Network Romeo

Rumor has it that the ABC network has committed to producing a new period drama series, a retelling of Romeo & Juliet set in Renaissance Verona. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the movie adaptation of another popular story about star-crossed lovers belonging to clans that are at odds with each other, Twilight, is in talks to direct the potential Romeo & Juliet.

As an educator, I’m not sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, this seems an amazing opportunity to introduce Shakespeare to a new generation of thirteen year-olds hungry for another teenage love story to get hooked into. Sure the story is centuries old and most everyone knows how it ends, but I can imagine my thirteen year old self posting vigil by the television set weekly to watch [name your own hearthrob’s] doomed romance. On the other hand, can you adapt R&J into a television series and still call it Shakespeare? It is dubious that the screenwriters for this version will stick to verse or any likeness of the original text. Still, could the t.v. show be used to pique student interest in learning more about Shakespeare in Will’s words?

Adaptations of Shakespeare in High School have been popular for quite awhile but is there any track record for these adaptations actually bringing students closer to Shakespeare?

Read Full Post »

Is There a Difference between Teaching and Directing Shakespeare

~by Kevin J Costa

Sometimes I’m asked about the difference between teaching Shakespeare and directing his plays. I’ve often thought about that difference too – and, lately, even if there is a difference. Certainly, anyone who has the privilege, as I do, to teach and to direct, at school and professionally, will have different opinions about this. So let me address the question this way.

Years ago, I would have probably said, without much hesitation, that, yes, there is a fundamental difference between the two. At that time, I think, I would have agreed with many that, in the classroom, it’s important to cover this or that point, to try to gather up what the play “means,” and so on. In the theatre, I would have been interested in telling a clear story – I still am – but I would have seen it as a fundamentally different task than teaching these works.

Students of Kevin Costa perform Romeo and Juliet

Now, however, all that has changed. I find, when I am studying a play alongside students – I wouldn’t even say that I “teach” anything – I’m less interested in theme or meaning. Or, perhaps to put it a more precisely, I’m not as centrally concerned with these kinds of things, at least at the outset; I believe that close, patient, collaborative, and active work on the words and on what those words reveal about the characters and their relationships with each other will, at the right time, let larger ideas bubble up. In the theatre, directors and actors are charged with telling the clearest, most honest story possible, and to do this well, we must always live wholly in the text – exploring the words, appreciating how their very utterance brings a character and his or her contradictions into full being. If this is done well, a company may achieve a great story to play on the stage. But why only on the stage? In the school room, the same can certainly be achieved and allow for a much deeper, longer lasting relationship with plays that continuously explain to us who we are.

Kevin J. Costa is a TSI 2010 Alumni. In addition to being an English teacher at McDonogh School, he is Head of the Drama Department, Director of Fine & Performing Arts, and Assistant Director of College Counseling. He also serves as the Director of Education for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company- where he recently directed Titus Andronicus in the ruins- and as Chair of the Shakespeare Theater Association of America’s Education Committee.

Read Full Post »

Litmus Test for Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is one of the best-known and frequently performed of Shakespeare’s plays, but even if an audience doesn’t already know the story, Shakespeare gives the ending away in the prologue.  So if people aren’t going to see the play to experience the plot for the first time, what is it they hope to see when they go to see a production of Romeo and Juliet?   What makes a production of this familiar story a great one?

I determined my personal litmus test for a great production of Romeo and Juliet a number of years ago when I accompanied a group of high school students to see a touring company at a nearby college.  The actors playing Romeo and Juliet were so engaging and the language was so real that I forgot about the fate that awaited the lovers as I lost myself in the balcony scene.  Just as they were about to part, the truth reasserted itself—they were going to die.  I was torn between my admiration for the language and the remarkable actors and my sadness over the inevitable outcome.  Ever since then, my litmus test for a good production of Romeo and Juliet is whether or not the beauty of the balcony scene can help me forget—for the moment—Act 5.

Today five friends and I set out on a road trip to see the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s production of R and J, and I thought I’d see how they might respond to the question.  “Before you see the play,” I asked, even as the van began to pull away from the curb, “I have a little survey I want to take.  What is your litmus test for a good production of Romeo and Juliet?”

The answers were varied:

“I look for some unexpected moments.”

“I want to understand something I didn’t understand before.”

“I don’t want them to mangle the language.”

“I want to see some scenes that are usually cut, scenes that tell a story of their own, like the scene with the musicians when everyone thinks Juliet is dead, and I want a strong Juliet, one who can convey the range of emotions she experiences in Act 4.”

And from the resident optimist…..“I wait for a different ending….”

On the way home, I asked them if they felt the production had passed their tests, and the answers were, for the most part, overwhelmingly positive.  The only exceptions were that the musicians had been cut yet again, and that, alas, the ending was still tragic.

And my litmus test?  How did the production fare for me?  Well, I was lost in the play before the balcony scene this time.  The play passed muster in one of the most beautiful and original stagings of the ball scene I’ve ever seen.  I’d go back to see the play again just to see Act 1, Scene 5, one more time.

But what about you?  What is your litmus test for a great production of Romeo and Juliet?

- Sue Biondo-Hench

Read Full Post »