Actor takes words from the page to the stage

Students in a freshman English seminar had a rare opportunity last week when American Players Theatre actor David Daniel visited their class. Daniel asked the students to reach beyond the words and act out the metaphors within a passage of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

During the class Myth and Literature, taught by faculty associate Ron Harris, Daniel’s goal was to inspire the students to revel in language. “In 1890, the average sentence published in a book or magazine was 57 words long,” he told the group, then asked, “How long are our sentences today?”

Daniel asked the students to closely examine Juliet’s soliloquy from Act III, Scene 2, which begins:

“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner

As Phaethon would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.”

The students then played such roles as horses, the sun and the curtain, much to the amusement of all present.

“It’s important for the students to see how actors and English professors look at theater in dramatically different ways,” said Harris. “Now they’ve seen how sausage is made. They begin to see the connections between what they read on the page and what they see on the stage.”

Daniel agreed. “Too many students see language and literature as a task that has to be completed,” he said. “We actors say, ‘Don’t make it work! Hug it, kiss it, rescue it!’”

Daniel and other actors visited three classes in conjunction with APT’s annual on-campus performance at Memorial Union. The visits were sponsored by the Wisconsin Union as part of its educational mission to give undergraduates direct access to visiting artists.