{"id":8031,"date":"2016-04-25T07:30:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T14:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/?p=8031"},"modified":"2016-03-30T08:58:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T15:58:42","slug":"celebrating-shakespeare-no-legacy-is-so-rich-as-honesty-by-aidan-regan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/celebrating-shakespeare-no-legacy-is-so-rich-as-honesty-by-aidan-regan\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Shakespeare: No Legacy is so Rich as Honesty By Aidan Regan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/BIGCALLOUT_Shakespeare.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-7999\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/BIGCALLOUT_Shakespeare.jpg\" alt=\"BIGCALLOUT_Shakespeare\" width=\"461\" height=\"215\" \/><\/a><em>In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley\u2019s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare\u2019s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare&#8217;s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we\u2019ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>British Library: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bl.uk\/\">http:\/\/www.bl.uk\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Folger Shakespeare Library: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.folger.edu\/\">http:\/\/www.folger.edu\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Globe Theatre: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespearesglobe.com\">http:\/\/www.shakespearesglobe.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Internet Shakespeare Editions: <a href=\"http:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\">http:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Shakespeare 400:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespeare400.org\/\">http:\/\/www.shakespeare400.org\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>No Legacy is so Rich as Honesty<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>By Aidan Regan<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8040\" style=\"width: 333px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/Shakespeare_NoLegacy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8040\" class=\" wp-image-8040\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/Shakespeare_NoLegacy.jpg\" alt=\"Will Kemp, Kemp\u2019s Nine Days Wonder (1600)\" width=\"323\" height=\"239\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/Shakespeare_NoLegacy.jpg 406w, https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/files\/2016\/03\/Shakespeare_NoLegacy-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 323px) 100vw, 323px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8040\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Kemp, Kemp\u2019s Nine Days Wonder (1600)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>During the summer of 2014, I undertook an apprenticeship through the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, a ten-week long hurly-burly of perspiration and perseverance. It included, among other things, the memorization, working, re-working, re-re-working, and performance of a real Shakespearean monologue\u2014and not just any monologue, but one opposite to what we\u2019d normally be cast. I, typically very composed, was allotted a murderous tirade of Caliban\u2019s from <em>The Tempest<\/em>, who\u2019s both drunk for the first time and half-fish. I could envisage a crystal clear image of Caliban and how he should be played, but no matter what I tried, something was missing from my performance; some element of Caliban\u2019s truth was lost on me\u2014that is, until taking one of the apprenticeship\u2019s master classes taught by a phenomenal actor named M.A.<\/p>\n<p>M.A. had each of us apprentices perform our monologue for him (in the midst of its \u201cre-re-working stage\u201d) and midway through gave us a directorial twist: to do it AS A PIRATE. I shut one of my eyes, made a hook gesture with my hand, and elongated my R\u2019s. Afterrrrrrwards he asked us all why we\u2019d made those specific decisions, to which we had no answers. They were simply performative impulses made on the spur of the moment. But instead of critiquing our decisions, he dropped a mantra with a singularly profound impact on us all: \u201cPirates don\u2019t apologize.\u201d It taught me that while I couldn\u2019t make my performance of Caliban perfect, I could make it mine. Likewise, any decision I make, whither in my acting or in my life, is the right one as long as I\u2019m honest with myself and own it.<\/p>\n<p>This lesson applies equally to the performance of any one of the characters in Shakespeare\u2019s plays. By embracing their own individual take on the role, actors can make their performance more real, more honest, and entirely new to the stage; as Mariana says in <em>All\u2019s Well That Ends Well<\/em>, \u201cNo legacy is so rich as honesty\u201d (3.5.14). Shakespeare\u2019s plays have had such legacy and appeal over the past 400 years simply because every one of his characters lends themselves to the versatility of an individual\u2019s interpretation. This fact has been recognized by several Shakespeare scholars, including Simon Palfrey, who writes in <em>Doing Shakespeare<\/em> that \u201cThe recognition that they [characters] are prescripted or bounded by dramatic materials leads to a search for that which lies within or beyond such materials; similarly, the absence of explanation or evidence makes us try to supply both. The characters we locate are our constructions, without substance outside our experience of them\u2026in that they are hardly less real than any other thing we call our own\u201d (322). All actors need to do for their performance to work and their rendition to be real is to follow in the footsteps of Will Kemp, Shakespeare\u2019s clown who\u2019s pictured above, and dance to the beat of their own drum.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Kempes Nine Daies Wonder<\/em>. 31 Dec. 1599. Illustration. Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n<p>Palfrey, Simon. <em>Doing Shakespeare<\/em>. N.p.: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.<\/p>\n<p>Shakespeare, William. <em>Complete Works<\/em>. Vol. 7. New York: Hearst&#8217;s International, 1909. Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/celebrating-shakespeare-no-legacy-is-so-rich-as-honesty-by-aidan-regan\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[104,105],"class_list":["post-8031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrating-shakespeare","tag-celebrating-shakespeare","tag-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8031"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8142,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8031\/revisions\/8142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}