The Tragedy of High School Drama

 

Let's be honest.  Shakespeare died more than four hundred years ago.  Is there a place for his work, especially his tragic dramas, either in the drama curriculum of a contemporary high school student or in the entertainment options of the contemporary theatre-goer?  The answer is yes, and I was recently reminded of why in the most powerful way.

When Words Carry the Freight

Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet.  For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place.  But to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method, and dependent on extraneous aids.  (Aristotle, Poetics, 1453b, Butcher translation)

When it comes to non-musical theatre, Aristotle suggests that the more powerful play will depend on the words and not the aids of fantastic sets, costumes, or special effects, and that is what I saw in a recent high school production of Macbeth by students at The Master's Study.

The set was spare, and the costumes, while perfectly made and fitting, were not so extravagant as to distract.  Set changes amounted to nothing more than the occasional moving of a platform on which actors stood, a table, and a few chairs.  There was a bit of fog and some simple lighting effects that again enhanced but did not distract from what was of most importance, the words.

The actors' diction and enunciation were clear and powerful, and the choreography of the fight scenes and the scenes with the witches was striking in a way not often found in a high school performance.  The audience was drawn deeply into the action, and at many points it was possible to lose sight of the fact that one was watching a play.

Stop Aiming Low

Too often adults think that for education to be engaging for students it must connect immediately with their current lives.  True education, however, leads us beyond ourselves, past our our present boundaries, and into that which transcends our circumstances so that we can become better, and a tragedy such as Macbeth does that.  The story is larger than that of most of our lives, and because of that we can explore huge themes that we would not ordinarily see.  Or to put it another way, we can engage with ideas of power, desire, betrayal, greed, honor, right and wrong, spiritual warfare, and more in the safety of the laboratory that is the theatre.  To look at just one of those, it is difficult to think meaningfully about betrayal while being betrayed, but in the two hours of a play in which betrayal is being dramatically depicted, we can consider what it means to betray and be betrayed and, hopefully, grow from the experience.

And if you doubt for one moment that teenagers are capable of memorizing long passages marked by unfamiliar words and archaic syntax, let me assure you that they can, and when they have been taught and directed well, they can bring those passages to life in a way that dissolves the strangeness, allowing the audience to enter another story and another world.

The Entertainment and Edification of Theatre

Watching a play is entertaining, and so is going to a concert or a movie, and that is just fine.  We need entertainment.  We need to disengage from the pressures of life for a while and merely let ourselves be entertained.  There can be another feature to theatre, however, and this is edification, a topic I have written about here.  As I wrote in that post, "Edification has to do with the building up of a person.  It is soul work.  It seeks to help others achieve not merely their own dreams, but to become more than they have ever dreamed possible."  Borrowing from Aristotle, this is not achieved best in drama through spectacle, but through the power of words, and there is a reason Shakespeare's works are still being performed more than four centuries after his death.  His words are among the best in English at meeting the standard set by Aristotle.  His plays, while they can indeed be entertaining, also require something from the audience.  They require close listening, a bringing to bear on the story all of our own experiences and knowledge, and a willingness to grow, even through things we may not fully understand.

Tragedy and serious drama have their place in the high school curriculum and in the lives of modern theatre-goers.  What is truly tragic is when we sell ourselves short by settling for something less.