I've been a little out of touch in blog land due to some guests from America who shall remain nameless (due to the fact that one of my UK so-called "friends" has accused me of name dropping on other blogs.   What can I say, these were extremely famous, or infamous, people!). Anyway, I've been wanting to write about a trip my family took to a rather unusual Shakespeare production, so here goes.

I should start by saying that we are fairly faithful Charlotte Mason disciples, and because of that our children have been going to full-scale Shakespeare plays since they were about four years old. My own composition and literature advisor at university (Cultural explanation #1: In the UK, there is a definite distinction between college and university. College is more of a prep for university, or it is a vocational school of some kind, so anybody who has a degree like a B.A. or B.S. will clarify that they have been to university, rather than lumping them all together, as is done with places like Boston University or Boston College. The Australians tend to stick with "uni", but the Brits like to go for the full "university"--more prestigious I guess.) had his Ph.D. in Shakespeare, and through a semester course of "Studies in Shakespeare" plus numerous talks in his book-cluttered office, I developed a love for the British bard as a superb writer and as a man who used sublime language and expression to communicate powerful messages. Because of this, I was anxious for my children to see "Macbeth".

Before going, my wife had read through the story with them in Charles & Mary Lamb's classic work "Tales from Shakespeare". I had talked through the various themes that run through the play--temptation, selfish ambition, giving oneself over to evil, and the destructive power of a guilty conscience, etc. I was excited to see how they would respond.

We knew that the play was intentionally geared for children, but I hadn't really given it much thought. Man, I wish I had given it much thought! The plays started, and the three wierd sisters came out, and began a SONG AND DANCE NUMBER! It was like the Dixie Chicks having a really bad hair day. I know a lot of people aren't very comfortable with the three wierd sisters (or witches), but they make the evil side of temptation very real. At least normally they do, but in this production, they were dancing all over the stage. They message of the text was lost completely. I couldn't believe it. The rest of the play followed suit. Shakespeare's classic dialogue was thrown out the window and replaced by numerous poor show tunes somehow telling the (so they said) story of Macbeth. Disbelief was quickly followed by disappointment as it dawned on me what we were in for during the next two hours.

Then, to take it to another level entirely, about 30 minutes into the first half, a guy claiming to be Macbeth's porter came out on to the stage and did about ten minutes of pantomime. (Cultural explanation #2: Pantomime is a rather unique form of theatre that I had never seen before I came to live in England. America has nothing remotely like it. It relies heavily on  knock-knock jokes, lots of yelling from the audience, visually silly humour, and large amounts of coarse behaviour.) The children in the audience, most of whom were from local schools, were loving it. I glanced over at my kids, and they were not enjoying it. (Great relief on my and my wife's part!) At about this point, my nine year old daughter leaned over to me and said, "Dad, this is going to turn our brains to mush."

We made it through the hour-long second half, with more singing and even less actual Shakespearian dialogue. Had we not been there with a group of other homeschoolers, one of whom had kindly made the effort to get the tickets for us all, our family probably would have left at the intermission break. I left thinking that all those children had spent an afternoon thinking they had seen Shakespeare, but in actual fact they had seen hardly any Shakespeare at all. Out of two hours, I think there was maybe 30 minutes of dialogue, the rest of the time was filled with songs. One of the other homeschool mums leaned over and said to me, "West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet, but nobody presumes to call it Shakespeare." I thought it was an appropriate observation.

I left with a few thoughts running through my mind. First of all, I was saddened at the level of dumbing down that is occurring in every area of education and society. I realise I'm preaching to the choir, but it was a rather emphatic example of just how far things have slipped.

On the positive side, I was glad that my kids had really not liked it. Two of Charlotte Mason's principles bounced around in my mind as we drove home: 1. Expect a lot from children and they'll give a lot. We often don't stretch them as much as we should. They are capable of taking in much more than they are given in many circumstances. 2. She always talks about letting the child's education develop naturally. Don't make the associations for them, but let them develop the ability to make appropriate connections and to become discerning learners on their own. The fact that my own 9 and 11 year old had been discerning about the play gave me cause for great encouragement.

Whether it be through Charlotte Mason's principles of learning (highly recommended) or however we may choose to teach our children, we are to educate them to be discerning lovers of the good and the laudable, not to be content with simple mindless dumbed down "twaddle". And if we're going to give them "twaddle", please let's not call it Shakespeare!

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things--the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit."-- Samuel Johnson