American Shakespeare Center

It has been a busy start to the week concerning both Merry Wives of Windsor and Othello. We had another dress rehearsal of Othello on Sunday Morning and started working on the blocking of Merry Wives which has been fascinating to watch. We ran the first half of Merry Wives yesterday and have now begun working on the second half after the interlude. It is really fascinating to see everything come together, especially after working on Othello. The world in Merry Wives is much smaller and so more detail and specificity is needed to create the world. The costumes are quite ingenious in how they are portraying the world. They are mixing a lot of Jacobian and Modern elements in the costume to help show the difference between young and old, native and foreign, and good and bad. For example Falstaff, a drunkard knight that has come to stay in Windsor temporarily looks somewhat like the leader of a motor-cycle gang. Different characters have different types of attire, older native Windsorians (a word I made up) are more traditional, whereas characters like Anne and Fenton wear more modern clothing that has elements of the Jacobian era but is not full Jacobian dress.

The other thing I have been working on is the paraphrase style that they use here. I have started working on Helena's monologue from Act 1 Scene 1 of Midsummer Night's Dream for an audition and I decided that I would use the method that ASC uses. It has been really amazing the things I have learned about Helena from the paraphrase just based on the words Shakespeare chooses for her.

Here's part of the verse from the monologue I chose:

For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down Oaths that he was only mine;
And when this Hail some Heat from Hermia felt
So he dissolved, and Show'rs of oaths did melt.

Here's how I paraphrased it:

For when Demetrius looked on Hermia's eyes
He rained on me promises that he was just mine
And in this rain, so passion/love/warmth from Hermia believed
So he evaporated, and storms of promises did disappear


I really like this part of the paraphrase because I felt it showed a huge part of her character. She felt bereft because Demetrius was telling her he loved her and then stopped suddenly. Plus, earlier in the soliloquy she mentions that everyone else thinks she's beautiful but he will not even try to see it. He won't choose her so therefore he does not want her. He loves what he chooses not what his heart tells him.

I could go on and on about what I learned about Helena from this little bit but I feel like I should end this post somewhere. I'm still thoroughly enjoying my internship and I cannot believe I have to leave in a few weeks.

- Lauren Dentler