Last week, the SFC2 A Level English Literature students took their OCR Paper 1, which included their written responses on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But we must all remember that - far from the experience of an exam - at its best, the experience of Shakespeare is collaborative and collective.
In March, we twice had the opportunity to experience this ourselves, first at the Hamlet Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon on Wednesday 12th, and then a few weeks later on the stage, seeing the fantastic Rupert Goold production of Hamlet at the RSC (set startlingly upon The Titanic so that all bodies - live, dead and dying - fell into the ocean at the end).
Whether actor or audience member, Shakespeare’s plays were to be viewed and - as a Shakespeare scholar reminded us during his brilliant lecture at the conference – Shakespeare’s audiences went to ‘hear’ his plays. Plays are living organisms; actors or ‘players’ strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then the play is ‘no more’. Even when captured on screen, the audience’s unique experience upon that day of performance will never be repeated. No close scrutiny of Shakespeare’s language on the page can replace the visceral experience of seeing Hamlet on stage.
Before the show, we got to meet some of the actors in the play and watch them in rehearsal. Even more brilliantly, students were able to participate in the Hamlet rehearsal room. In the RSC Rehearsal Room Technique, an actor-educator works with students as if they themselves were the ‘players’ working on the text in advance of a performance.
While the play is, famously, a tragedy, never have so many smiles and laughs been seen and heard – the students got truly stuck in, boldly taking on each dramatic exercise at full power and having an excellent day out. While this will undoubtedly have raised their game in the assessment stakes, it will also, hopefully, have reminded us all that while we put our everything into these exams, they are far from everything. Beyond them, among a myriad other things, there is a lifelong love of Shakespeare and the theatre, to which we hope they will return again and again.
The English Department
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