Most students get thrown into Shakespeare in high school and struggle to comprehend the complexity of the language and the bewilderment of situational comedy.
Realizing that students often give up on the English playwright before they can enjoy his work, Dr. John Hanners wrote a play that will serve to show why Shakespeare is important.
“Shakespeare is not meant to be read, it’s meant to be seen. There’s a relationship between the actor, the text, and the audience,” Hanners said.
For people who are intimidated by the famous bard, Shakespeare’s Ontological Magick Circus will have various scenes revised with modern, everyday language. The show, which will run March 23-25, was written for high school and college students with both entertainment and educational purposes.
“[It’s] an attempt to get rid of the difficulty of Shakespeare,” Hanners said.
The play will allow the public to learn something new about Shakespeare using some of his scenes and sonnets. Some scenes will be performed twice to compare interpretations of American and British styles of acting, or to recreate the authenticity of the original show.
“There is a linguistic theory that explores the idea that Shakespeare’s English was closer to a hillbilly accent,” Hanners said.
He drew his inspiration for the unique compilation of scenes from a similar idea he had done almost 20 years ago of performing Shakespeare’s roles in different styles. For Shakespeare’s Ontological Magick Circus, there are five actors that interact with the audience and each actor plays about eight different characters.
“It’s pretty fast paced, which is an important part of the rhythm. There’s a theme running through it,” Hanners said.
The unusual title makes sense when broken down. Ontology, the study of being, is what Shakespeare does by asking what it means to be human.
Shakespeare often had a play within a play and created a circus-like atmosphere.
Hanners’ play will involve a lot of lighting as opposed to being set-driven. This technique is more authentic to the way Shakespeare would have done it, where the actors’ skills are heavily relied upon.
Theatergoers can see Hanners’ talent on stage when he performs one of two lead roles in Love Letters. Nov. 7 with professional actress Emily Hunt.