As both the Muppets and Shakespeare are on many people's minds these days for various reasons (especially with the new movie about to be released), I thought I'd share a classroom exercise that I've used at both Tufts and Emerson that uses our furry friends to articulate the effects of casting choices on the execution of a play.
It goes like this:
It goes like this:
Take a classic play. Say... Hamlet or Waiting for Godot for instance (for the purposes of a class exercise, I've found it is best that everyone use the same play). I've found that this works particularly well with Shakespeare and the Greeks.
Cast it with Muppets (Sesame Street characters are also open, and you can have a single human celebrity guest star as per The Muppet Show).
Discuss the various choices and how they might change the execution of the play as the semiotics of each muppet overlay the semiotics of the character they are cast as.
This exercise does two things. One, it illustrates how the performer completes the role through their interpretation using their own personal qualities as their interpretive tools. Two, it illustrates how casting might work with stock companies wherein each performer is a known quantity. By using the known qualities of each muppet to articulate the goals and objectives of any particular character in a play, students gain a deeper understanding of the play's structure and the character's development.
I've had some really interesting choices come out of my students during this exercise.
In the case of Hamlet for instance: Kermit as the Ghost with Robin as Hamlet is a very different production than Kermit as the Big H and Snuffy as the Ghost, with both being perfectly valid. Statler and Walorf are a very different Rosencrantz and Guildenstern than Honeydew and Beeker. Gonzo as Claudius and Miss Piggy as Gertrude make a lot of sense with Kermit as the Ghost (as opposed to say, Sam the Eagle), but Kermit as Hamlet is a very understandable choice as he is the company manager and the default star. I had a student use Britney Spears as the human guest star to play Ophelia, which put a certain spin on that character's descent into madness as well.
For Waiting for Godot there is the interesting problem to solve of paired characters and traditionally paired muppets. Snuffy as Godot is a common joke for students above a certain age as well (because he used to be an imaginary character).
As with many of my blog posts, this may be something that I expand later.
If you have any particularly good muppet casts of classic plays (Shakespearian or otherwise), please leave a journal comment!
Cast it with Muppets (Sesame Street characters are also open, and you can have a single human celebrity guest star as per The Muppet Show).
Discuss the various choices and how they might change the execution of the play as the semiotics of each muppet overlay the semiotics of the character they are cast as.
This exercise does two things. One, it illustrates how the performer completes the role through their interpretation using their own personal qualities as their interpretive tools. Two, it illustrates how casting might work with stock companies wherein each performer is a known quantity. By using the known qualities of each muppet to articulate the goals and objectives of any particular character in a play, students gain a deeper understanding of the play's structure and the character's development.
I've had some really interesting choices come out of my students during this exercise.
In the case of Hamlet for instance: Kermit as the Ghost with Robin as Hamlet is a very different production than Kermit as the Big H and Snuffy as the Ghost, with both being perfectly valid. Statler and Walorf are a very different Rosencrantz and Guildenstern than Honeydew and Beeker. Gonzo as Claudius and Miss Piggy as Gertrude make a lot of sense with Kermit as the Ghost (as opposed to say, Sam the Eagle), but Kermit as Hamlet is a very understandable choice as he is the company manager and the default star. I had a student use Britney Spears as the human guest star to play Ophelia, which put a certain spin on that character's descent into madness as well.
For Waiting for Godot there is the interesting problem to solve of paired characters and traditionally paired muppets. Snuffy as Godot is a common joke for students above a certain age as well (because he used to be an imaginary character).
As with many of my blog posts, this may be something that I expand later.
If you have any particularly good muppet casts of classic plays (Shakespearian or otherwise), please leave a journal comment!
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