Edwin Forrest had a friend, or at least an admirer, in Junius
Brutus Booth, an English actor who had moved to Baltimore . Booth named his elder son after Forrest. Edwin Booth grew to become one of, if not the
greatest American stage actor of the 19th century. My discussion of Edwin Booth included my trip
in 2000 to The Players, the club Booth started for actors still located in Gramercy
Park in New
York . My
historical memorabilia collection centers mostly on Edwin Booth. I showed
multiple pictures, playbills, cigarette cards, magazine articles, biographies
and his signature. . I ended my discussion of the life of Edwin
Booth with the fact that although he was his father’s more talented son, he was
not the more famous son. That honor goes
to his younger brother, John Wilkes.
I then talked about Joseph Jefferson. Although Jefferson was more known for comic
acting (“Rip Van Winkle” especially) rather than the Bard, he is important for
those of us in the Chicago area in that he is the namesake of the local theater
awards (the Joseph Jefferson award). I
have several examples of Jefferson ’s autographs, along
with a letter, some pictures and his autobiography. While I was dwelling on the Chicago angle, I
talked about the Iroquois Theater fire and pointed out to the students where
they could find the most haunted alley in Chicago.
After talking about
I felt I was running out of time so I quickly moved into
ways the students could watch modern versions of Shakespeare stories, often
without knowing it. I pointed out that
Disney’s “The Lion King” had many of the Hamlet story points in it. More specifically I suggested “West Side
Story” (R & J), “She’s the Man” (Twelfth Night) and “O” (Othello). The class was getting ready to read “Taming
of the Shrew” so I highly recommended “10 Things I Hate About You.” Of course I pointed out that the last
suggestion starred the late Heath Ledger, he of the Joker fame.
Feeling that I used up my time (I had gone on almost an hour) the teacher asked for questions. And then the questions came. (For some it was a choice between questioning me or school work so those students were motivated). What was my favorite play? (Hamlet). How much does a theater ticket cost? (long answer) What was the most popular Shakespeare play? (Most produced: Midsummer) How many copies of Shakespeare’s plays do I own? (2). If I went back in time and could ask Shakespeare one question, what would it be? (Did you write these plays?). Were you ever in a play? (Not really. I had a walk on part in a college production of King Lear).
The next day I received a pile of thank you notes from the class which were quite enjoyable to read. They will in fact become part of my collection as well. But the next day I received an invitation for a repeat performance. Apparently the students in this class were talking to the students in another, similar class and that teacher talked to my son’s teacher and voila, I’m set up to do it all again this next week. This time I want to bring in John Barrymore to the discussion and perhaps a few more pictures. All I need to remember is to “suit the action to the word, the word to action.”
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