Introducing children to the world of the plays will help them feel more at home and navigate those deeper waters later in a more knowledgeable and understanding way, because they’ll already know the lay of the land. The deep discussions about betrayal, cowardice, truth, love, and piety can wait for high school, but the enjoyment of the plots, the characters, and the language doesn’t have to wait.
I believe that Shakespeare, the greatest artist whose medium was the English language, can and should be introduced to children. We can draw out deep themes and discuss grand philosophy using monologues and plots we find in Shakespeare, but we should never study Shakespeare to the exclusion of simply enjoying the fun of Shakespeare – Shakespeare was meant to be fun. Shakespeare wrote popular entertainment, not philosophical treatise. Shakespeare was written in order to be seen, scripted in order to be performed. If you do any reading aloud or movie watching together, you can do Shakespeare together. You don’t have to wait for high school to do Shakespeare with your kids, and you don’t need to be homeschooling to study Shakespeare together. Shakespeare was the hot movie in his day, and he can still be enjoyed that way today. The profound themes within plots were created not as pure art, but also to entertain the masses. Isn’t the language archaic and the doesn’t high quality mean high difficulty? Actually, the language isn’t that difficult when it’s read (that is, interpreted) by an experienced reader.
Last Friday (April 17), Mann and actress Mary McDonnell - who starred in the theater’s recent production of “Gloria,” a play about journalist and feminist activist Gloria Steinem - took part in an online conversation as part of the series.Shakespeare can be an intimidating subject to introduce. These include “Creative Tuesdays” (educational programs for young students, Tuesdays at 4 p.m.), performances, behind-the-scenes footage and photos from past McCarter theatrical offerings, and more. The talk is part of the program, whose wide range of cultural and educational offerings can be experienced online during the coronavirus crisis. Questions can also be submitted, and for those wishing to support programming like this, donations can be made to the theater or Ludwig’s book can be purchased on this page. There is no charge, but participants are asked to register in advance here. More specifically, the talk will cover the topic of Ludwig’s 2013 book, “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare.” Playwright Ken Ludwig - whose credits include “Lend Me a Tenor,” “Crazy for You,” “Moon Over Buffalo” and “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” - and McCarter Theater Center artistic director Emily Mann will talk about William Shakespeare online, April 24 at 4:30 p.m.
0 kommentar(er)
