ENGL 243 - Performing Shakespeare

FDR: HL
Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2011 and alternate years

Prerequisite: Completion of the FW requirement. This class is an immersion in the work of Shakespeare, engaging four of his most prominent plays as literary works but primarily as dramatic performances. We study the tools of stagecraft and performance available to Shakespeare, in an effort to understand how the plays dramatize – that is, present in a live form – the issues and questions within their words. We also attend closely to Shakespeare’s uses of language and poetic form, to bring into relief the ways his form interweaves with his content to produce the drama. Projects include: a set design assignment; the study of a number of film versions of the plays and written reviews of the films; attending as a class three performances at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, with interpretive papers on these performances; two interpretive essays; and a concluding performance of the whole of Hamlet as a live production incorporating all the concepts and materials studied in the course. Conner.