Trying to sound clever

This was my final Shakespeare seminar group with our tutor; he goes on Sabbatical for Term Two so we have a new seminar tutor next term. At least we will have the same seminar group, which is awesome…we’re so lucky to have been randomly thrown together as we all get on so well. For a final seminar, our tutor did not disappoint! A workshop on Measure for Measure where we had been given specific characters to work on the week before. Again we had to choose a line that we thought encompasses our given character…mine was the Duke, and the lines I went for were:-

I love the people
But do not like to stage me in their eyes

Paul separated the room into four separate areas; the prison, the cloisters, the brothel and the courthouse. We were told to think about how our character would act in each of the separate areas, and then see where the character would feel the most comfortable. It was definitely helpful to think of the characters in this way, and also taking what other people had learnt about their characters.

The second part of the activity is this photograph actually. Another group created ‘Corruption Corner’ with theirs, using an empty cava bottle left from the class before us (and we had kindly finished for them!). Ours was a little different to theirs, as we decided that we would link up the pictures that we had with the passages that we had been given, and subconsciously mimicking the 1572 map of London, with the theatre on its own, linked by one sole bridge. The camera is there to give the idea of surveillance and watching, as Measure for Measure is all about just that. On the cloisters photograph we have written ‘Do not stage me in their eyes’, linking it with the painting of Mariana (which we have drawn bars over – representing the imprisonment of women through the male gaze)…it is no mistake that it is closest to both the prison and the camera. The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I has been covered by a Banksy (‘One Nation Under CCTV') – again, her face is obscured by the idea of surveillance. The eyes painted onto her dress are also an interesting (original feature!). I think that pretty much sums it up anyway and hopefully it doesn’t sound too arty.