To be or not to be?

‘Whether ‘tis possible to put on a play under lockdown restrictions’ was not the question that had been uppermost in my mind when I signed up to take part in the Schools’ Shakespeare Festival back in February 2020. My question was much more mundane – is there enough money in the budget?

Our headteacher had agreed and I had just chosen the play – Hamlet, to put on with next year's class of 31 Year 6 pupils – when the lockdown was announced. I had assumed that the lockdown would be short lived, and that we would be back in the theatre, smelling the grease paints and squinting into the lights as normal in November.

Change of plan

How wrong could I be? We started with Zoom training in June. One hundred and forty-four colleagues all sitting in those tiny boxes. My hopes were not high, but my expectations were far exceeded. We had fun (who knew how many teachers, when asked to provide a prop, resort to the gin bottle?), and learnt a huge amount. There were playlists and song suggestions, and quite a lot of face pulling. We also had great tips on incorporating our newly normal world of social distancing and hand sanitising, as well as how to use the stage imaginatively and seat an audience.

As the start of the Autumn term dawned, I began my preliminary work. Usually I work with the class in the second half of the summer term to familiarise them with the plot and characters. This year it was a quick video on our online learning platform, but the students responded with their customary enthusiasm and one child even posted a video of a speech he had learned!

We began work in earnest in September. The students were really keen and enjoyed the improvisation work we did to begin our rehearsals. There was a lovely moment early on when the ghost was told off for not socially distancing from Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo, then went off in a sulk, followed by the line ‘It is off ended’! Script work followed, and the freedoms of being able to adapt it enabled me to provide a few children with extra lines, based on their own input. I had split the cast – just in case we had to go back to the June arrangements of no more than 15 children in a bubble – and this also helped with even distribution of parts.

Unexpected hurdles

As rehearsals progressed, I realised some of the other constraints of Covid. Lunch now takes twice as long as it used to, so access to the hall – our performance space – was limited. On our first ‘stagger through’, we just about made it to scene 11 (of 12) before the after school club needed to set up. Then there was the issue of lighting… Our lovely caretaker showed me how to use the lights and I had a happy half hour playing with them to check they worked (they did) before entrusting a crew of 19 children to take turns in manning them. I know 19 seems a lot but they all wanted a go, so we worked out a rota.

Our cast workshop was a high point at this time, with Isabelle Hatton from the Coram SSF coming into school and breathing life into some scenes that had been proving tricky, like how to get the ensemble to stay in role. Her activities were great fun, and it was a real joy to see the children engaging with them.

Rehearsals progressed, and I reached the ‘tearing my hair out’ stage. Would the messenger really arrive in a hurry? Would Laertes do himself a serious injury with his dramatic death? And would Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come on from the correct side, at the correct time? I was reminded by several members of staffas I complained, ‘But you say this every year!’ As the children actually got to grips with their lines, I began to see a glimmer of hope. There was spontaneous applause when Hamlet got his ‘To be or not to be’ speech from memory, even from those children who are flicking the dead spider they have just found on the floor.

All's well that ends well

On the big day, the children really rose to the occasion. It wasn't quite the same as being in a real theatre, and I don't think I have ever directed a play before with flu vaccinations going on in the corridor outside (fortunately a nasal dose so no extra sound effects), but they all remembered everything and really gave it their all.

We have missed the live interaction with other schools at the theatre and also the feelings of standing on a ‘proper’ stage, but I hope that this Year 6 class will have as many special memories of their Shakespeare performance as those in previous years.

To find out more about the Shakespeare Schools' Festival, go to www.shakespeareschools.org