“What is it?” I ask, as I glance down at the cover.
I do a double take. My contact lenses need cleaning, but still, the title has me discombobulated:
“Simply Shakespeare: Original Shakespearean Text with a Modern Line-for-Line Translation.”
“That looks interesting,” I comment, as joyeth overcometh me.
“I could write my own play with this thing,” he says, as he flips the pages in front of me. “Can I get it?”
I suddenly want to pinch myself. Was it not a year earlier he wanted nothing to do with Shakespeare?! It was two Mays ago. Auditions for the “Twelfth Night” were fast approaching at St. Petersburg Little Theatre. Justin wanted to audition for a part. But when he read the script of the contemporary re-telling of Shakespeare's comedy, he changed his mind.
“This stuff makes no sense,” he had said. When I tried to help him read some lines for practice, he exited stage left.
I was disheartened. Like a lot of parents, I had all these preconcieved ideas around how fun it would be to learn Shakespeare with a group of theatre friends.
Nope. Auditioning for a part in the play wasn't going to happen, Justin said. Plus, he argued, they were looking for males who were older than he.
"But you look older than you are," I countered. He disagreed.
So I did what I always do as an unschooling mom who still struggles with past conditioning around thinking I, the parent, knows best. I sulked a bit, released a heavy sigh, smiled and let it go. My job to see if he might go for it was done.
Now, a year and a half later, Justin was asking to buy Simply Shakespeare!
After we got home the book sat on the table all afternoon. I was so curious if he would ever pick it up. I can't tell you how many books I've bought that I've yet to read. Like the one on, "How to Let Your Child Lead," or something like that.
So while I was doing the dishes, I decided not to even expect he would read the book. Then, like all the other magical moments where his love of learning shines through, it happened again.
Justin sat down at the kitchen table and picked up the book. Within minutes some strange words begin to fill the air, complete with all the diction and inflection one would imagine from a cast of Elizabethan actors.
Hamlet: Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further.
Ghost: Mark me.
Hamlet: I will.
Ghost: My hour is almost come
When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Hamlet: Speak, I am bound to hear.
Justin looks up from the page. “This is fun,” he says.“You can really get into it.”
I'm standing at the sink, smiling. He starts to read again.
Ghost: I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood ...
Justin pauses long enough to comment: “This is crazy stuff.”
But the peculiar way they talked back then didn't stop him from reading on.
Hamlet: O, God!
Ghost: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Hamlet: Murder!
Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
Hamlet: Haste me to know't, that I with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.
Ghost: I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf...
Justin shakes his head. Dramatic pause. “This is really hard.”
He flips through a few pages, skimming through the text silently now.
“This is really confusing. If I'm ever in a play," he says, "I'm not playing Hamlet. He's got some long lines.”
To Thine Own Self Be True
I'm always amazed at how Justin knows what he wants and what is best for him. When he doesn't, he learns what is best for him through experience and imitation, or said another way, trial and error.
Since he was 12 years old and began auditioning for parts in plays, he was never in a hurry to rock the theatre world. More than once, he has turned down a bigger role for either a smaller one or none at all because he wasn't ready to have a major part.
Back then, and still today, he mostly enjoys just being part of the show. It's about friendship. It's about involving the family. It's about community. So far, he has been in seven plays: The King and I, A High School Musical, Pirates of Penzance, A Christmas Carol, A Hairy Tale, HMS Pinafore, and most recently, The Nutcracker. (At right, Justin, center stage, in Nutcracker)
The two-act ballet, which played at the Palladium in downtown St. Petersburg in December, was performed by the Academy of Ballet Arts.
When he was offered a role in the play, he asked what he would have to do. Mime and do a Christmas dance.
“Perfect," he said. "My kind of role.”
As if on stage, Justin starts to read out loud again.
Hamlet: Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t'express his love and friending to you...
I look over just in time to catch Justin staring at the page he has open. He slowly closes the book. Lays it carefully on the table. He looks up.
“Hamlet is quite the play,” he concludes.
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