Study

"Oh this learning, what a thing it is!"
Gremio, Act I scene 2



At each juncture in my life, study has made a huge difference to me. In my time, I've been both a student and a teacher. When I was a boy I knew it was my job to study as hard as I could, not to be good but to further myself and my abilities. In early twenties, I lost that clarity of why one should be a good student but I can honestly say I have regained my focus over the last ten years or so.

In my early 40's I finished my B.A. and got two masters degrees, largely focused on the world of classical theater and Elizabethan and Renaissance literature.

I've spent this last period of my life delving into Shakespeare.

I've learned to study his work from both an emotional and mechanical point of view. I learned the difference between a trochee and a spondee, how Billy-boy used metaphor, simile, and rhetoric to make his thunder. I find that the words of this dead white man speak to me in a way I never anticipated. I'm not sure my thoughts about Shakespeare are original, but I do know that the process of my having those thoughts feels essential to my being.

I am also attracted to the world of Shakespearean performance because of the process of STUDY. I believe there is a time and place for everything. There've been times in my life when study and reflection were not important to me. It was of primary importance at those points in my development for me to do.

When one works with Shakespearean text, either as an actor or a director, one must study it ---- but not as a scholar. You have to find a key, a way into the material that isn't intellectual or "up in the head". This process uses the head, the heart, and the gut. One learns to take what one reads into the body and make it beat in your heart...

This work somehow seems vital to my being. I'm not sure why, but I must memorize Shakespeare text on a regular basis simply to feel good. And therefore I do it.

It's my experience that most thoughtful people have something they love so much they are willing to give it their attention, their study. What's yours?