Do You Speak Shakespeare?

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By all accounts, this summer's YMCA youth productions of Shakespeare in the Park were a smashing success – especially for one family who travelled many thousands of miles for the experience.

Fifteen-year-old Alexane Girard's family came all the way from Paris to see their daughter in one of the lead roles in Twelfth Night. Not only did Alexane spent the last four weeks learning Shakespeare; she had to learn English.

Her father Olivier Girard deemed the production “very nice” and a “great achievement." Though he praised his daughter in particular for “integrating very well,” he had admiration for all. “Young people who are doing Shakespeare cannot be bad.”

Adriana Lepic probably knew even less English than Alexane. “When I came, I don't speak English, but they help me and I speak...not so much,” she laughed after Friday's hot afternoon performance. Adriana, 13, comes from the Czech Republic and played the role of Fabian, the wise-cracking trickster who helps to arrange the prank on Malvolio the Steward.

Alexane said she had only hoped for a small role, certainly not expecting the huge part she landed. She said she was very afraid, though it certainly never showed in her confident portrayal of Olivia, the Duchess who mistakenly falls in love with Viola dressed as a man.

“It was hard, but I made friends,” Alexane said. This was not her first Shakespeare experience, however, as she had played Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet in France, just her first in English. She said it was the “English not the Shakespeare” that was was most challenging.

Veteran Director Peter Royston has done the Y summer theater program for eight years and decades of theater before that. Twenty years ago he directed an off-Broadway version of Twelfth Night which he also took the liberties of setting in jazzy New Orleans, for which his lifelong friend, Peter Nissen, created the original music.

But this was his first time directing English language learners, and he might have been just as nervous as they were. 

"There no question that, although Alexane and Adriana were very enthusiastic, I was nervous as we began the rehearsal process," Royston said. "After all, Shakespeare's language is difficult enough for modern English speakers - how would it be for young people learning English as a second language?"

He found inspiration from the words of an old professor of his, who once said Shakespeare can be equally challenging for any level of English speaker. "In a way, when it comes to Shakespeare," said Royston, "we're ALL English Language Learners!"

The challenge with putting on a Shakespeare production is to have the actors' understanding of the language be so thorough and physical that the audience will gain equal understanding. Meaning, said Royston, has to be conveyed through "voice, facial expressions and body language. I often say to the actors, 'Let's say someone from Mars came to see our show and didn't understand the language. How would you show this word or phrase to make our Martian audience member understand what it means?'"

This age old adage, 'show-don't-tell,' is where both Adriana and Alexane excelled, said Royston. "They both joined the other cast members in creating smart, funny, clear performances. For them, the language became not about the dictionary, but about the feelings the words provided."