Ever since Hamlet had become my favorite play, I
didn't want to teach it. I feared that I could never express what the play has
come to mean to me, how brilliantly it works, and how strongly I feel about it.
I also worried that, by exposing myself too much to one play, some of its magic
would be lost.
I ended up
being right about all of that.
When I
started at Maeser, my co-worker--who taught the same curricula as I--let me
know that we would teach Hamlet as
part of the year's study. I was happy, for despite my misgivings, it was an
exciting thing for me to experience again. It had been a couple of years since
I'd seen Brian Vaughn's version, and rereading it for the class made me
excited.
Not two or
three months earlier, I had received an email from the now-defunct bookseller
Borders. It let me know that Kenneth Branagh's four-hour film version was now
available on DVD. I closed my computer, told Gayle I was going out for a bit,
and got in the car. After buying the copy, I remember unwrapping it and looking
at the insert in the front of the jewel case while waiting for a light to turn,
wondering what choices Branagh would make for the Bard's best play.
Taking it
home, I watched it with my in-laws and wife (with a little bit of embarrassment
when naked Hamlet and naked Ophelia are rolling around on a bed, all of the
private bits covered by strategic arms and legs--"That's not in the
play!" I shouted as they rollicked) over the course of a couple of nights.
Despite some minor hang-ups, I really enjoyed it.
Because I had
the DVD at home, it was easy to access it when it came time to explore the play
as a class.
Now, I knew
that teaching Shakespeare is always a tricky proposition, especially when it's
one of the required parts of a class, as opposed to an actual course on the
Bard. In the former case, there's the onus of forcing everyone through the same
experience, regardless of their interest. In the latter case, they've attended
on purpose and wish to study Shakespeare specifically. Students put up fewer
barriers in the second case.
Hoping to
circumvent too much criticism of Hamlet--in
part because I didn't know if I could handle the kids not appreciating the play--I
decided to take it very slowly. I devoted about nine days to the play, with
each day taking up nearly two hours. I assigned the students the play to
actually read at home--a scene or two, depending on the length. Then we'd go
over the plot using graphic organizers--small pictures with text next to
them--where I'd summarize what we'd read the night before. After that was done,
we'd watch the film that matched up with our readings. Lastly, we'd discuss
important moments and speeches, with lengthy conversations about what was
implied, meant, and inferred by the words. Some very intriguing conversations
came about as a result.
By having a
multi-pronged attack, as it were, I felt as though I'd actually done justice to
the play, something I worried I wouldn't be up to. Whether or not, of course,
students really did enjoy what I gave them, I don't rightly know.
Due to the
schedule of that school year, I timed the ending of Hamlet with the ending of the first semester, which also coincided
with the end of the calendar year. I remember watching the film with the
students as it snowed outside the large windows of the former bowling alley. The
haunting soundtrack of Patrick Doyle can still evoke a quasi-Christmas feeling
in me as I approached my second Christmas as a father and the first as a
teacher.
These
memories stay with me, reminders of the living past. I still teach Hamlet (though in September instead of
December now), and I still use similar techniques. But the play has lost some
of its luster. I believe I feel less satisfied with Hamlet now not because the play has failed me, but the other way
around. I don't gain more and more with each pass because I've become
complacent. I know the story, I know the lines--I can give act and scene for
almost every beat of the play. But I don't dive deeper into it because my job
is to show the students how to swim in a Shakespeare text. I'm forced, almost,
to remaining superficial.
Thus one of
my original fears is realized.
Still, I
wouldn't change it. The play is powerful and important. Yes, it's kind of
kitschy, but I dress up in all black the day that Hamlet dies (and I often get
condolences from my co-workers). I think that sort of thing, even if it is
stale to me, is part of Shakespeare. The stories are familiar. We know many of the lines and cite him by accident.
But despite there being a familiarity, Shakespeare always can give us something
new to understand. Despite the constant presence of Hamlet in my professional life, I still strive to learn something
new about being human, being compassionate, being real from the story of
Hamlet.
So maybe it
isn't all bad.
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