Monday, 16 April 2012

Easter Shakespeare through the eyes of a 17 year old





As someone with no experience acting whatsoever, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into doing the Shakespeare course with Theatresaurus. I’m doing A level English Literature and want to do English at University, and have loved reading through some of Shakespeare’s plays in class. However, acting in The Merchant of Venice, I have found out how different actually being in the play is to just reading through the text in class.

After this course, I find myself with a better understanding of The Merchant of Venice; it is much easier to understand when acting it and you can really relate to the characters. Learning the lines of Bassanio was hard, as I haven’t the greatest memory, but I think it’s really helped me appreciate the language and how hard it is for actors to learn lines. I’m quite girly - I’m a ballet dancer and like shopping, so getting into character was really hard, but with the help of Lou, who directed the play, I found myself settling into the role quite nicely. She found everyone costumes, which really helped and paid attention to each individual, making the play the best it could possibly be. I don’t think the end performance would have been the same without her, to be honest!

Everyone on the course seemed to really enjoy it, I know my brother and sister definitely did; they go on pretty much all the courses Theatresaurus have on offer and come back raving about how great they are. Both me and me sister started reading the full version of the play (we only did 30 minutes) as soon as we got home and it’s funny just reading the lines. I can now imagine my brother, Ted, (Shylock) counting his ducats, and my little sister, Rosa, (Portia) delivering the famous speech “The quality of mercy is not strained.”

I hope I can go on more of the courses as I’ve found it a great help to my reading and could be a definite talking point in a university interview. Thanks to Ros and Lou for making my week in Somerset brilliant!    

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