Anyone who knows me knows that Shakespeare means a great deal to me, and consumes a great part of my life. In honor of William Shakespeare's 447th birthday (which was this past Saturday), I decided to commit to blog my Shakespeare experience. I recently read The Shakespeare Wars by Ron Rosenbaum. In this book Rosenbaum talks about the critical moments in his Shakespeare journey, moments that changed his life. This got me thinking about what were the critical moments in my Shakespeare journey. I can think of three.
The first one happened in the Fall of 1991. I was in the 8th grade, and took a class field trip to see Julius Caesar at the High Point Theater. This production was put on by the NC Shakespeare Festival. Now I am not exactly sure why our teacher decided to take us to see a production of Julius Caesar. We were not reading this play in class. Whatever her reasoning was, I am eternally grateful to her for taking us to the NC Shakespeare Festival. This was my first exposure to Shakespeare, and I was blown away. I remember thinking that it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. The language moved me in a way I couldn't describe. Granted, I didn't completely understand everything that was being said, but I did understand the emotion that it moved in me. That morning at the High Point Theater lit a fire in me that still burns today. Later that year I would read Romeo and Juliet for the first time and my fate was sealed. I would be a life long Shakespeare fan.
The second defining moment in my Shakespeare journey happened my junior year in college. In the Spring of 1999, I took a class on Shakespeare's Later Plays (ENG 340) taught by Dr. Russ McDonald. Hearing Dr. McDonald speak about Shakespeare that first day of class was a near religious experience for me. He spoke about Shakespeare and his plays with such passion, power and excitement that I left that class completely changed. I had to immediately go find my fiancé and tell him all about it. Of course, he couldn't have cared less. He hated Shakespeare and had no interest whatsoever in hearing about my life changing experience. His attitude never once swayed my passion for Shakespeare. (He would eventually come over to my way of thinking, but that story comes later.) That ENG 340 class was amazing. McDonald brought out an energetic life in plays we read that semester. Each class was an grand show, and I was madly in love with everything Shakespeare. That semester we studied Measure for Measure, Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. The next semester I took ENG 339, Shakespeare's Sonnets and Early Plays. That class was also taught by McDonald. In that class we studied the sonnets along with The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV Part I & II, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. In both of those classes we didn't just talk about his plays. Along with our Shakespeare text (the Riverside) we also read The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare which McDonald had recently published. This is a great book that really gives you an inside look at the time period's cultural and historical context. Understanding what was going on during the time that Shakespeare was writing these plays really helps you understand the plays themselves. It also helps to understand the staging conditions that Shakespeare was writing for, which was another topic we covered in depth. Dr. McDonald taught me how to think about Shakespeare and his language. He has forever colored how I approach and think about Shakespeare, and I couldn't be more indebted to him for that. Words cannot express how much those classes meant to me. He changed my life in ways that I could not have understood or appreciated at the time. I would give anything to take a graduate level Shakespeare class from him. Alas, he is now teaching at Goldsmiths University of London. However, if he happens to find himself in this part of the world again, believe me I will be signing up for one of his classes.
The third and last moment came in September 1999. During the Fall semester of my senior year I had decided to take ENG 342, which was called The Seventeenth Century. This class was taught by Dr. Christopher Hodgkins. I distinctly remember that very first class. Dr. Hodgkins came in and started the class saying that in this class we would NOT be studying Shakespeare. If we wanted to study Shakespeare we should take one of Dr. McDonald's classes. This class was going to be about Shakespeare's contemporaries. He also announced that first class that the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express (SSE) would be coming to campus to perform The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont. We were told we should go see the play since we would be reading it that semester. So on an extremely hot day in September 1999, I drug my fiancé to the Brown Building Theatre on the campus of UNCG to see the SSE production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle. This just happens to be one of the oldest buildings on campus, and the air conditioning went out that day. So when the play started at 7:00 p.m., it was about 90 degrees in the theatre. The conditions in the theatre were miserable, but the play was fantastic. They used the staging conditions of the time, leaving the lights on and directly interacting with the crowd. I was completely blown away. Who knew theatre could be like this? This made me look at plays in a whole new light. My fiancé didn't share my enthusiasm, and practically ran out of the building the second the play was over. Granted it was insanely hot in there, but the magic that surrounded that production had given me the ability to ignore the heat. In 2001, I discovered that the SSE had changed their name to the American Shakespeare Center and that they had built a permanent home in Staunton, VA. I begged my husband to take me up there, but he always found some excuse not to go. It took me eight years to get him to agree to go to the American Shakespeare Center. We finally went to a play in February 2009. We saw Henry VI, Part I. My husband completely and totally fell in love with Shakespeare. In the end it wasn't me that changed his mind, it was the atmosphere at the American Shakespeare Center. When we got home from that trip, I sent an email to one of the actresses that was in that production, thanking her for doing what I'd been trying to do for years. (The American Shakespeare Center is home to the world's only recreation of Shakespeare's indoor theater, the Blackfriars Playhouse. They use Shakespeare's original staging conditions, and this means that they make the audience a part of the play. They literally do it with the lights on. :) This is an amazing experience, and I strongly urge anyone who has not had the chance to experience theater this way to do so immediately. You will not want to go back to watching plays in the dark.)
When I graduated with my MLIS, I knew I wanted to move up into Virginia so that I could be closer to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton. It's doubly sweet now that I can share this passion with my husband. We go to Staunton as often as we can. It's an experience like no other. My dream is to someday get a Master of Letters in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin College, and to be a librarian that focuses on researching and teaching Shakespeare. I know it's a long shot, but who knows it could happen. Shakespeare has brought such amazing entertainment and people into my life, and I can't thank him enough for it. I don't know how I would occupy my time without him.
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