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Berlin: On our last visit to Berlin’s `Shakespeare Players` on December 3rd, 2007, the preferred attire amongst the student thespians was jeans, T-shirts, and scarves. Group blocking, line delivery, and story understanding were the separate building blocks of the programme as led by Martina Baasner and as supported by linguist Peter Baasner.
Several months later, however, buckles, robes, crowns, crucifixes, caps, corsets and aprons are standard costume as the troupe take Shakespeare’s words from the page to the stage at the Friedrich-Ebert-Oberschule. Their weekly rehearsals, as directed by Martina Bassner, now focuses story and character understanding towards more concrete dramatic effectiveness on the school’s newly-furbished stage that will witness the public performance on 17th, 18th and 19th of June. The strategic decision to co-join line readings, blocking and costume, arises from the awkward demands of Shakespeare’s play -`The Comedy of Errors`, widely believed to be his first. Though his shortest play (1, 778 lines) it serves up an intricate plot of doubles and false identities that, if rushed, might lead an audience, like some of the characters, bewildered and lost.
Keeping the pace high, audience empathy engaged, and story understanding in place needs careful preparation. This is the biggest challenge for Baasner and her colleague Peter Baasner, as individual students become rounded characters, testing with each other their learned words through knowing gesture, response, and nuance. It is at this point that the actors, like many before them through the centuries, can engage more fully in the rich potential of Shakespeare’s text - the one that allows for creative interpretation by those who have volunteered to walk the talk. In many respects the `Shakespeare Players` project - pioneered by Bassner in 2001 - fulfills the best intentions of the `project method` of learning (`Foundations of Method`, William H. Kilpatrick, 1925). For the American educationalist, what all learners found truly rewarding was “a wholehearted purposeful act” that, with guidance, would produce learning that, over time, was both substantial and unified. Hence on our January 23rd 2008 visit, the real-time focus of the 20-strong ensemble was clarifying and coordinating the complex last act denouement. What impressed the observer was the high-level of motivation and jovial engagement of the actor-students as, over three hours, they attended conscientiously to both close textual analysis and then slow-motioned their individual performances towards a fluent and unified group signature on the stage. And they still had enough energy and spirit at the end of the afternoon for their mighty group roar that, hand-in-hand, celebrated their accomplishments so far.
Not that their learning is stage-bound. The Players and their teachers have been invited on a working exchange visit to the F. E. College of Merthyr Tydfil. , South Wales. Their March 1st - 6th 2008 visit is the latest of ventures to the U.K., which began in 2001. On this occasion, and amongst ot her things, they will be sharing a workshop on Shakespeare`s "Midsummer Night`s Dream" and seeing the play and a 75 minute condesnsed version of "Hamlet" from the Danish Co Det Lille Turnetheater. Then it is back to Berlin to refine and shape-up for their public summer show that, with buckles and beards and caps and crowns in place, should easily qualify as a wholehearted purposeful performance of great merit. CODA The Shakespeare Players, of the Friedrich-Ebert Oberschule in Berlin have performed: A Midsummer Night´s Dream, 2001; Twelfth Night, 2002; Much Ado About Nothing, 2003; The Merry Wives of Windsor, 2004; As You Like It, 2005; The WInter`s Tale, 2006; and The Tempest, 2007. Autor: Alan Taylor E-Mail: a.taylor@balliol.oxon.org Abfassungsdatum: 22.02. 2008 Copyright © 2008 Alan Taylor Verwertung: weltexpressandtheauthor Quelle: www.weltexpress.info Update: Berlin, 22.02. 2008 |
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