I am sitting tonight in the dark, reading Macbeth by the light of a headlamp. The power has been out for some time now, but I need to keep reading. On Tuesday I found out that I would be giving an introductory lecture on Shakespeare and specifically Macbeth to a class of 16 year olds on Thursday. They have never read Shakespeare nor will they have the book in front of them. The classrooms are so extremely loud, due to the open nature of the rooms (ten classes of 30+ Children on one floor only broken up by movable blackboards and half walls, plus I'm down stairs so the noise from the floor above) So loud that when children were reading aloud, in the reading classes for 11 years olds that I also am helping with, that unless I was right next to them I could not hear them at all, sometimes not even then. So I have no long essay today, you can rest your eyes. Instead I have to read Macbeth rather quickly and figure out how to fill Thirty five minutes of time. I had a nice download of historical background on the play on a flash drive, but the power went out before I could read it. Wish me luck.


So I did the first lecture today.
At ten the teacher told me she was going to have to leave school on some school business so that I now got to be alone and give a lecture of 70 minutes not 35.
I had a few moments at lunch to myself to prepair further.

It turned out quite well. At one point I was singing A Bob Marley tune aloud in full force after reading it with no intonation. "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy, none of them can A stop A the time." In an attempt to show that words in verse have more power than words on the page. This got their attention fairly well as they only reconized that the words and the song where the same after I had sung a number of lines.
Threw in some general history of Shakespeare and Plays and Acting and Language.
A historical Background for Macbeth, then a five minute breakdown of the play.

(almost lost them here)

Then recited the Porter Scene aloud. To which they almost yawned and could only recall one or two words of when I asked if they had any idea what I was talking about. Then I proceeded to Act out the scene using a translation that I made during the Blackout the other night. They could not believe what I was doing and saying.
Got a few more minutes of thematic work in.
Recited a few of the more famous speaches. (which they almost tolerated)
And that was that.

Except now I can hardly speak and my throat hurts as if I sang an Aria at the Met.

But they heard me and were pretty interested. Sure I guess I cheated a little by disheaveling my clothing, pouring water over my head, pretending like I was A drunk, and swearing on the devil, all the while talking about; Urine, What provokes and Unprovokes, what makes a man stand upright and yet makes him fall down, what stirs the desires yet leaves the performance lacking. You get the point, they certainly did.
So just remember if you leave me all alone with a classroom of highschoolers I can not be blamed for what comes out. Especially when you tell me to teach Shakespeare.

Tommorrow I only have to do the same thing all alone twice.

I have no idea how teachers keep up their strenght.