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Crazy the Shrew (or, Crazy in a Dress)
"I say sir, is it your will to make me a stale amongst these mates?"
As part of my Shakespeare Comedies class, Prof. Dugas think its fun to assign students to groups to perform sections from six of the plays we go over. I was assigned to the "Taming of the Shrew" group, which, assigned by alphabetical order, happened to include myself, another guy, and five ladies.
The section we were performing happened to have five male characters, and two female characters. Meredith, of course, had a great idea: "Let's let the girls play the guys, and the guys play the girls!"
You can see where this is going.
Of course the girls fell in love with this idea, and started talking about how pretty Nick and I would look in wigs, dresses, makeup, bras, and high-heels. Really, this wasn't a bad deal, since in this particular section, the characters of Kathrina and Biance have VERY few lines -- I didn't actually memorize mine until today, earning quite a few odd looks from people as I munched on a BLT in the Brick sprouting off Shakespeare "...comb your noodle with a three legged stool..."
So I got to be Kathrina, the title character. We decided we'd perform it as it would have been done in the 16th century, with "period" costumes -- aka, $30 worth of material from the fabric store.
So, 3:30pm today found me in the 2nd floor hall of Linthicum Hall, in a cheaply made dress (that kept falling over my breasts, dammit!), wearing a cheaper wig, and some very high quality makeup (or so I'm told). Got through my lines (I had four speaking sequences, which, although I didn't get 100%, I did get very well).
Aside from the paraphrased line at the top of this post, mine included:
"Faith sir, and fear not. It is not halfway to her heart, but if it were, doubt not her care would be to comb your noodle with a three legged stool, paste your face, and use you like a fool."
"A pretty peat! Put finger in her eye, and she knew why!"
"What, and may I not leave? Shall I be assigned hours as if I know not what to take and what to leave?"
I also got to throw an apple at Meredith (Hortensio) when she said her line about the rotting apple. We were supposed to have a plastic apple, but no one could find one, so we bought a real one ... she told me to aim for her ***, but during the performance, she and Michelle (Gremio) moved further from the door, and I wound up hitting the back of her knee (oh well). It got a laugh.
Anyway, it went pretty well (although several of my current and former professors who saw me in the hall burst out in laughter).
(PS - me and Nick stood firm, and weren't subjegated to high heels, bras, or fake breasts).
[ 12-04-2002, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: C in a J ]
As part of my Shakespeare Comedies class, Prof. Dugas think its fun to assign students to groups to perform sections from six of the plays we go over. I was assigned to the "Taming of the Shrew" group, which, assigned by alphabetical order, happened to include myself, another guy, and five ladies.
The section we were performing happened to have five male characters, and two female characters. Meredith, of course, had a great idea: "Let's let the girls play the guys, and the guys play the girls!"
You can see where this is going.
Of course the girls fell in love with this idea, and started talking about how pretty Nick and I would look in wigs, dresses, makeup, bras, and high-heels. Really, this wasn't a bad deal, since in this particular section, the characters of Kathrina and Biance have VERY few lines -- I didn't actually memorize mine until today, earning quite a few odd looks from people as I munched on a BLT in the Brick sprouting off Shakespeare "...comb your noodle with a three legged stool..."
So I got to be Kathrina, the title character. We decided we'd perform it as it would have been done in the 16th century, with "period" costumes -- aka, $30 worth of material from the fabric store.
So, 3:30pm today found me in the 2nd floor hall of Linthicum Hall, in a cheaply made dress (that kept falling over my breasts, dammit!), wearing a cheaper wig, and some very high quality makeup (or so I'm told). Got through my lines (I had four speaking sequences, which, although I didn't get 100%, I did get very well).
Aside from the paraphrased line at the top of this post, mine included:
"Faith sir, and fear not. It is not halfway to her heart, but if it were, doubt not her care would be to comb your noodle with a three legged stool, paste your face, and use you like a fool."
"A pretty peat! Put finger in her eye, and she knew why!"
"What, and may I not leave? Shall I be assigned hours as if I know not what to take and what to leave?"
I also got to throw an apple at Meredith (Hortensio) when she said her line about the rotting apple. We were supposed to have a plastic apple, but no one could find one, so we bought a real one ... she told me to aim for her ***, but during the performance, she and Michelle (Gremio) moved further from the door, and I wound up hitting the back of her knee (oh well). It got a laugh.
Anyway, it went pretty well (although several of my current and former professors who saw me in the hall burst out in laughter).
(PS - me and Nick stood firm, and weren't subjegated to high heels, bras, or fake breasts).
[ 12-04-2002, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: C in a J ]
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