Shake- A Trip to the Theater 3G April 2010

Background: Shakespeare- life. William Shakespeare was an English author. He’s famous mainly for his plays, but he started writing poems. Even his plays follow metric rules of poetry. He lived during the Elizabethan Age, when France was having a great influence over English culture. He mainly wrote tragedies or comedies. Like many authors of his time, he had a great interest in Greek and Latin literature. William Shakespeare. He was born at Stratford on 23 April 1564. He was the oldest son and attended a grammar school, which gave him a thorough grounding in the use of language and classical authors. He married Ann Hathaway when he was only 18 . She was 26., and from this story a daughter was born. In 1584 he left Stratford and went to London and there he had the first experience with the playhouse. In 1593 because of the plague, the theater was closed and a young nobleman, the Earl of Southampton supported Shakespeare. In exchange, he wrote some poems for the young man. When theaters reopened Shakespeare became a shareholder and the main playwright of the most successful company of actors. Between 1590 and 1596 he wrote historical dramas. . In 1599 his company built the Globe Theater, where most of his plays were performed. The great tragedies were written between 1595 and 1605.The latter part of his life was spent in retirement at Stratford where he died at 52 years.

About the show Yesterday we saw a play about Shakespeare where we saw some scenes from his most famous works. Yesterday we saw a show which talked about Shakespeare and his works,. First, the actors told us about the Elizabethan theater and Shakespeare’s style. Then the show began… Yesterday we saw the show about Shakespeare and his works. Initially, the actors introduced Shakespeare’s style and his form. Then the actors started to represent “Henry V” (The Prologue) and then they followed with “The Taming of the Shrew”, “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet”. In the second half they showed “The Tempest”, “Hamlet”, and his famous phrase “ To be or not to Be, this is the question”. And then there was “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, a very funny scene, and they finished with “ As you Like It”. Yesterday we went to a theater to see a show about Shakespeare’s works. The lessons were very detailed, interesting, and not boring. They talked about Shakespeare’s life and theater history I loved the show about Shakespeare. There are 5 actors, very funny, who showed a story about Shakespeare’s style and his works. They combined the present( with the music) with the past ( with the works). I liked yesterday’s show at the theater. It was a modern and funny version of some of Shakespeare’s plays. The light plays made the show better.

Shakespeare wrote a lot of dramas. The Elizabethan theater was divided in two parts, one for rich people, one for poor people. It had a backstage and the actors were only men. In the show many scenes were represented of the most important Shakespeare works, like “Romeo and Juliet”, “Macbeth”, “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, “The Tempest”, “Hamlet” and “Henry V”. Shakespeare: we saw some of his plays in the theater with the teacher yesterday: “Henry V”, “Hamlet”, “As you Like It”,” Macbeth”, “The Merry Wives of Windsor”.

The Actors In the show the actors performed various works by Shakespeare, among them, “The Taming of the Shrew”. The actors played the parts of each character very well. Our favorite characters were Caliban, Hamlet’s mother, Romeo and Juliet. The actors ably used different languages like Italian, English, and Neapolitan. The actors were very good in the sad scenes and very funny in the comic scenes., The actors played 8 parts of 8 different works. The most interesting story was Hamlet, where the actors interpreted the roles of protagonists very well.

Scenes

Henry V The first scene was Henry V’s story, a rich man who wanted to marry a woman that wasn’t in love with him.

Hamlet The Scene I liked the best was “Hamlet”. The scene takes place in his mother’s bedrooms where Hamlet is discussing and arguing with her insulting his uncle with bad language. While they are talking Hamlet kills his mother’s councilor and starts to raise his voice. At one point though he felt pity for his mother and started to reflect. Hamlet is represented in his most famous work, ”To be or not to be”. And he accused his mother of being bad. The only scene acted also in English was the famous monolog from Hamlet, “ To Be or Not To Be” where the actor acted a bit in English and a bit in Italian, but I didn’t like this.

Macbeth Macbeth tells the story about three witches that told Macbeth that he’ll become King. So Macbeth killed the King and the rest of the story is full of killing.

Romeo and Juliet The scene I loved most was Romeo and Juliet. Actors played very well and the story was really good. Romeo fell in love with Juliet, but they were from two rival families. They loved each other and they decided to get married secretly. The scene didn’t go on but they explained the ending. Romeo and Juliet tells the story about two young people who fell in love, that, because of their families, died. Also, the Romeo and Juliet scene was very interesting, especially when they sang ( in playback) a Queen song. I liked this scene so much, especially the song “One” by Queen.

Merry Wives of Windsor The Merry Wives of Windsor is the last work in this show, and it’s very amusing. The funniest scene was the Merry Wives of Windsor. In this scene, two women receive the same love letter from the same man. The funniest play was the last one, the Merry Wives. It was set in a beauty farm and one of the hair stylists was gay. It was very funny.

The Tempest The Tempest is represented during the storm and the language was very contemporary. Music One of the things we liked is the modern music compared to the ancient background. The show was accompanied with music. Between the dialogs there was a musical part with the U2 and Queen’s songs that enriched the text and that were adapted to it. In this show, the director adapted the modern music. The lyrics were pertinent to the works, and the students were very interested in it. Artists like U2, Queen and Dire Straits frequently take a lot of their lyrics from the works of Shakespeare. There were a lot of famous songs. The music that they used was pretty cool, even if I think they should have also used other bands’ songs. There was a lot of good music. I liked the sound so much.

Conclusion Finally, the play was very interesting and funny and the actors were very good getting into their part. I loved the show in general and I think the actors were really good because they played a long show and they represented Shakespeare’s works very well.