School halts 'Shakespeare (Abridged)'

[villager]

Source: AP

School halts 'Shakespeare (Abridged)'


MESA, Ariz.—It was supposed to be a two-hour Shakespearean comedy show attended by 700 sixth- through 12th-graders.

But it was not to be.

About 40 minutes into a touring company's performance of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," a Higley Unified School District official halted the show Monday at a performing arts center.

"We stopped the show because we feel that this was inappropriate," said Tara Kissane, the district's director of visual and performing arts. She declined to give specifics but said "there was inappropriate language and the content was very suggestive."

"I just thought it was over some of our kids' heads and it wasn't appropriate for our kids," Kissane said. She added she thought the show would be fine for college-age students.

The play was produced by a New York-based touring company, Windwood Theatricals. Paul Bartz, the producer, said he was surprised to learn the performance was stopped.

"It's a matter of interpretation, but they're surely not seeing anything on that stage that they're not seeing on television," Bartz said Tuesday. "You might liken it to a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch on Shakespeare."

The group's Web site says it's a "whirlwind roller coaster tribute to the immortal bard. Three actors take on the daunting task of performing 37 plays and 154 sonnets in under two hours, illuminating the world of Shakespeare through the use of football, swordplay and hip-hop music." A version ran off-Broadway in 2001-2002.

Thinking about the early parts of the play, Bartz said, "The only thing I can think of that she might have found objectionable is that there is the use of the word penis, twice." He said if Kissane had objections, the cast could have made adjustments, but they weren't given the chance.

<snip>




Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7062278?source=email

[defendandprotect]

1. Yeah -- let's call it a "ding-a-ling" -- what a joke!!!

[thetaoofterri]

10. Nope. It's not called a "ding-a-ling"

In our family, it was called a "tallywacker."

[knight_of_the_star]

38. How about "one-eyed trouser snake"?

I've heard that one a lot.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Oh let's all pray to the invisible one in the sky that he spare our children from any form

of knowledge, culture, or any thing that might in anyway suggest 'sex'!!

[supernova]

3. Because, y'know Shakespeare uses too many big words

:crazy:

I think Shakespeare (or Marlowe) would tell her to go home and get laid.

[baldguy]

4. Shakespeare is adult entertainment, written & performed by and for adults.

The students would have understood & enjoyed it, but the administrators obviously weren't part of the target audience.

[YOY]

5. Smart HSers would get it so would a handful of Junior HSers

Don't sell kids up as think just yet.

Now the majority of them? Whoosh...straight over their heads.

[baldguy]

15. Don't sell the kids short either.

Shakespeare is perfectly accessable to JH and HS students - if it's presented in an interesting & entertianing manner.

[YOY]

23. It would have to be presented in such a manner to be accepted by most

The plots are timeless and characters are easy to relate to.

But the standard iambic pentameter and archaic language would be a turn off to most kids IMHO. You would have to change the language.

Most kids would understand "I could kill my self to end this shitty life" better than "Cast off this mortal coil."

[WCGreen]

25. Every year from seventh until Senior in High School...

The school would take a feild trip to the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival...

And I went alone or with my Aunt several other times...

I must have seen 20 of the 37 plays...

I understood what was going on...

[FredScuttle]

6. I never thought I'd see the day

when an educator actually utters the words "I thought that the works of Shakespeare would be over some of our kids' heads"

MORE KOOL-AID, REVEREND JIM!!!

[Sequoia]

9. Welcome to the Dumbing Down of America

[Greyskye]

7. This sounds like "The Reduced Shakespeare Company"

I used to love to catch their show at the Northern Renaissance Faire at Blackpoint in California. There were always kids in the audience, and the more 'adult' jokes just went right over the kids heads.

I'd laugh until I cried. Funny, funny stuff! Especially when they would do an entire play, say "Hamlet", backwards, in under 5 minutes. Ophelia's drowning backwards consisted of Ophelia drinking a glass of water and spraying it onto the front row. :rofl: Very slapstick, lots of fun for everyone. And a great way to introduce kids to Shakespeare as well.

[thetaoofterri]

12. Or Shakespeare Lite

I used to take my kids (pre-teen and teen) to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival every year. They loved it and so did I. My kids weren't the only ones in the audience either. Every performance was family event. We'd bring a cooler with dinner and wine (for the adults), sit on the sand dunes on a blanket and have a great time.

Great, great memories.

These kids should have been given the same opportunity.

[Mrs. Overall]

14. Yes! I loved those performances at Blackpoint!

As a younger kid, however, I would seek out the "Obscene Juggler" at the faire because as he juggled three balls, he would jump up and down and say, "I can juggle five balls!"

And those same kids, after being shielded from Shakespeare, go home and watch comedies on Fox and videos on MTV.

On Edit: Chaucer is much more risque than Shakespeare, yet we read some of those funny tales in Jr. High.

[Marthe48]

20. Reduced Shakespeare performed at WVU-P

10 + years ago--my husband and I had tears rolling down our cheeks, it was so funny. Since the 3 actors were men, they had to use boobs on a string dangling around their necks for the female roles, and that was hilarious. Inappropriate? No.

You can rent the DVD from Netflix and it is almost as good as live, but not quite. Still worth watching and in spite of the light-hearted approach, I wanted to learn more about the plays. And learning is good, right? Oh well, you'd think so.

[Lisa]

46. "boobs on a string" -- that's just classic!

In the original performances, the Bard's colleagues had to cross-dress too (women not allowed onstage). A quick and effective way of getting the point(s) across!

[Marthe48]

47. and you should have seen the actors

doing their utmost to emphasize the humor in having the darn things hanging from their necks--mostly, the balls were everywhere but where they were supposed to be be!

[Lisa]

48. you did a wonderful job of describing it ...

I've seen an abridged Shakespeare performance at the local Fringe festival, but this sounds like it was even better!

[Orsino]

37. That's what it is, all right.

I've seen it performed locally twice, with warnings for adult content. Oh, it's nothing too racy, compared to the Bard himself, but it's not yet a "classic," so I can understand schools not wanting to put it on.

The most fun is had by folks who know the plays. As an introduction to Shakespeare, it's not really very educational.

[libodem]

8. Only in Amerika

I was listening to the radio before I fully awakened this morning. I think I heard the Idaho Library Association is highlighting a week of books banned in our libraries. Where's Waldo is one and to Kill a Mocking Bird is another. Free country my foot!

[Sam Ervin jret]

11. EXCELLENT!! Nothing gets kids MORE interested in something than to be told they should NOT SEE IT!!!

These ADULT (?) IDIOTS just did more for education than any legislation passed by congress ever could.

I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

BAN THE CONSTITUTION TOO IT WILL BE IN EVERY KIDS WALLET BY WEEKS END!!!

[lonestarnot]

42. I hope you are right. I thought the same thing, I loved the idea too.

[LanternWaste]

19. No, not only in America

No, not only in America... stage-plays and literature are banned in more countries than this one, and it's an age-old problem.

[annabanana]

33. Where's Waldo ??? I would think that even IDAHO would have

to be ok with that.. I can't begin to imagine what there is in there to object to. .

[niyad]

36. here is the link to the ALA's banned books week events (this week, actually

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm

[minerva50]

13. Reminds me of my High School days

A theater company came and performed scenes from "Romeo and Juliet," which we were reading in English classes. Some faculty were upset because the actors and actresses were able, by expression and gestures, to make clear the double meanings that would have otherwise gone right over our heads. We quite enjoyed the performance.

[BrightKnight]

16. American Taliban strikes again

There is nothing in Shakespeare that you couldn't find in broadcast television. I would rather have a child exposed to it in the context of a Shakespeare.

If all students were exposed to Shakespeare's plays this would be a better Country.

[LisaM]

17. I've been watching Shakespaeare since the fifth grade - at least!

This is ridiculous.

[Solly Mack]

18. I've seen the show. It's excellent. Hilarious - just great!!

Bunch of idiots

[smoogatz]

21. Heavens forefend!

God forbid these kids should ever have to experience anything that might be "over their heads." How would they recover? Jesus, it's like school administrators *want* the kids to be stupid.

[Chulanowa]

24. Well, duh

School is not about education. School is about conditioning. Despite the efforts of many teachers, there is just no breaking the fact that our school system is rigged to produce servile worshipers of authority. When a child will crap themselves after being told they can't go to the bathroom, rather than tell the teacher to screw off and going anyway, something is wrong.

[melm00se]

22. I saw this show in London

a few years ago...

It was a bit ribald but nothing really obscene....more along the line of low brow humor (Shakespeare would have approved I think):

"he said penis hehehhehehhehehe"

[WarhammerTwo]

26. Obviously...

...this production was not up to code with No Child Left Behind.

[Chovexani]

27. Shit like this is why we're the laughing stock of the world

Maybe we should stick to pabulum like Bye Bye Birdie. :eyes:

[niyad]

28. WHAT? then WHY did I study the bard all through junior and senior high? why did our

classes put on various of his plays as our theatrical credits?

this admin would probably faint over "the hoo-haa monologues" (courtesy of that idiot in florida

[niyad]

29. is this person NOT familiar with the works of the bard?

[trogdor]

Maybe the section on Julius Caesar would give them ideas.

Dangerous ones.

[annabanana]

30. Sure.. Everyone knows that "sixth- through 12th-grade" boys

don't actually HAVE their yet..Penises don't get handed out until they hit 21.

[ProudDad]

32. I thought the army issued them

when they hit 17 or 18 and get trained to go murder Iraqis...

[superconnected]

31. The RW taliban strikes again

Give that imbecile a membership!

[ladywnch]

34. my daughter's 5th grade class performed some Shakespeare pieces at school last year

watched a Shakespearen performance too. We only have her and her brother half time but I don't think she was scared or irreparably damaged by it! LOL

[niyad]

35. for those who would like to present a direct comment to tara

the number is
480-279-7000

[aquart]

39. Shakespeare didn't use the word, "penis."

<http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/> Go search.

[Retrograde]

40. "Pricked out for women's pleasure"

He did use a lot of slang words for various sexual parts and acts, but since slang dates quickly most people don't recognize them. The textbook my Catholic high school used for Hamlet tried to explain a lot of obscure references: in one scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, almost all the footnotes were "a sexual allusion". Of course we looked them up! (My high school was very liberal: in addition to covering evolution, one of the nuns who taught science thought continental drift was the coolest thing since dinosaurs - this was the 60s - and there was an actual sex education class!)

BTW, I recommend Ackroyd's Shakespeare for an interesting picture of the Bard's life and times.

[aquart]

44. You might like Frankie Rubenstein's

"A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and their Significance." Although she misses a few.

[noshenanigans]

41. Save the kids from the classics!

The next thing you know, these kids are gonna be reading "Walden" and getting the crazy idea they can live apart from "civilized" society.

When I was a senior in high school I directed a one-act play by Christopher Durang called "'Dentity Crisis". Before the first show the prinicpal came up to me and said there had been a big stink because someone who had auditioned (and not been cast *cough*) said the play was objectionable and so I had to take out the joke where- get this- a woman says to a man "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" and the man- get this- says "It's a banana." and physically pulls a banana out of his pocket.

Ah, Theater of the Absurd was totally lost on my high school. :) Oh, in case you were wondering, I totally left the line in, and the principal knew I would make a huge stink about it, so nothing ever came of it. Surprisingly, no one went to Hell the next day.

[Charlie Brown]

43. Was it really proper to "stop the play" at a performing arts center at which the school was a guest?

Seriously, if there was something objectionable here(and what teenager hasn't heard the word 'penis,' come on?), the school-officials really should have done their research better. And why censure the performance after an hour, by which time any "damage" is already done?

Oh, well. Maybe this administrator unwittingly created a new swath of Shakespeare fans by providing them with a new forbidden fruit in the form of the Bard.

[villager]

45. I wondered the same thing. But I guess these Taliban Teachers

have no compunction about doing their "for your own good" censoring in full view of the public. Since they feel so righteous about it...

[BrightKnight]

49. Stopping the play might teach them that Shakespeare is bad.

I don't think that there are even that many on the right that would share that view.

[dbackjon]

50. Higley - Figures. Bunch of Uptight Mormons

[Josh]

51. Are you fucking kidding me? That show is HILARIOUS!

I can't think of anything objectionable in it at all! They play all the Richards and Henrys as a football game, it's spectacular! One of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Hamlet as a puppet show within a puppet show, for crying out loud! :)