meaning second. From Miles I learned some practical skills for editing Shakespeare’s text for kids, an assignment I am about to embark on myself with Cymbeline. I also learned form Kim Sykes how to approach Shakespeare with joy.

Approaching Shakespeare with joy brings me to an appropriate ending for this portion of my blog. Tonight, in the typical vein of treating us like royalty, the RSC held a champagne reception for us, and Miles Tandy delivered the closing speech and toast. He ended with a quote from a young girl who had been taught using the Stand Up for Shakespeare methods we have been learning throughout the week. To paraphrase her quote, she said you can never be too young or unknowing enough to study Shakespeare, because all it takes is opening up your heart.

More than anything, the past five days have done exactly that–through play and group activities, through growth-inducing group exercises and acting games that made me vulnerable, from making silly faces to exploring multiple interpretations of the same text, this week has broken open my understanding of Shakespeare by breaking open my love for it first. All I had to do was open my heart.

Me, exiting, pursued by a bear.

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song 
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, 
To hear the sea-maid’s music. -Oberon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene I

I went into workshop today pretty tired indeed. I was ready to work and learn and experience but my body wasn’t. Immediately, Rachel started us out on our feet, though, doing physical exercises to discuss our reactions to last night’s Midsummer as a group. As I put my whole self into the exercises, I could feel energy returning to me–it could have been nothing other than a willingness and excitement to work more with Shakespeare in these new and exciting ways.

I was really thrilled when Kim Sykes, one of the two Associate Directors of Midsummer, came to take questions from our group. I asked a question about the very provoking choice to set the piece in a post-World War II bombed-out theatre. Her explanation that that point in time perfectly aligns with the old order (Theseus/Egeus) versus new order (the four lovers) tension in the play and how the idea of coming together, building together, and rising from the ashes as a country like the British did after the War was a beautiful concept for a “Play for the Nation.” As I said to Kim after her Q&A, Midsummer is “about everything”, all of life, and even that is the perfect reason to put it on on a national scale.

I also really enjoyed what Kim said about Shakespeare and the production process more generally. She said that with some of the more difficult material to perform in the production, such as Helena’s decision to wed a still spell-casted Demetrius at the end of the play, it was necessary to “embrace the contradictions of the text.” She also told us that “Shakespeare characters never lie.” While I can surely think of moments where it is important to the plot that they do lie, I took what she said to mean that characters in his plays are explicit about what they want and why. If Helena says she loves Demetrius at the end, she means it, so it becomes up to the production to find a way to ease that contradiction (in the lover’s fight she says she gives up her suit of him.) Kim said for her Helena and Demetrius, it was that Demetrius had just come back from a horrible war experience during which he was corresponding with Helena. When he got back, Helena was a painful reminder of war and that is why he is sick when he looks on her. The spell Demetrius gets, according to Kim, simply made Demetrius see with true eyes, not pretend to love someone he doesn’t. She says it’s evident in the lines:

Flower of this purple dye, 
Hit with Cupid’s archery, 
Sink in apple of his eye. 
When his love he doth espy, 
Let her shine as gloriously 
As the Venus of the sky. 
When thou wakest, if she be by, 
Beg of her for remedy. -Oberon, Act III, Scene II

Oberon invokes Cupid, who has the power to create true love, and he also invokes Demetrius to ask Helena for forgiveness, indicating that the spell is more than just a simple fix, the spell really just helps Demetrius to see aright. Kim was quick to say that this is what worked for the directors and actors in her production and that many interpretations of these things could work as well.

Additionally, the actress playing Helena (Laura Riseborough) could not bring herself to be okay with marrying Demetrius (Chris Nayak)–could not take his hand at the end of the play–until she found a moment of true sincerity in his public profession of love to her.

It was so powerful to hear Kim talk about the approach to this play, how inclusive it was with the amateur companies and child fairy trains and the allowance that was given in rehearsal for the cast and directors to struggle with the text and get right into the thick of it. That’s the thing about Shakespeare, I think–with the provocative language, relatable human experiences, and liberal use of magic, his plays draw both audience and artist inside of them. We want to know more, we want to see what happens next, we want deserving things to happen to these characters because, on a primordial level, we are them. Shakespeare has the power to bring us up to the peak of glory, into the throes of love, and in the midst of despondent madness. Shakespeare lifts us up and sets us back down again, though we are slightly different people, even if on a molecular level. Shakespeare changes us if we will allow him to. That is the power of his work, and it is an invaluable lesson I have been learning this week.

Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love 
Accompany your hearts! -Theseus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I

My third day in Stratford, as we began work with Rachel and Michael Corbridge on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and saw the RSC’s performance tonight, was all about joy. As someone who loves both making and watching theatre, I of course do it for a reason, and part of that reason is that it brings me pleasure, but today was huge in helping me to really feel that joy that is inherent in both parts of the process.

First we all got the wonderful opportunity to work with Michael Corbridge, an RSC Voice and Text practitioner who has been working with the amateur mechanical companies and children playing the fairies throughout the tour of Midsummer. Michael was a huge, brilliant ball of energy who unrelentingly forced us to tackle our text, in this case, one of Puck’s speeches to Oberon. He was very aggressive–one example would be the exercise he did with one student where he had him read the text and Michael would interject questions having to do with the text in such a way that the student had to repeat himself three or four times. Michael himself referred to it as “bullying,” but he was never harsh or rude.

He also encouraged us not to think about the meaning of our speech. Rather, he told us to focus on the words themselves, “juicing” them and enjoying them. Through building text-based exercises, I realized the meaning of the text came to me over time, naturally. It grew along with my understanding of the language so that I felt like I had a more holistic understanding of the speech. More than anything, though, I was blown away by Michael’s ethos because he was so playful. He was encouraging and jovial, and my final response to the session was that I just felt so full of joy.

The second half of the day, Rachel split us into small groups where we built a mechanicals scene together and then, still in our groups, each took bits of text to put together a twenty-minute version of Midsummer. Building these scenes together was at times frustrating and stressful because I was worried about how our group would be received. I truly believe that if I would have given into the joy of the text and the joy of performing, I would have had an even better time, and, to be honest, I probably would have performed better in the group.

Seeing Shakespeare’s birthplace–another joyful experience.

The performance of Midsummer we saw tonight firmly cemented the lesson that theatre relies on joy to be great and also should cause joy in its audience. Even if it is a sad play, it still should provide the joy of the experience. Several times during the performance, I was crying with the happiness I was experiencing in being in that room with that performance. It was an amazing performance–the acting was flawless, the technical elements were astounding, the director’s concept of setting the play in a bombed out 1940s building was highly compelling, and the amateur mechanicals and child fairies brought an unexpected vivaciousness to the performance.

Today was truly amazing because it helped to affirm a foundational belief for me in theatre-making–joy is foundational, it must be there, it simply must.

O, I have suffered/With those that I saw suffer. -Miranda, The Tempest, Act I, Scene I

Many people flippantly use the phrase “living the dream” to describe a wonderful night out or a particularly delicious slice of cake, but I can truly say, today while sitting in the first of five workshops at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I felt like that phrase was invented for me in that moment.

As an English, creative writing major with a theatre minor, Shakespeare has always, not surprisingly,  been a passion of mine. However, my encounters in the past couple of years with Kelly Hunter, former RSC company-member and founder of the Hunter Heartbeat Method and work in the RSC/Stand Up for Shakespeare-inspired school tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream made me uniquely excited to get to work with a truly exciting and landscape-changing company.

It is such a dream come true to get to study in this place.

While we learned so many insightful and interesting ways to engage with Shakespeare’s text today, particularly as it relates to The Tempest, one lesson ran throughout the day which particularly stuck out to me. Rachel Gartside talked at the beginning of the day today about being “implicated” in the text. By learning Shakespeare’s text on our feet through playful and imaginative activity, we become implicated by the text, not simply watchers, simply observers, simply critics. We can become empathetic with the characters in a way we would never be able to do simply talking about the motifs and themes. But when I am on my feet, being tossed about on the waves like a sailor on the doomed ship, thinking about the sensory experiences one such sailor would be having, I can suddenly understand the character, then their place in the text, then Shakespeare’s possible intention in writing these moments of the text. Becoming implicated in the text is also a much for fun and exciting way to learn because it necessitates a higher level of engagement.

We studied Miranda’s speech to Prospero right after she has watched the ship wreck and many crew members die, the one in which she asks him to allay the storm if he has caused it with his power. It is here that she speaks the line I began the post with: “O, I have suffered/With those that I saw suffer.” What is so likable about her character is that she herself is an empathetic being. Her words served as a great guide to me as I begin my work for this week.

After dinner at a lovely Indian restaurant and a lovely walk down a wooded path which could very well have led to a fairyland, I called it a day. I go to bed tonight, tremendously excited to see what Stratford and the RSC have in store for me tomorrow!

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