As you scroll on down this blog to the next
article, you will see my most recent compressed version of a Shakespearean play,
the troubling Merchant of Venice, which
concludes with a scene that confirms the play’s status as one of the Bard’s comedies
but does so at the expense of Shylock, a Jewish non-citizen resident of Venice
who ultimately loses his fortune after lending money to the merchant, Antonio,
who in turn had raised the sum to ameliorate the financially straitened condition
of his beloved friend, Bassanio.
In presenting this play, I made an artistic
decision that resonates with those that other presenters of this work of the
greatest writer in the English language have had to make. Shakespeare presents a scenario that bluntly
reveals the religious bigotry of Christians over the long centuries during
which the religion rose to prominence in Europe and certainly abided in the
views of those who came to see Shakespeare’s works at the Globe Theater at
Stratford on the Avon in England in the years just before and just after
1600. Shakespeare gives evidence of a
more balanced view on his own part; he
gives considerable space in the play for the Jewish financier Shylock to voice
his resentment over the prejudice of those in the predominately Christian
society around him, and he writes dialogue for the delivery by the Shylock character
that articulates the universal qualities of humankind, whatever their
demographic descriptors, most particularly in this case, religious
identification.
This is the matter of focus for my artistic
decision:
The Merchant
of Venice concludes with a lighthearted comedic scene that follows the
intensely emotional courtroom scene in which the apparent victory of Shylock
turns into humiliating defeat and even a mandate to renounce his Jewish faith
and become a Christian. By that time,
many pages have been turned and scenes enacted since Shylock made his case for
the common traits of humanity, regardless of religious faith. In my rendering of the play, I bring that
part of the script voiced by Shylock to the very end of the play, so that after
his courtroom humiliation, he sits facing the audience alone, a man
experiencing a bundle of emotions, poignantly at once forlorn, stunned, and
insightful.
Great works of art should be read and discussed
for any prejudices that they reveal, whether on the part of the author or on
the part of those whose attitudes prevail in the temper of the times. This assertion is rendered in consideration
of the recent furor over the curricular inclusion or lack thereof with regard
to Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’s) Huck Finn
and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and also in view of my own love of the works
of the great playwright August Wilson, who in such magnificent works as Fences, The Piano Lesson, and Ma
Rainey’s Black Bottom does not shy away from use of the “N” word as
reclaimed by some African Americans in their own implicit definitional
transformation.
For many years now I have each spring
compressed a Shakespearean play for presentation by my students and myself at
the annual banquet of the New Salem Educational Initiative; at least five students who have substantial
parts and read the whole work with me then go the Great River Shakespeare
Festival in Winona during the summer. Typically,
they see the play that they have just performed. This will be the case this coming summer, at
which in addition to main-stage performances of All’s Well That Ends Well and Midsummer
Night’s Dream, there will be a performance of Merchant of Venice by a talented group of apprentices.
In the days to come, for the convenience of
my readers, I am going to present with new commentaries the other plays that I
have thus far compressed, maintaining all Shakespearean (Elizabethan) language. These works of the Bard include King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Comedy of Errors and Othello.
A
number of dignitaries have attended our banquet to see these productions,
including Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius, who
attended our 2016 presentation of Julius
Caesar.
The most practical impulsion to produce
these compressed versions of Shakespeare’s works (from among the total of at
least 36 dramas written by this greatest literary practitioner of the English
language) has been these annual performances given by my students and me in the
New Salem Educational Initiative.
My inspiration for these productions came
first in the course of the 2012-2013 academic year. I have always used Shakespeare in my Psychology
classes (at this point in my career, I have taught all major subject area
courses at the K-12 level, in addition to East Asian history courses at the
university level). During the academic
year of note, I had three extraordinary female students who made perfect daughters
Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan of King Lear (as enacted by me) in the June 2013
New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet.
From that time on, my students and I went forth confidently, ever reflecting
upon our joy in performing these great works.
The hip-hop generation loves words; Shakespeare is the best wordsmith in history,
and the Bard’s themes are replete with resonances to the tenor of life at the
urban core. Less adroit teachers may
feel the need to have recourse to the abominable and abominably titled No Fear Shakespeare, but as a genuine
aficionado and highly skilled teacher I would never use anything but the
original texts. All of my compressions
feature the Bard’s own words, presented in compact form for presentation in our
30-minute performances at the banquets.
After those banquet presentations in early June
each year, students who have read the entire work and then performed the compressed
version go with me to the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona,
Minnesota. I pack a lunch, we drive
along the Mississippi (which most of my students have never seen beyond the
Twin Cities bends), taking a look at the rural scenes that are a first-timer
for many of these urban young people.
Given vocabulary-poor educations in the schools of Minneapolis, I
inevitably have to review the meaning of “rural” and “urban” for my students,
who have not yet encountered these terms except in my own instruction during
our weekly academic sessions.
I kid you not:
Try these and many other perceptibly
ordinary terms out with young people whom you may know, and you’ll get your own
sense of just how atrocious are our institutions of K-12 education.
After we see the splendid production in
Winona, I bring the students by my home for a meal of my preparation: Once I became famous for my sweet and sour
chicken and other Chinese and Taiwanese accompaniments, any notion of varying the menu
with my Mexican, down-home southern soul (which I cook for our annual banquets),
Thai, South Asian, vegetarian, and vegan cornucopia became moot.
This is, then, an enriching experience for
my students from multiple perspectives.
And the emphasis on Shakespeare is rooted
in my propensity to be the adult who says, in the way of village elders of the
past: “Here is your cultural inheritance,
which I am delivering to you as my sacred responsibility.”
This is the sort of commitment that I make
as my students and I study the fourteen chapters (Economics, Psychology,
Political Science, World Religions,
World History, American History, African American History, Literature,
English Usage, Fine Arts, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) of my Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts
Education; and as I prepare in my Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect to detail
the people and the processes that produce such a wretched K-12 academic program
at that school district.
Shakespeare is a vital component of my
total commitment to be the adult that my students need in their lives, one who
imparts to them their inheritance as human beings, giving them an education of
excellence and preparing them according to the three great purposes of
education:
cultural enrichment,
civic preparation,
professional satisfaction.
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