Thursday, February 14, 2008

not another red carnation

For every life situation there is a fitting quote from the hand of Shakespeare.—J.V. Hart

So speaking as I think, alas, I die. [She dies.]—the character Emilia, Othello, Shakespeare

My most memorable Valentine’s Day is not the one when I sent the three best valentines I could find to the three meanest boys in the third grade. (An attempt to turn them into nicer people, which failed miserably.) That’s a runner up, perhaps.

But my favorite Valentine’s Day weekend—for several reasons—was spent in England, during my sophomore year. It was the weekend that I learned to die: stabbed by an umbrella and croaking my last words in a southern accent. Is there a more out-of-the-box Valentine’s Day than that?

Let me explain: We were still fairly new to the country—I suppose we had spent two and a half weeks there already. But after orienting ourselves to the school, the classes, and the Underground subway system, it was time to dig into the first batch of projects. For our Shakespeare class, groups had to perform a scene (or so) from an assigned play. Ours was the first group, and our play was Othello, Moor of Venice.

We decided on a section from scene 5.2, which is pretty exciting stuff, especially if there are just four people in your group. I think three of us got a chance at a death scene, myself included: I was Emilia, Iago’s wife.

I had a great group, but none of us were especially happy to go first, to be learning death scenes while the rest of our class spent the spring-like weekend having fun in London. For all the great lines, dying feels a bit heavy for Valentine’s weekend.

I don’t remember who had the idea, but somehow we decided that three of us would perform in Southern accents—as Southern as we could make them. We let Othello keep his dignity and his natural accent, and as a result, we had a hysterical performance. The frenzied deaths, charging at one another with umbrellas (our swords), shrieking in a Southern drawl… after I died, I had to clamp my teeth on my lips to keep from smiling or laughing, as I listened to the others finishing up their lines.

We rationalized the accents later by saying that they underscored how ridiculous the false accusations and wild shouting was in that scene… which I still think is true. But it was also fun. Great fun and somewhat irreverent to do a Shakespeare tragedy Southern style. To be stabbed by my friend (playing Iago) and to collapse gasping on the floor of our “stage” in Oak Hill’s dining hall.

Part of it was that I had a great group, and we’re still friends. Last I heard, Othello is applying to grad school to get his Ph.D, Desdemona is in dentistry school in India, soon to be married. Iago is planting trees and changing lives in Cameroon, and I, Emilia, am hoping to break into the YA market with this crazy novel of mine.

But part of it was the sheer fun of performing Shakespeare—much more fun than I had planned on having with Shakespeare at all. I left high school determined to hate Shakespeare’s tragedies. Hamlet and King Lear had failed to impress, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, or the rest of them. Half the cast dies: what’s the point? I wanted to be the countercultural English major who would hate Shakespeare.

No such luck. Othello was my first Calvin experience with the bard’s tragedies, and I loved it. Really. Loved performing, loved the surprisingly funny lines, the characterization. Macbeth was even better, and I thoroughly enjoyed Hamlet my second time through.

But Valentine’s Day or no Valentine’s Day, I still hate Romeo and Juliet. – jl

Note: Speaking of Shakespeare, I recently finished Professor Gary D. Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars, which is full of seventh grade, Shakespeare, and baseball. I loved it, especially the way the protagonist, Holling Hoodhood, quotes offhand lines from Shakespeare… once, in England, a small group of us managed to quote Shakespeare for about three hours, from the most random, tiny quotes to the key lines. Holling certainly would have held his own in our class…

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 02/14 at 07:10 PM
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