SHAKESPEARE


Playing Shakespeare: Students take part in a Globe Education Macbeth workshop in 2010 (above), before getting a chance to see the play at the Globe Theatre in London (below left) Further information


It is the pursuit of this engagement of students


that has enabled me to discover what makes an early teenage brain tick, at least as far as Shakespeare’s characters are concerned. Fourteen-year-olds are discerning participants and


if the plot and its characters are not relevant or they do not relate to them then they will let you know with total apathy. No lip-service will be paid, and so through teenagers’ responses (or lack of), I have learned which of the plays illuminate a fertile brain in ways that we educators strive to achieve. So why is Macbeth so successful a teaching tool?


I am not sure there is an exact moment where we suddenly become aware of our actions and the effect that they have on others but certainly the technique of crying to be fed is with us from birth. So suddenly when you bring into the conscious mind of a young adult that their actions have consequences and that the things they cause to happen can have a huge effect on others, then it is a revelation that in many ways they have been waiting to hear since early childhood. A Globe Education workshop on Macbeth will


often start with an activity we call the “Walk of Fame”, and this looks at the accolades that other characters bestow upon Macbeth. We then compare and contrast these compliments with insults that are directed toward Macbeth later in the play. It becomes clear that a man greatly honoured brings about his own dishonour and indeed is responsible for his own downfall. I believe that when you are young adult struggling


for independence, the idea that you are not simply a victim of circumstance but in fact have so much control over your destiny can be a liberating experience. To realise the choices you make will directly affect the direction of your life is a huge moment and can bring about a sense of empowerment that we all crave, whatever our age.


Tamsin Rand


Practitioner, Globe Education I come to the teaching of Macbeth from an actor’s point of view. With very little experience of teaching in a traditional setting, I have only my experience of rehearsing Shakespeare and performing on the Globe stage to inform my methods. I find it useful to ensure that any session has a core


theme in order to work through the play, the language, the imagery, and the characters while maintaining an overall understanding of how these intertwining areas are joined. For key stage 3 Macbeth, I choose my theme as


the character of Macbeth and his journey through the play from hero to tyrant. I focus on the factors that affect Macbeth’s actions from the start of the play to the end, marking every major change with a descriptive word – “valiant Macbeth”, “weak Macbeth”, “murderous Macbeth”, etc – and a gesture, in order to map within the student’s minds Macbeth’s descent towards death. I look particularly at the factors that affect Macbeth’s


decision to murder Duncan. Using Macbeth’s speech “if it were done”, I divide the class into groups and give each group a line from the speech explaining that these are Macbeth’s thoughts. They must decide whether their line is encouraging


Macbeth to commit the murder or not. As the soliloquy has only one argument in favour (“I would be King”) and numerous against (“I could be punished by death”, “Duncan is virtuous” etc), the students inevitably


SecEd • April 7 2011


come to the conclusion that were the play to end here, Macbeth would not commit murder. Usually when asked they are also able to say that it


is Lady Macbeth who persuades him. We look at this in pairs. A must convince B to murder the King but using only the words Yes and No. As they become confident I introduce lines from Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s scene – “I’ll go no more”, “are’t thou afeard” and then “we’ll not fail” and Macbeth’s “I am resolved”. Watching these opens up a discussion on tactics and persuasion. I think it is vital to explore the language, imagery,


and physicality of performing any Shakespeare play, but within a framework. Mapping Macbeth’s journey gives the students a line to follow, meaning that any vocal, physical, or language discovery happens organically. The possibilities for further exploration of morality,


Shakespeare’s England, the Globe, acting, monarchy, and relationships are endless and as such, Macbeth is an invaluable and wonderfully rich learning instrument.


Bill Buckhurst


Director, Playing Shakespeare’s 2010 production of Macbeth When I was asked to direct Globe Education’s Playing Shakespeare production of Macbeth for key stage 3 students, the first thing I did was sit down and think about how I engaged with Shakespeare’s work when I was 13. At that age I had an English teacher who had previously been an actor, and he was very keen on putting the plays on their feet in the classroom. We actually worked on Macbeth with him, and I do not remember sitting down once – from the word go he had us pushing the desks to one side and moving around the room pretending to be witches with cauldrons and soldiers arriving back from battle. I remember it being very exciting, and I never


worried about what exactly every word meant – the very fact that we were simply speaking the text out loud to one other, communicating with these incredible sounds, was enough. The funny squiggles on the page started to come alive as we spoke them to each other, and it felt really good. My next English teacher could not have been more


different – he chose Richard II for us to study and we sat at our desks speaking a line at a time around the classroom until, by the end of term, we had gone through the whole play. Not once did we look at anyone else as we spoke the lines, and at no point did I ever have a clue about what any of it meant. It put me off Shakespeare for a very long time. My experiences watching Shakespeare plays as a


teenager followed a similar pattern. I remember being very bored during certain productions when it seemed that the actors were “speaking beautifully” but not really engaging in the story being told. I never truly believed that I was watching “real” people on stage during these productions, and I remember feeling very alienated from the action. The unique and extraordinary relationship between


architecture, audience and actor in the Globe brings the storytelling much closer to the spectator. The fact that the entire space is lit allows the audience to see not only the stage but also each another – and it also means that the actors can see the eyes of every one of the 1,400 spectators. As a performer, you cannot afford to ignore the presence of the audience – there


are too many other interesting things for them to look at in the auditorium. You therefore have to work hard to allow the spectators into the world you are creating on the stage – the performance must be a truly shared experience. The large open playing space also requires the actors


to invest more than usual energy in their vocalisation – they need to build muscularity behind the words. Subsequently, Shakespeare’s language really comes alive in the space.


SecEd


Globe Education’s Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank website offers a collection of free online resources, aimed to support the study of Shakespeare in schools primarily at key stage 3. Playing Shakespeare is Globe Education’s flagship project for London schools, which sees tailored versions of the plays created specifically for young people with in-school workshops for over 1,000 students and CPD training for teachers. Visit www.playingshakespeare.org


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Photo: Nick Gurney


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