Now is the summer of our kids’ content. Topanga’s Theatricum Botanicum has been alive with the words of William Shakespeare, as young people ages four to18 performed the works of an English playwright who has been dead for 400 years.
They learned fencing, Elizabethan song, dance, voice and diction at the Shakespeare Summer Camp that ended last weekend with performances of abridged versions of classic Shakespeare plays: “The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Tempest,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
Theatricum Botanicum’s education director and grants manager, Elizabeth Tobias, explained why Shakespeare is still relevant and popular with children.
“The stories are all fundamentally human,” Tobias said. “They are about basic needs: love, friendship, family, ambition, greed, community, how these things intersect and the problems that happen when you want one more than the other. Or you need one and can’t get it.”
When we think of the Bard, we often think of old-fashioned language. But Tobias says the kids don’t have a problem with it. “They are used to de-coding. There’s a presumption that kids can’t get it, but I think that comes from an adult’s fear of Shakespeare learned from teachers who may have great scholarship and literary knowledge, but don’t have theatrical experience of Shakespeare. It was written to be heard, not read.”
The actors had just 14 days to get performance-ready. “Some kids will play three seemingly minor parts, but that can be quite challenging for them,” said Cindy Kania, youth program manager. “We double-cast the larger roles so one will do the first half of the play, then they switch, because some of the larger roles are line-heavy. We don’t want to overburden them. We stretch them just a little beyond their comfort zones.”
Learning lines is perhaps the hardest part of acting. Elizabeth Tobias has this advice for budding actors: “Don’t leave it until the last minute. Start early and do it every day. Say them aloud five times a day, every day, while you’re making the bed or doing the dishes.”
The teaching staff at Theatricum is working actors with agents and their own success who want to share their knowledge and love of theater with the next generation and, like most actors, appreciate some extra income.
There are around 120 children at every Shakespeare Summer Camp. They are split into groups of 20 for each play. As she introduced “The Taming of The Shrew” to a packed theater of family and friends, Tobias admitted that the 11- and 12-year-old students had found the play’s subject matter (where women are treated more like property) “offensive” but were able to overlook their concerns and find the humor in it.
Her and Kania’s enthusiasm for Shakespeare is infectious. The children learn that Shakespeare’s writing is built on a poetic structure called iambic pentameter —
“Ten syllables per line. Five feet. Each foot is two syllables,” Tobias explained. “It’s a heartbeat. Ba bum. Ba bum. When he wants you to shout, he doesn’t write ‘he shouts’ or by writing in capitals. He does it by changing the rhythm. It’s genius. What’s even more genius is when he drops out of poetry into prose.”
A firm favorite is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” performed by the youngest actors this year, with Theatricum’s woodland environment the ideal setting for this caper, since most of the scenes take place in a forest. As we chatted in this picture-perfect setting where theater meets nature, Tobias and Kania agreed that “Hamlet” is Shakespeare’s finest work. “The monologues and soliloquies are gorgeous and heartbreaking,” Kania said.
Actor Will Geer founded Theatricum Botanicum in 1973. His daughter, acclaimed thespian Ellen Geer, is the artistic director and stars in many of its productions.
Shakespeare Summer Camp is finished for 2016, but Saturday classes for children and adults are held all year. The program of plays (not all Shakespeare) continues until October. Through its school program, Theatricum Botanicum serves 15,000 students a year. We are lucky to have this bastion of the creative arts on our doorstep.
For more information and tickets, visit theatricum.com.
