Doing Shakespeare by parts

INNISFAIL - In William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It there is a monologue that compares the world to a stage and life to a play.

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many partsÖ"

Almost 400 years later in 1984 the monologue became the inspiration for American playwright Mary W. Schaller to create All the World's a Stage, a production that utilizes a medley of Shakespearean scenes tied together to convey the genius behind the greatest playwright the world has ever known, and perhaps to make one simple message.

"It's that life is just a big old theatre production, holding a mirror up to real life, said Rob Burton, drama teacher at Innisfail High School, quoting from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Last week during the evenings of Jan. 17 and 18, Burton's 20/30 drama class presented its signature school year production, a 50-minute version of Schaller's All the World's a Stage.

It was a production that took two and a half months of preparation, with 22 students taking on roles in targeted scenes from 10 of Shakespeare's greatest works. The play featured two modern Shakespearean historians introducing a concept for each segment of the production, which included scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and The Tempest.

"It breaks between theatre historians and players and sometimes they interact with each other. It kind of crosses that contemporary and historical boundaries, which is kind of neat itself," said Burton, who directed the production.

He said the 10 scenes were not all woven together to culminate in an illuminating epiphany, but to illustrate Shakespeare's many different qualities in how he would direct his plays, how he would have had to deal with actors and audiences, and how he would have understood the creation of comedic timing.

"And how he would have used street theatre to engage the audience," added Burton, noting the Marc Antony "street theatre" scene where a group of people come from the audience and become an essential part of the action, a concept widely known and accepted today but new and revolutionary in Shakespeare's day. "All of these concepts of how Shakespeare would have dealt with, or played with or written his plays, there is a scene or two from his works that demonstrate these qualities."

For the students, who also enthusiastically took on the responsibility for all of the production's lighting, sound, costumes and promotions, All the World's a Stage gave them a greater understanding behind the brilliance of Shakespeare.

"Once they have gone through it and they got their parts, and there are students who do major monologues -- bigger pieces and smaller pieces, it is neat to see the kids understand Shakespeare, really grasp it and really embrace it, and understand it is not just the thees and thous," said Burton. "It is the characterization that comes with it, and the conflict. It is a sampling of scenes but some of them are really good, like Marc Antony's funeral oration and the kids have to buy in and understand what they are saying.

"If the kids don't understand what they are saying the audience isn't going to."

The next big project for the school's drama students comes this spring when auditions begin for the one-act festival at the zone championships, which will be held in either Red Deer or Sylvan Lake.