iambic pentameter

I was intimidated when I had to read a few Shakespeare plays in high school.

In my sophomore year, my English class read The Merchant of Venice aloud. I read Shylock. We sat in our fixed rows of desks, in our usual seats, the characters not interacting, with each voice actor in no relation to the others. I imagine the assignment was an attempt to bring Shakespeare more alive for us.  I remember feeling piercing insight as I spoke some of Shylock's lines but the whole play did not come alive as a whole for me. And none of the other Shakespeare plays I read in h.s. or college were much alive.

I went to many performances of Shakespeare. His plays are done all the time, at many levels of expertise.

I finally 'got' Shakespeare when my daughter attended a Waldorf grade school. In most Waldorf schools, at least one class performs a Shakespeare play every year. Each class performs a 'big' production at the end of the year, with various performances throughout the year, including school assemblies where all the classes offered some performance. The upper grades often chose Shakespeare, often going to far as to rent a theater space.

When you are a part of a fairly small Waldorf community, with your child staying with the same classmates and main teacher grade one through eight, the parents stay the same, too. You get to know all the children, including the children in other grades. You see them all performing short plays at assemblies, big plays at the holidays like Michaelmas and Christmas and the year end plays.

Watching children you love, because one