Shakespeare…in other words

Why are there so many “modern” versions of Shakespeare’s plays?

There are plenty of great books that don’t need translated versions. We don’t look for easier versions of Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville, or Fitzgerald (or at least, I hope we don’t.) But re-doing Shakespeare seems to be a favorite sport of publishers.

In a way, we can trace it back to Nahum Tate in the 1680′s and Thomas Bowdler in 1818, but they had totally different agendas than today’s creators. Tate wanted happy endings and Bowdler wanted to clean up the naughty bits.[I'll talk about them in my next post.]

We at the Folger have a standard answer when someone asks us what we think of “modern” versions of Shakespeare’s texts:

“IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO USE SHAKESPEARE’S WORDS, DON’T DO SHAKESPEARE.”

Why dumb down all those beautiful words and images for the sake of making it easier? We’ve found that if you’re teaching Shakespeare in an active, performance-based approach, the language becomes less of on obstacle.

It’s the words that matter. Here’s an example of a passage from R&J which I’ve written with an interlinear version with the No Fear version:

Shakespeare: Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

No Fear: Oh, she shows the torches how to burn bright!

Shakespeare: It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

No Fear: She stands out against the darkness

Shakespeare: Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,

No Fear: like a jeweled earring hanging against the cheek of an African.

Shakespeare: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

No Fear: Her beauty is too good for this world; she’s too beautiful to die and be buried.

Shakespeare:  So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.

No Fear: She outshines the other women like a white dove in the middle of a flock of crows.

Shakespeare: The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,

No Fear: When this dance is over, I’ll see where she stands

Shakespeare: And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.

No Fear: and then I’ll touch her hand with my rough and ugly one.

Shakespeare: Did my heart love till now?

No Fear: Did my heart ever love anyone before this moment?

Shakespeare: Forswear it, sight!

No Fear: My eyes were liars, then

Shakespeare: For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

No Fear: because I never saw true beauty before tonight.

See the difference? Post your comments below as to the effect of the translation.

I almost hesitate to mention more of these, but they are worth discussing here. The following are for the print empaired student:

• If your students find reading Cliff’s Notes too difficult, Cliff has a better idea. They’ve boiled the plays down to 5-minute videos with ridiculous animation.
• The Shakespeare Made Easy videos boil the plays down to 2-minute versions, but are pretty awful.
• I do like the Folger videos that we’ve made, both the Insider’s Guides and the One-minute versions.

But back to print. Here are the candidates:

• Kent Richmond has created what he calls “verse translations” of several plays and shows why his versions are superior to what he calls the “dumbed down prose versions.”  Here’s his translation of the Prologue from R&J.
• No Fear Shakespeare is part of Spark Notes. Here’s their parallel-text version of the same Prologue.
• Barrons have moved on from their Shakespeare Made Easy series with the death of  their author, Alan Durband. They now have a series called Simply Shakespeare which seems equally bad.
• There’s also a series of Shakespeare Novels by Paul Illidge.  Here’s the opening line from Macbeth: “A summer storm moves on over the barren and deserted countryside of Scotland during the Middle Ages, leaving the rain-soaked fields cloaked in clouds of fog.” Oh my.

I won’t get into the manga and graphic versions of the plays, most of which retain the original language and are quite good.

One of my students recently said to me, “You have some strong opinions.” Yes, I do, but if you feel that there’s room for these translations in your class, I encourage you to post your comments below.

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Macbeth Set Free

Folger Education entered  new territory on Tuesday February 15 with the beginning of Macbeth Set Free, an online course for teachers. With the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and New York Institute of Technology, we are able to reach teachers across the country with some solid approaches for teaching Shakespeare.

When we planned the course, we were careful to keep it as interactive and lively as possible.  We are using Moodle as the course management system for discussions and posting handouts and lessons. The eight live sessions will use Elluminate and feature prepared video of students demonstrating some activities and video from the highly praised Folger Macbeth DVD. Those teachers who are participating will use their webcams and microphones to ask questions and participate in some of the activities.

When we announced the course in January, we had a flood of requests, but we had to halt the registration to 30 participants. Those who enrolled represent 23 states, and each teacher received a copy of the Folger Toolkit.

A different instructor will lead each class in the coming weeks. Here are the teachers who are presenting:

Week 1–Bob Young and Mike LoMonico, Folger Shakespeare Library

Week 2–Chris Renino, Scarsdale (NY) HS

Week 3–Kevin Costa, McDonough School, Owings Mills, MD

Week 4–Sue Biondo-Hench, Carlisle (PA) HS

Week 5–Jaime Wong, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional HS, Sudbury, MA

Week 6–Chris Shamburg, New Jersey City University

Week 7–Amy Ulen, Tumwater (WA) HS

Week 8–Bob Young and Carol Kelly, Folger Shakespeare Library

While the class is closed, here is a recording of the first session.

This is the first of what we trust will be many more Web-based professional development sessions. If you have any suggestions for future Webinars or courses, please add your comments below.

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Shakespeare in New York

After a summer with hundreds of outdoor performances everywhere, from Central Park where Al Pacino starred in The Merchant of Venice to the Parking Lot which featured Julius Caesar and Love’s Labor’s Lost, Shakespeare is back and he’s alive and well and living  in NYC. Here are some highlights:

• Not only is Shakespeare back, but so is Al Pacino, but this time The Merchant of Venice has moved to Broadway. In addition to Pacino, the show features Lily Rabe as Portia,  Byron Jennings as Antonio, the Merchant and Jesse L. Martin as Gratiano.
• The Public Theater, which produced Merchant, recently introduced their Mobile Unit, which will bring free Shakespeare to audiences with little or no access to the arts. For their first production, the Mobile Unit will tour Measure for Measure, directed by Michelle Hensley, to correctional facilities, homeless shelters, facilities for battered and abused women, drug rehab facilities, senior centers, centers for youth-at-risk, and other social service organizations that support the disadvantaged, underserved, and marginalized.
• Meanwhile at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), there will be lots of Shakespeare. In March, Edward Hall’s all-male  troupe, Propeller, will bring The Comedy of Errors to the Harvey Theater. Then in April, England’s Cheek by Jowl’s Macbeth comes to BAM, directed byDeclan Donnellan, and starring Will Keen in the title role. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:  later in April, Sir Derek Jacobi takes on the title role in King Learin a major new production from director Michael Grandage and the renowned Donmar Warehouse.
• I know it’s along way off, but BAM has also announced that Kevin Spacey will star in the title role of Richard III in February 2012. R3 will be directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes with whom Spacey worked on the film American Beauty.
• But the really big event doesn’t happen until next summer when the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 44 member acting ensemble will perform five plays in six weeks at Park Avenue Armory as part of Lincoln Center Festival. The event takes place July 6 through August 14, 2011. All five productions are currently playing in repertoire to critical praise at the Company’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon. Included are: As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter’s Tale. These five plays will be performed on a specially-built thrust-stage based on the newly transformed Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where the audience is wrapped around three sides of the action bringing actors and audiences closer together (see below).
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Orson Welles and Macbeth

Orson Welles had a love affair with Macbeth.  Many teachers know him from the 1948 feature film which he both directed and played the title role. Sure it’s in black & white, and yes he rearranges scenes, seems to make up bits of dialogue , and even leaves the witches out of act 4, scene 1 (we only hear their voices), but the film has enough originality to make it still work today.

Here’s the opening minutes:

But perhaps lesser known was the 1936 stage version, commonly called Voodoo Macbeth.  The play was part of the W.P.A. and opened in Harlem before moving to Broadway and later going on a national tour. Here’s one of the few videos from that groundbreaking production that survive:

If you want to read more about this production, I’d suggest two books. The first is simply called Orson Welles on Shakespeare edited by Richard France. In addition to an excellent foreword by Simon Callow, it includes the entire script that Welles used.

Weyward Macbeth:Intersections of Race and Performance is a more recent book that touches on that production in some depth. 

The collection of excellent essays was edited by Scott Newstok and Ayanna Thompson who devote an entire section of the book to this fascinating episode in the American theater.

So I wonder: does anyone still use the 1948 Macbeth film when teaching the play? And does anyone discuss the Voodoo Macbeth with students? I’d love to hear from you if you do.

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Thou Know’st ’tis Common…Ay, Madam, it is Common

The Hot News among English Language Arts teachers this summer (it’s been a slow news cycle) was the initial publication of the Common Core State Standards. Originally announced on June 1, 2009, the initiative’s stated purpose was to provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.

And for those of us who teach Shakespeare, the really good news was the inclusion of a Shakespeare play–specifically Macbeth–as a requirement in the Grade 9-10 Standards.

Here’s what the commission said about the standards:

These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards:

• Are aligned with college and work expectations;
• Are clear, understandable and consistent;
• Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• Are informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
• Are evidence-based

As of July 9, 23 states had decided to replace their standards with the Common Core and by the end of the year, 41 states are expected to have adopted them.

Only Texas and Alaska did not participate in the initiative and are not expected to adopt them.

But Shakespeare was one of the few authors mentioned by name, and the Folger has lots of fabulous lesson plans on Macbeth and a wonderful DVD of the production we produced on our stage.

So what do you think about these standards? Will your state be adopting them? Will it finally convince some reluctant administrators that Shakespeare should be taught in high school? You tell us.

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Teaching with the Folger Macbeth DVD

It’s been  less than three months since the Folger Macbeth DVD became available, both at the NCTE Conference and through our shop and on Amazon.com. In adition to the 2-hour play, the DVD also boasts eight Special Features.  They are:

• Capturing Macbeth film trailer takes you inside the critically-acclaimed production.

• Directing Macbeth demonstrates the process that Aaron Posner and Teller go through to mount the stage production.

• Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth takes a close look at what motivates these complex characters by interviews with the actors and directors.

• Acting Macbeth gives fascinating insight into how actors prepare for their roles.

• Comedy in Macbeth illustrates how the tension in the play is often relieved by humor, with a special focus on the role of the Porter.

• Blood Will Have Blood gives a behind-the-scenes look at how stage blood is used to create a “horror show” atmosphere in Macbeth.

• The Weird Sisters explores the directors’ unique choices in how to portray these extraordinary—and controversial—characters

• Stage Combat explains how the fight director coaches the actors to create a unique fighting style and believable battle sequences.

You can even read the transcripts of each of these on our site.

So we’d like to learn what you early adopters of the DVD think about it and more importantly, we’d like you to tell us how you might use the play and the Special Features in teaching Macbeth. Try to be as specific as you can. We’re really curious how you might teach the play if every one of your students had the book WITH the DVD.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

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