What was the best part of your day? That is a question that runs in the Miranda and Richard Johnson family. Other families say to their children as they go to bed, have you brushed your teeth, or remember to say your prayers, or even, please put the last ice cream dish you used, into the dishwasher.
But no. What was the best part of your day? That is their question to the children. Sometimes it seems hard for the little ones to run through the rolodex of their daily memory to find an answer. Michael looked so tired when I asked him the question, that I wished I hadn’t even asked it.
In a voice that sounded more computer generated than joyful, I heard him say, “I guess it was S-h-a-k-e-s-p-e-a-r-e”, him, drawing on the long sound of the vowels. At that moment, the 72 years that separate us in age vanished, for that was the favourite part of the day for me. For him, it was viewing the Stratford-on-Line filming of their production, The Taming of the Shrew. For me the favourite part of the day was being at my computer screen, watching that film, and having a 5, 7 and 8 year old drift into my room, sit themselves close to me on a chair, or plop down on my bed, legs dangling beside my bedside table, another doing extreme stretches that involved legs over her head, on the bed, but still with her eyes on the screen.
To challenge the idea that this might be life’s perfect moment, -- no – everything in the world that could go wrong in this picture, is going wrong. One and then another is falling into a space that doesn’t belong to them. “Ouch”. “Don’t poke me.” One leaves their chair for a second, and another plops into it, but it was “saved” in the mind of the one who has only left it for 30 seconds.
A third child is reading the captions outloud – absolutely annoying, unless my purpose is to have that old English vocabulary run through his mind in any fashion I can get it there. I am not going to interrupt him or correct him.
I don’t have any treats to give out. Oh yes, there are hidden chocolate bars in my blanket cupboard but I am not bringing them out. To share squares of warm Cadbury Caramilk would only be to put warm chocolate all over their hands and all over my bedding. So instead of thinking about how to keep them at the screen through treats, I try to overtalk the sound of the movie’s dialogue, telling them to look at a certain costume, or to remember a famous-to-me phrase. I put the movie on hold to show them something that is happening. For example, old Gremio is having trouble getting up on the Stratford stage and he swings his arm back and forth in that old Carol Burnett style of rocking back and forth before she can throw her body out of her rocking chair. In that style, Gremio is using his arm to propel himself up on the stage. I tell them about this trick that old people have of making themselves able to move. Then we go back in the show 30 seconds before where I have hit pause and we watch Gremio together and I tell them that while this may not be funny to them yet, it is funny to anyone who is worrying about getting very old. They watch the theatrical joke and I can see that they get it, even though they are decades away from really getting it.
I worry that they may not be able to distinguish the sounds of two of the character’s names: Gremio and Grumio. Only one letter difference. The former, an ancient and repulsive suitor, the latter – Petruchio’s servant and comic figure. There is so much going on, both on screen and in my bedroom. I have no idea what parts of what they are hearing, nor what the children are retaining.
When they have all gone to bed, I pull out the Lego Book of Shakespeare stories they have been reading. The pictures are made of Lego characters, but the text in the book is pulled right out of the Shakespeare script – difficult old English in its original form. To be precise, the book is called Brick Shakespeare: Four Tragedies and Four Comedies. construction and photography by John McCann, edited and narrated by Monica Sweeney and Becky Thomas. Holland Publishing, 2013. www. skyhorsepublishing.com
I critique the book as a mixture of forms that doesn’t work. Bonnie explains to me that it might be interesting to children who play a lot with Lego. They will be seeing pieces they don’t have: a face
with an old beard, 16th century hair styles on women and men, an ancient Lego-sized sword, pumpkin pants, archaic shields, a tree or shrub the colour of which is not in their Lego tub. These are all details that have passed right by me. I am only worrying about an 8-year-old being subjected to iambic pentameter, and words like villain, shrew, nay, oweth, forward and peevish. I see uncommon phrases: “vail your stomachs”, “put your hands beneath your husband’s foot”,and “that seeming to be most, which indeed we least are”. I know they cannot find meaning there. Still, the children stay at the screen with me.
In the early part of the show, before the show even begins, one of the actors has been on stage, describing the costuming and showing the “pumpkin pants” he is wearing, drawing attention to the fact that in 14 years of being on the Shakespearean stage, this is the first time he has worn pumpkin pants and he offers the idea to the audience that they should try them. He then rolls his hips around in a 360 degree direction, making everyone laugh, but in doing so he ascribes to the pants a great freedom and flexibility.
Later in the day, someone brings up the idea of pumpkin pants. I leap to my feet, and roll my hips as the actors did. The children laugh. I know they got one of the show jokes and have it in their repertoire of Shakespearian memes.
Arta
