While Shakespeare’s 450th birthday sparked fresh debate about whether or not we should be teaching the Bard in American high schools, audiences in the US and abroad are now being treated to new and amazing venues for witnessing Shakespeare’s plays.
The new Chicago Shakepeare theater is configurable to allow for all manner of immersive theatrical experiences. And a replica Globe Theatre has popped up in Melbourne. These intimate spaces get audiences up close with the actors, the way Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be. And that’s important in a time when serious questions are being asked about the relevance of Shakespeare’s plays to today’s world.
Although I’m on the side of English teachers who insist on including Shakespeare in the curriculum, I also understand the point of frustrated teachers who feel the effort is too great. Reading even a single play can be time consuming and disheartening. The language is dense. The tragedies are depressing. I get it. But to those teachers, I say, take your kids on a field trip. Get them into a local theater. Or if that’s not in your budget, insist they perform scenes in a classroom, on a stage, on a basketball court. Have them film each other with selfie sticks as they read. Play it back and talk about the emotional experience of the plays: where they got it right and where they got it wrong.
The most important thing to remember when teaching Shakespeare is what theaters-goers around the world already know: it’s not about being able to read Shakespeare. It’s about connecting with the visual-emotional experience of the plays through sight and sound, motion and light and energy. Shakespeare is meant to be an oral, auditory experience. And the satisfaction of “getting” Shakespeare–even a single scene–is its own reward.
So take your students to the theater in Chicago or LA. Or create your own pop-up theater at school.
Visualizing Shakespeare 