NCCC Course to Feature Shakespearean Works in Performance

Shakespeare's living voice, as he speaks to us across the ages, will be the focus of a survey course of the Bard's works offered this fall at Northwestern CT Community College in Winsted. The course will feature films of some of Shakespeare's best known works as well as lectures, class discussions and staged demonstrations of contemporary approaches to presenting his plays.

Among the plays to be discussed and compared in film versions are Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. Class members will also be encouraged to prepare and present selected scenes from Shakespeare's plays; in preparing their scenes they will receive coaching from professional actors.

William Hunt, author of two books of poetry and a member of NCCC's English Department faculty for nine years, will teach the course. "I expect that we will be able to present three to five filmed versions of some of the plays," Hunt said. "Teaching Shakespeare presents a very clear-cut job for the instructor. Whatever else you do, you must help the student realize why Shakespeare is the first writer who comes to mind when anyone considers the greatness of the English language."

The movies the class will look at will include some of the most highly regarded actors and directors of our time—Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Bogdanov, Maurice Evans, Marlon Brando, Judith Anderson and Claire Bloom. The course will consider how Shakespeare's works were presented in his lifetime and it will also look at the significant changes and reinterpretations that have occurred during the last 400 years since Shakespeare lived.

In addition to making plain Shakespeare's greatness, Hunt will also place each of the plays in the context that original viewers experienced in their own lives. "Plays such as Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra must be viewed in the social framework of an Elizabethan audience, themselves apprehensive about the stability of their country's monarchy. It is not accidental that so many of William Shakespeare's plays dealt with the turmoil and tragedy of people leading nations," said Hunt.

Because of the nature of the course, space is limited, and interested participants are urged to register as early as possible. This three-credit, elective course meets on Wednesdays from 6:30-9:30 p.m., beginning September 4. For more info call Bill Hunt at 413-528-1639, or Grantley S. Adams at 860-738-6333.