Waterford High adapts to Shakespeare

The road to tomorrow's finale of the JN Shakespeare Schools' Championship hasn't been easy for the cast of the Waterford High School in Portmore, St Catherine. This is particularly so because Shakespearean literature and the performance of Shakespearean plays were virtually unknown to most students until recently.

"They don't study Shakespeare at all," explained, Triseeka Clarke Thompson, Drama coach at Waterford High. "Most do literature from first to third form; however, no Shakespeare."

"The language was very difficult to learn," admitted Raheem Wright who, before the competition, had never read a Shakespeare play, poem or even acted on stage. Now he aspires to have a career in the dramatic arts.

"I think this is what I want to do," the fifth form science student, who doubles as Egeus, the nobleman and the fairy king, Oberon, in the school's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, said, seeming very pleased with himself.

understanding the man

For Malcolm Bernard, a football player and member of the school's Drama Club, performing in the Shakespearean play has been particularly helpful with understanding the man, his craft, and his message.

"I have heard about Shakespeare, but I never read any of his plays," Malcolm said. "Now I realise that, although the language is different, what he is talking about is not very different from what we know or experience," he remarked.

He explained that acting in the play has helped to improve his vocabulary. "It has also been helping to build my self-esteem, because we realise that we are all human beings and you don't have to be afraid to express yourself. That's one of the most important things."

With the guidance of Clarke Thompson and music teacher Shaniek Fyffe, the students at Waterford High have reinterpreted the legendary playwright's romantic comedy to fit naturally into their own realities.

The Athens, Greece, plot in the Shakespearean play has become a section of Portmore, St Catherine, with Theseus, the Duke and Egeus, the Nobleman, reinterpreted as a 'Don' and a 'Pastor', respectively.

Lysander (played by Malcolm, the man Egeus' daughter, Hermia, falls in love with and wishes to marry, is portrayed as a struggling Rastafarian man who hustles the downtown Kingston district. And, Demetrius, who is the man Egeus has handpicked for Hermia, is characterised as an educated young man from upper St Andrew.

Even the fairy servant Puck is recast as an Anancy-like creature, played by Mackayla Lawrence, a female student. She doubles as the hideous and ridiculed, but spritely' character, Bottom, a craftsman who is deemed a labourer for the purpose of the students' adaptation. Bottom is also a roots play actor, who commands the lead in a play to be performed in celebration of Theseus' wedding.

"It was very hard for me to take on male roles because I had to keep in character throughout school time. I had to practise and it took me a long time before I could get it fully," Mackayla related.

Although the language and plot seemed obscure, it took the students only about a week to learn and perform the adaptation of the play.

"We did many cast changes leading up to the elimination rounds," Thompson Clarke said. "Many of the students were excited at first, but when they saw the script, they just simply gave it back because they thought it was boring or the language was too difficult."

finalists

However the Waterford students persevered, emerging as the only non-traditional school to earn a spot among the seven finalists in the competition. This was after the elimination round at the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, in July.

The Waterford drama team will compete against Campion College, Wolmer's Trust team, a combined Kingston College and St Hugh's group; Glenmuir High, Ardenne High and the American International School of Kingston.

"It was very challenging, but they were determined. And they want to speak the language and own it," Clarke Thompson said.

And, own it they have. After the long summer break, the students returned to school with the Shakespearean 'parlance' rolling effortlessly off their tongues; and were prepared to perform once Clarke Thompson gave the command, 'Action!',

"It's just like any other day in Jamaica," said Mackayla of Shakespeare's plays. "Because you have the pastor whose daughter falls in love with a Rastaman, and even Protege sings about it."

"So I think we have this under wraps, because it's what we do every day. All we need to do is to put all of ourselves into the play for the finale."