BY LUCIA MAURO
Chicspeare Production
Company takes its organizational cues from the Bard himself. It began
as—and continues to be—a touring troupe of players who bring
his works to schools and, more recently, bookstores across the Chicago
area. And, even when the non-Equity company presents a full-fledged production
for an extended run at Ebeneezer Lutheran Church Auditorium in Edgewater,
it designates Fridays for traveling with the show to other locations on
the north, south and west sides.
“Since Shakespeare wrote for everyone, the plays works best when
everyone is in the audience,” says director Ann James, who co-founded
Chicspeare with Christine Calkins in 1995. “But it’s hard to
get such a diverse audience all at one site. So we go to them.”
But, more than put on plays, the ensemble gives audiences—especially
those in its school programs—the opportunity to experience the words
first hand and have a say in the theatrical vision. So instead of viewing
the company as a larger version of educational outreach, James says, “we
thought of the schools as a cool audience to play for.”
The merging of physicality with Shakespeare’s rhythmic language is
well suited to their programs, which are more commonly conducted in a
school’s “wrestling gym” than its auditorium.
During one interactive workshop at a high school, in which Chicspeare
artists recruited students to join them in the fight scene between Hamlet
and Laertes at Ophelia’s grave, one young man suggested that—instead
of a wimpy dagger—Hamlet, in his fit of rage, should grab the Gravedigger’s
shovel and charge at Laertes with it.
This action proves ensemble member Jennifer Willison’s sentiment:
“Shakespeare is wild! His plays are not reserved for the very literate.”
And, as James stresses, these works exist in the moment: “After starting
out doing more factual lectures, I realized that we don’t want to
give students Shakespeare. We want to give them performances of Shakespeare.
That’s resulted in a lot more interaction.”
The students’ stage-combat creativity inspired the artists to invite
audiences to observe the rehearsal process on June 30 and offer concrete
stage directions in preparation for Chicspeare’s professional staging
of Romeo and Juliet at Ebeneezer Auditorium in July.
“Our audiences have helped us shape the way we present Shakespeare,”
says James. “We ask them questions about what is clear to them or
what is confusing or what is boring. And they give us great suggestions.
With the upcoming open rehearsal, I’m thinking, we’ll get another
shovel out of this [referring to the Gravedigger’s implement that
made its school-program of Hamlet more spontaneous].”
James met co-founder Calkins (who has since moved out of Chicago) when
both were cast in a local production of Romeo and Juliet and decided that
they wanted to take more classes to polish their skills. “We realized
that anyone could play around with the language [in Shakespeare],”
says James.
The original goal was to establish a touring educational arm of the company
that would bring in a steady income to be used toward larger public productions.
After designing a 55-minute program (and, later, a variety of shorter
offerings for students of different ages), they contacted schools and
were enthusiastically received.
Touring, therefore, forms the core of Chicspeare (pronounced shik-speer,
as in “Shakespeare for Chicago”). Its public productions were
Julius Caesar (1998), updated to Mayor Harold Washington’s Chicago;
and a less conceptual The Tragedy of Hamlet (2001), as well as Bottome’s
Dream, a one-hour adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2001).
The company follows the model of director-author Margaret Webster’s
“Shakespeare on Wheels,” a bus-and-truck troupe that toured
small towns across the country in the 1940s. Chicspeare centers on Chicago
and its surrounding suburbs. James has made it a point to pay actors since
the company’s inception. For close to eight years, the troupe has
shown more than 40,000 students and teachers how to use Shakespeare’s
language, with an emphasis on how it sounds and feels, to understand his
plays. Class sizes range from 75 to 125 participants.
A typical 55-minute school workshop consists of James giving a brief overview
to students. Then the actors—clad in street clothes to reflect the
event’s rehearsal-like tone—enunciate very clearly a scene from
Romeo and Juliet. The experience quickly moves into an imaginative exploration
of the language, in which the young audiences pick out repetitious words
or sounds for clues into the physical gestures of the characters.
In one innovative exercise, actors and students decipher how Romeo and
Juliet’s dialogue physically refers to their hands touching during
an Elizabethan dance and how their hands are meant “to kiss each
other.” This is done by moving from participants saying the words
to touching each other’s palms at key moments.
Students then have a chance to portray one of the characters; another
exercise has the kids recite the language more naturally, while the actors
contrast that with more heightened emotional speech. The overall idea
is to get students to understand that, according to James, “language
is a physical expression.”
“During a fight scene,” says Willison, “you don’t
just lay there and say, 'O, look, I’m slain.’” She
then mimics plunging a dagger into her gut and groans in agony—the
“O” becomes a cry of pain.
“The character just got stabbed,” adds fellow actor Jason Kaplan,
who choreographs the stage combat. “You have to convey that idea
of, 'It hurts!’”
As an actor with Chicspeare since 1996, Willison has learned to balance
a cerebral approach to Shakespeare with gut emotion.
Chicspeare currently offers the following programs: “Actions to Words/Words
to Actions,” “Shakespeare Shorts” and “The Comical
Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbie” for kids; “Speaking the Speech:
How An Actor Prepares” and “Shakespearean Friends” for
adults; and “Let Shakespeare Be Your Guide” and “Romeo
& Juliet: Three Key Scenes” for all ages.
The company is supported by City of Chicago and Illinois Arts Council
grants. James notes that the latest high school budget cuts have prompted
Chicspeare to pursue more elementary-school bookings. Next February, the
troupe plans to stage a full-length production of Othello, followed by
the history plays.
Ensemble member Kaplan sums up the company’s all-inclusive aim: “People
think Shakespeare is an elitist style of theatre. In actuality, that was
the farthest from Shakespeare’s thoughts. He wrote for everyone.
So we think everyone should experience his words.”
For more information, contact Ann James at 773/769-2056 or
chicspeare@earthlink.net.