Explaining Character in Shakespeare

Classroom Activities

Activity 1: Performing Romeo and Juliet’s First Meeting

One of the earlier scenes students will explore is the first meeting of Romeo and Juliet, which takes place in Act 1, Scene 5, spanning lines 104 and 121. A pair of carefully selected students will read aloud or even perform these lines, but under different instructions. First, we will read the scene as it is normally played: Romeo as the bold suitor presenting himself to an equally enraptured Juliet. Next, the scene will be played with Romeo as a promiscuous scoundrel and Juliet as a naive young girl. Finally, the scene will feature an enthusiastic but inexperienced Romeo paired with a mocking and sarcastic Juliet, paying special attention to her line “you kiss by th’ book” (1.5.121) and how the meaning of that line changes in each version. If a class has many volunteers for the scene, multiple pairings can exist, each acting out these differing versions.

The class will then debrief the scene with the central question of which versions represent the true intentions and motives of Romeo and Juliet, citing evidence from the scene. Moving forward through other scenes from the play, students will update and inform their assertions.

Activity 2: Creating Your Own Performance of Pyramus and Thisbe

Upon completing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, students will be assigned into groups of 6 to 7 individuals and given a box of random props, construction paper and other oddities. From this, they will take a script of only the mechanicals’ production of Pyramus and Thisby and work together to change this scene, updating the text into modern English and also recreating the events in one or more of these fundamental ways: to update the scene to incorporate another actor (in imitation of how the role of Moonshine seemed to be created by Quince to include Snug) change the setting of the play to be modern day, incorporating new elements which suit this, or alter one or more characters from being flat stock characters into round characters.

Students will be given ample time to create their product and then (perhaps on a following class session) each group will perform their versions of the scene. Optionally, a few students in the audience can be selected in advance to be hecklers, much as Theseus and his party were during the play, armed with Shakespearean insults.

Activity 3: Voting on Music Tied to Characters

The music of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is iconic and Felix Mendelssohn composed some of his best musical work inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As students explore the ways in that music and literature are tied through the arts, this activity will give them a chance to listen to segments of these pieces. Most of these clips have no words, so students must pay careful attention to tone. They will then work in groups using iPads to replay the music samples, debating in their group which song belongs to which character. Many of the songs have no character they are absolutely tied to, but the groups must still eventually submit their responses via electronic survey.

As a follow-up or second part to this activity, students will then take the same characters and offer their own modern day songs that they believe fit each character’s central message or meaning through the iPad application. These submissions can be screened by the teacher and then the top candidates can be presented. Once again, students can vote for the most fitting theme song for each character. This could also be done easily enough without using the technology mentioned.

Activity 4: Assessment by Socratic Seminar

In place of a final objective test, students will participate in a socratic seminar to demonstrate mastery of the material. In this process, a number of students will be selected to be in an inner circle as “active members” while other students surround them in an outer circle, determining the success of the discussion while also providing support to those within the circle.

Each member of the inner circle will be given the role of one of the characters from the plays we have read: Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Paris, Tybalt, Bottom, Oberon. Titania, Hermia, Helena and Puck. An instructor may choose to use fewer characters or may include characters the class has studied in other works of literature (I list a lot of male characters simply because my classes will almost surely include more males than females). In character, they will attempt to have a discussion on different topics that are presented by the instructor. It is important during this activity that students lead all discussion and consider each question. Only those in the inner circle are to speak, though those in the outer circle may pass notes of congratulations and support or suggestions to those near them within the inner circle.

Some suggested topics for the instructor to ask of the group could include broad questions with philosophical answers, such as “What is love?” or “How do you know when you’re in love?” The instructor could ask questions that certain characters should have strong answers about, such as “Does Romeo have a problem, because he keeps killing people?” or “When should Puck have stopped using the love potion?” or “Was Juliet foolish to consume the poison she was given?” Naturally, students may experience some distance between what they believe to be the right thing and what their character believes. Students are always to represent what their character would believe in a given situation. In many ways, taking the guise of a character will allow students to feel more free in expressing opinions.

At the conclusion of the activity, after all students have had a chance to be in the inner circle, students will debrief the experience and discuss openly any times they felt they wanted to say something their character would not have said. They will examine the experience and reflect on what helped them to better understand character motivation before writing a more specific response to the entire activity.

Activity 5: Field Trip to View “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

As our final activity to both close out the unit and fully experience a production, students will attend a daytime showing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. This production is updated to where some settings are modernized, such as having the forest transformed into a shopping mall, while still retaining the original language in its entirety. After the production, students will spend time hearing from the actors about their thoughts on the production and the characters they represent. Students will bring with them questions for the actors, with special attention paid to how the actors have elevated their characters beyond being flat characters. Later, at school, students will write a “thank you letter” to the actor of their choice, again with attention to their representation of their character.