Lovers of theater, professors and students alike, look forward to the annual theatre department pilgrimage to Stratford, Ontario, for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in an amazing opportunity to bond with fellow thespians and watch phenomenal professional performances.
This year, 14 students and five chaperones drove up on Oct. 5 and attended five plays: William Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” “The Merchant of Venice,” and “Othello,” Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” and Pete Townsend’s rock opera “Tommy,” before their return to Hillsdale on Oct. 8. The group included theatre and non-theatre personnel alike, bound by a love of theater, whether or not it be their present or future.
“You don’t have to be a theatre major to go,” Professor of Philosophy Jim Stephens said. “You just have to love it. The theatre department does its best to take along everyone who wants to go.”
For the more theatre-oriented, the trip is an amazing learning experience, senior theatre major Anne Peterson said.
“It was a great trip. I liked all the shows we saw this year, and in the past, there was at least one I wasn’t such a fan of, but each of these was good,” Peterson said. “As an aspiring theatre artist, it is fun to see real, passionate theatre professionals. It is very often commercialized, but in the performances you can see the skill and craft of the shows. I can tell it is the type of work environment I would like the future.”
The festival includes a variety of shows from different eras and styles, and the productions often attempt new ideas and types of production.
“We saw three Shakespeares this year, which was unusual, and it was fun seeing ‘Tommy’ because I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Peterson said. “It was high budget, it was a spectacle, but I think I liked ‘Othello’ the most, the performances were super compelling.”
Even performing classic, regularly performed plays, the productions vary, and the audience learns and considers new things. Stevens said that even though he has seen “Waiting for Godot” several times over the years, each time it is different and extraordinary.
“People have so many preconceived notions of how Shakespeare should be and what it is . Performances at Stratford have no fear of trying new things, but not just for the sake of change. They have an inner constancy which makes it easy for me to forgive even very different things,” Peterson said.
In the performances of both “Othello” and “The Merchant of Venice,” more modern aspects were applied to the plays. Though the dress remained period, the set of “Othello” was very modern and minimalistic, and Peterson said it just made the stakes seem so much higher. Similarly, “The Merchant of Venice” was set in immediately pre-World War II era, and the unsettling, unjust end of the play is intensified by air-raid sirens, which break the falsely happy-ending mood.
As well as the performances, students and faculty treasure the ability to have frank conversations—sometimes arguments— about the plays they have just seen.
“Stratford is a long drive —about six hours— and this can get old, but it’s an opportunity at Hillsdale when faculty and students can open a no-holds-barred conversation about what we have all seen.” Stephens said. “Talking like that with students and colleagues is what makes it amazing.”
Likewise, Peterson said that the variety in what people glean from the play makes her love the theatre.
“I love talking to everyone about the performances after the show because they have such different opinions after the plays and even people with really similar opinions normally can reach totally different conclusions. The discussions can get pretty heated because it is a group of people who are really passionate about theatre.”
Stephens said he has been a chaperone on the trip for about the last 20 years, and he looks forward to the trip, the performances, and the open discussions every year
“Every year it’s a highlight of the academic year, one of the things that marks the passing of the seasons.”
