The play (on words) is the thing

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.* In other words: Listen up. You’re gonna like this.

In Appleton, Wis., a youth arts organization recently funded a series of workshops at a local school to help students decrypt the sometimes convoluted but always lyrical language of Shakespeare, apparently disregarding Richard III’s admonition that “Talkers are no good doers.”

An experienced Shakespearean actor hied himself to Neenah High, vowing not to dumb-down the material, but instead to raise pupils’ understanding of the art of speaking.  Bill Pokel, a special events coordinator for the local Performing Arts for Youth group, told the Appleton Post-Crescent that the performer helps students to recognize themselves in the scenes and scripts so liltingly laid down by the Bard.

“The biggest focus,” he said, “is to try to make it relevant to their everyday life.”

Depends. We’re guessing they scrupulously avoided King Henry VI, in which some unrepentant truant declares “Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school.”

*Venus and Adonis

 
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