Finally able to embark on my service learning journey with my first training session at LBPF, I was able to make some concrete parallels with Shakespeare. Having known little about the organization and their mission prior to training, the only thing I could really muster was this idea of preservation. As a docent (or volunteer, usually a tour guide) training entails a lot. I attended a rigorous three hour session, which strikingly resembled a brutal theater rehearsal (I'm sure you theater folk understand just fine) memorizing lines upon lines. We sat around like a read through for a play, filing through the material we must cover when giving the tour of the lighthouse. In other words, a script was provided, and I was to learn it as close to perfection as possible.
After the brief introduction to what we were to say to visitors, we went up to the lighthouse to "act it out." At first I was in the audience, listening to the script played out, and then I was was acting to an audience. It made me think about the Globe theater and if I was there; either side of the stage. It also led me to analyze the the audience and stage relationship. The idea of choosing not to break the fourth wall, or to go ahead and do it like the many asides and soliloquies in Shakespearian texts. The relationship between the actor and his audience must be a strong one. The one that must be stronger though, in my opinion at least, would be the actors relationship with his text and interpreting it. When it is not acted out for an audience though, and you find yourself just reading the text (like what we do for homework every week) the author must mold a character that would be appealing to the audience. Just as I myself must translate a text to come to life and sound interesting and manipulate my voice inflections etc, I still must work with the given text and develop a certain love or dynamic with it.
In terms of what surprised or disappointed me, I was rather surprised to not be disappointed. Unlike the many other service learning options I thought I would enjoy more, I think this truly is the best fit for me. I'm so glad my supervisor JoAnn looked lonely at the SERVE fair and I just couldn't stand to see her alone (it's twenty minutes away and she basically praised the heavens when I said I had a car), she has already been a teach of sorts for me. Confused by connecting Shakespeare and service learning together, JoAnn tried make some parallels of her own. We briefly discussed social issues and addressing them to the masses. I then had the AHA! moment of the social issues/gender roles/ideas of rank and status etc., brought up in Shakespearian texts. I am doing the same thing, bringing information to an audience to take home and digest, or even just for it to be heard.
In some respects your placement is more challenging than others to relate topically to Shakespeare, and you're absolutely right that ecological preservation is one possible link. However, in the sense that you are performing a script, it may be the easiest connection to draw. Knowing that your role at LPBF is both to entertain and inform, what more could you say about how Shakespeare uses words and actors to transmit messages to an audience? What messages do you see in the plays that have similar stakes to the ones you're communicating as a docent?
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