Well, Friday was DAY ONE and marked the first time that all of us were in the same room together. And there was much hugging, laughing, handshaking, and, of course, eating. It became patently clear to me that this cast is quite an extraordinary group of people. The subsequent discussions, read throughs, and meetings all seem to prove that point. And so, to give you taste of what wildness went down, I’ll reveal…

THE TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED (on Day 1)

1.) Shakespeare can be loud, raucous, and bawdy. What with the textual smacked asses and broken wind. (Look it up if you don’t believe me!)

2.) I love it when BILL TAYLOR (Polonius) and JAMIE GREENLAND (Ophelia) fight. I’ve never had such a laugh out loud (lol), rolling on the floor laughing (rofl) moment in my life until those two started up.

3.) That really we should be putting on The Comedy of Doors. Let the door slamming gags begin!

4.) We are the masters of Guerrilla theater. Not only do we perform five times a week, we also pack up and move our stuff ten times a week! Truthfully a ninja-cast to be sure.

5.) That this is not your neighbor’s Hamlet. I can’t reveal what tricks we have up our collective sleeves, but be sure it will be a knock out.

6.) Certain CHAINs make a DINGING sound.

7.) The more ornate the language, the less we should do as actors. The more pressure you put on the words, the more melodramatic the line. And we’ve all seen how that turns out.

8.) These characters are real people. Like Michelangelo (“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”) we need to choose simplicity to reveal the true character.

9.) That we, the members of the Worcester Shakespeare Company, are giants because we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before. We thank all of those who have made our work possible.

10.) Shakespeare matters. We are important to the community and to the world. ( “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world.” Margeret Mead)

This is what I learned. I highly recommend that you come to the shows and tell your friends because these people are awesome.

-Pedrolino

Me: Hi, I’m with the Worcester Shakespeare Company…
Random Guy: Oh that’s so cool! Where?
Me: Oh, it’s right in Green Hill Park….
Random Guy: HAHAHA LOLZ, I’d go there….if I wanted to sit on a needle HAHAHAHA
Me:    >.<

Sure, it might seem ridiculous, but you’d be supposed how often it happens. So, on a fluke, I decided to spend some of my endless summer free time with my friends in the park. And let me tell you, it was gorgeous. And rather enlightening. And so let me give you the grand tour.

1.) The Theater

Of course this is where we start the tour. It’s right up from Green Hill St. off Lincoln St.

Here, we see the ampitheater as it exists even before we’re out there practicing and generally carousing. It’s not mowed (it will be), but most things are right as we left it. The Stage and seats were built to last and that seems like exactly like they’re doing.

Needle Count: 0

2.) The Vietnam Memorial

The immaculately kept Vietnam memorial is amongst the most beautiful and sobering monuments I’ve ever seen. Around this fish filled (and duck filled) reflecting pool are great slabs of granite that have the last letters of fallen soldiers engraved into their surfaces. I know when I came with my parents, they were moved to tears.
And while I was there, I saw a little boy just sit and listen to his grandpa lead the letters out loud.

Needle Count: 0

3.) The Green Hill Farm

I’m will to bet that you never knew there was a petting zoo right in Worcester, did you? Well it’s there and FREE to the public. It is unthinkable for me how such a treasure could be so unnoticed by the usually all knowing swarm of Worcester parents. And in my trek, I met the owner Mr. Carr. He’s a wonderfully kind man who runs the whole place practically by himself. I recommend it to everyone ages 6-96

Needle Count: 0

4.) Green Hill Golf Course (and Grill on the Hill)

Now, I’ll be honest. I’ve never golfed. My un-athleticism stops me from even that. But everyday I was in the park, this course was filled with enthusiastic golfers. When asked, one veteran said he’d been coming to the “hidden jewel of Worcester” for years. And now the course comes with a main course! Grill on the Hill opened this past year and is still in the early stages of readiness. Still, I found the food quite good and rather inexpensive. And the gracious host, Mrs. Fotiadis, seriously recommends that diners stay and watch the sun go down over the hill.

Needle Count: 0

These are some of the highlights of the park, but this barely touches on the best parts. There is nothing that can compare to sitting by the large pond with your friends, watching dog walkers and parents run on the grass, hearing people laugh, smelling food on the grills and just soaking in the sunshine. If nothing else was in this park, this place of sublime happiness would make it a destination all on its own.

Needle Count: 0 In five days in the park and a whole summer last year, I have yet to find a single one. So stop saying it!

Well I hope this has been an informative journey through the park. Come to the park, visit the zoo, get a meal, and see some Shakespeare to make a perfect day.

-Pedrolino

And, of course, I went to see it. All the cooing over how wonderful it was aside (though it certainly deserves it), I actually came out of the theater thinking of Hamlet. Now let me try to explain that connection.

English Teacher Mark Taylor once said that the scene where Hamlet kills Polonius (Act 3, Scene 4) would actually be solid evidence in court if Hamlet were to plead not guilty by insanity. To be more exact, Hamlet would seem to be suffering from a dissociative disorder. I mean come on, there’s a dead body there and you’re going to continue to talk about your mother’s incestuous sheets!? But perhaps this dissociation is needed for Hamlet to finish his task and avenge his father…..

Or not. While Hamlet might be emotionally deadened, it would seem that his mental faculties and self doubt are ever sharp. It would be so easy if Hamlet were like Fortinbras. Just go in sharking, avenge the wrong, be the man. But Hamlet can’t do that. *sigh

But back to NPH. In the end of Company, Bobby sing about how finding love and getting married would remind him that he is alive. There are people who make life worth living, even if the world is a big scary place. Wouldn’t it have been nice it Hamlet had that revelation? Maybe it’s because I live in a post-Feminist World, but in my first reading of Hamlet, I wanted him to appreciate and love Ophelia SO BADLY. But he trades his brand of revenge for their love and her life. And that’s just the greatest shame.

-Pedrolino

Before taking the time to peer into that great, bubbling commotion that will be this year’s season ( LUNCACY! LOVERS! MAYHEM!), I shall take this opportunity to introduce myself. Or…mostly, for I’ve decided to take the name Pedrolino. I leave it to the intrepid Googlers out there to divine the reason. I am a returning member of the Worcester Shakespeare Company and a long time lover of Worcester’s Shakespeare-in-the-Park.

Bardbloggery 1

I launch this blog about “Shakespeare” with not just a little trepidation. Let me count some of the ways: an unnatural dread of the whole concept… even the name is distasteful…(whoever invented the word should be hung by the heels from a door-jamb and forced to listen to an ever-repeating sound-loop of the word being spoken)… because one more soapbox for the crazies is just what the world needs…because anyone who stands up and asks to be filleted for his opinions about Shakespeare should have his head examined…because everyone needs yet another open-ended demand on their time…because anyone who assumes that even one more person should be interested in their opinions probably requires therapy, or at least needs to pay for the privilege…because there’s not enough written about Shakespeare already…and there aren’t enough reasons NOT engage in the exercise.

Still…

Why THEATRE at all? We go to the theatre because the participants—actor and audience–are alive in the same place (as opposed to film or television where the story-tellers are not even aware that anyone else is there). Call it “immediacy”. And because we hope to see/hear/recognize ourselves…but better; bigger, stronger, smarter…more successful, more articulate…more devious, more evil…more able to “get away with it.”

Why Shakespeare (above all the others)? Because even though we give all the others a chance; even though the others may hold our interest for a short time; ultimately, by comparison, we are slightly disappointed with them in the end. Only Shakespeare has held our interest through the centuries.

We seem to be so jealous—and at the same time endlessly admiring–of what he accomplished that we continue to argue about whether or not he even existed; or at least, whether or not he wrote his own plays. Apparently, what he accomplished is so wonderous, it’s difficult for us lesser mortals to conceive that the bare facts of his life could possibly explain such invention. In the opinion of some, he invented the human. Some.

Such ambivalence may explain why there is nothing worse than bad Shakespeare; and nothing better than good Shakespeare.

Bardolatry? Perhaps. But, other than the Supreme Being, who else is there? Shakespeare helps us remember who we are; because we so often forget. He asks the hardest questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What happens after we die?

As actors and as audiences, we are so often disappointed in Shakespeare. But perhaps it is we who are more fallible, not him. Only the impossibly arrogant think he is “beneath” him. Only the helplessly unconfident think him impossibly “above” them.

Often, we turn away because he exhausts us. He calls us to an uncomfortable effort, when what we’re pulled to do is stay home and “veg-out” in front of the tube.

What Shakespeare invites us to do is find out who we are today; just as he called on his contemporaries to do. He echoes the ancients when they urged us to the highest calling: To know ourselves. Which includes exercising our power to imagine each other’s lives; to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

By the way, this space is intended more for practitioners than scholars; more for actors than directors; more for audiences than readers. But, like the theatre itself, it’s for everyone.

Like some of Shakespeare’s, this writing may not be perfect; because we are fallible. We only have the obligation to try. And to ask, in the final sentence, “What do you think?”