Shakespeare at Longwood

Group Performance Projects

On selected days throughout the semester, groups of students will make fifteen-minute presentations to class in which they advance their own collaborative interpretation of how a particular scene (or part of a scene, or a conflation of two or more scenes) in selected plays should be staged. If group members disagree on certain elements of the staging, record those disagreements and feel free to share them with the rest of the class as the discussion progresses--but you should try to begin with a presentation that is relatively unified in its vision of the scene. As a way of dividing the labor, groups should address the following three issues, with each member of the group taking primary responsibility for one of the three categories below.  In the presentation, each group member should spend about five minutes on his or her category, and this will leave us with five to ten minutes for discussion afterwards.

1. Setting, scenery, and props. Where is the scene set? Elizabethan England? Nineteenth-century Italy? Germany in the late 1930s? Farmville, Virginia in the early twenty-first century? Mars?  What kind of clothing do the characters wear? Should the stage be filled with many pieces of ornate furniture, or only a few simple chairs and tables? Are sound effects or music necessary?  Feel free to supplement this part of your presentation with sketches of possible stage layouts, or pictures of particular pieces of furniture, clothing, or props that you imagine the characters using. Most important, you should provide a careful and detailed explanation of why you think this setting (and attendant props, costumes, etc.) is justified, and you should explain what you hope to accomplish, theatrically, with it.
    
2. Blocking. Where do the characters stand on the stage? Where do they move, and when (and why)? How and where do they enter and exit the scene?  How do they speak?  What emotions do they display, and how, and why?  Do they make distinctive gestures at specific points in the action? Try to describe the characters' movements and gestures as carefully (and imaginatively) as possible. If the text of the scene includes stage directions (note that these are often editorial additions), do you agree with them?  Does the text itself suggest clues to how the scene might be dramatized? Most important, you should provide a careful and detailed explanation of what you hope to accomplish, theatrically, with these actions.
    
3. Text. Are there any parts of the dialogue you would remove in order to make the action flow more smoothly, or in order to emphasize a particular point or staging effect? Are there lines from other parts of the play that can be added to your scene to emphasize a particular idea or theme?  You should also take into account the textual history of the play--are there Quarto or Folio readings that you prefer to the ones in our edition? Check the Arden editions of the plays, or Wells and Taylor's Textual Companion to Shakespeare (in the library) on this point.  (Our own edition also contains textual notes.) Most important, you should provide a careful and detailed explanation for what you hope to accomplish with your "edition" of the text. NB:  Please keep in mind that the purpose of this exercise is to develop a staging of one of Shakespeare's plays, not an adaptation (e.g., Ten Things I Hate About You, My Own Private Idaho, Forbidden Planet, O). You are encouraged to edit Shakespeare's text (i.e., remove sections of text, condense a scene, or combine passages from different parts of the play)--but please don't re-write it (i.e., don't modernize the language, or change or add words).

Your presentation can take any form you like--feel free to be imaginative. You may want to stage an actual performance of the scene, or simply begin with a dramatic reading (drawing on all group members). Some groups have found it useful to make a PowerPoint presentation.  But it is essential that you articulate the idea behind your staging to the class. In all cases, be prepared to defend your choices, which should not be arbitrary, but carefully thought out. At the end of class, each student will hand in in a 3-4 page written explanation of his or her contribution (please indicate at the top of the page which of the above categories you were responsible for).  Your grade will be based on the written explanation.  Each group should also submit a copy of their edited text, with stage directions and blocking indicated in brackets, and any visual aids they have used in their presentation.

You may want to consult Lois Potter's essay on Shakespeare in performance in Appendix 3 of Bevington's Necessary Shakespeare.

Go here for examples of Performance Projects from previous semesters.