Shakespeare comes to Wahkiakum

Students at Wahkiakum High School were in for a treat this week when actors from The Seattle Shakespeare Company arrived for a two day visit to give workshops and perform Macbeth.

Two actors, Anastasia Higham and Trevor Young Marston, along with SSC's Education Associate Casey Brown arrived before the rest of the cast. The two actors led workshops on Macbeth, first a lively interactive introduction to the play followed by stage combat. Students who attended the workshops laughed almost as much as they learned, practicing slaps, kicking and pulling hair, all without harming their partners.

Four more actors, Terri Weagant, Susanna Burney, Joshua Chessin-Yudin and Joe Cummings round out the cast. Between breakfast and set up on Tuesday, the cast had gathered for one last run-through of Macbeth, to tweak minor details here and there before the performance.

The troop stopped for a few minutes to share why they do what they do.

"We have the main stage and our shows in the park but the goal with the tour," Brown said, "is to reach schools and communities where it isn't practical for them to come to Seattle for a student matinee. We want to give students an opportunity to experience Shakespeare as he was meant to be experienced: as a live piece of theatre, rather than something they are sitting and reading."

Brown, who worked as an actor before taking a position behind the scenes, remembers the pay off.

"I've seen the lightbulb go on in their head," Brown said, the thrill still obvious. The actors nod and smile.

"Shakespeare is really daunting when you haven't seen it," Weagant said. "It's scary when you don't have a frame of reference for it. So having a 90 minute piece that is really stripped down to the storyline makes it more accessible. The students realize they can get this, that they are allowed into this world."

"I don't think kids realize how crude, dirty and funny Shakespeare actually is," Cummings added. "Some kids just cackle and laugh so loud during a performance. They probably hated it when they were reading it."

Understanding the language and the humor in the text is eye opening. Relating to it can be life altering.

"This is my third year doing the tour," Burney said. "This is my fourth time doing Romeo and Juliet. I love the play more than ever. It's so beautiful. The way the characters change and are affected by each other is deeply human. It is extraordinary that something that was written 400 years ago is so relevant and so powerful.

"I play Capulet," Burney continued. "We take the characters of Lord and Lady Capulet and make it one sort of matriarchal beast. When I'm yelling at my daughter because she won't marry the man I want her to and I say, 'Get out of my house!' I can feel those kids out there. Like they've had those arguments or they know somebody that has had that argument. They know what Juliet is up against. It is just as real now as when he wrote it 400 years ago."

Sometimes their work is a kind of ferry to other arts. Sometimes they are that first interaction for students who are interested in their own craft, acting.

"One of my favorite things to hear," Higham said, "is 'I thought this was going to be boring and then I really liked it.' You never know how many people you might be touching out there. Even if there are students who go through life just knowing what happens in Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, that's just as valuable. We want those people all over, those people who have a love or connection with Shakespeare or theater in general."

"Shakespeare is for everybody," Brown said. "You don't have to have a certain level of education or certain grasp of the English language to understand and appreciate it."