Ladies and gentlemen the Hobart Shakespeareans
I’m Rafe and I’ve been my 30th year
teaching public school at Hobart
Elementary School in downtown Los
Angeles
for those of you who don’t know Hobart
school is not easy the children do not
speak English as a first language the
children live in terrible poverty and
tragically less than 40% of the children
even finish high school but the kids in
room 56 known to the world as the Hobart
shakespeareans go on to attend
outstanding universities and leave
extraordinary lives and here’s the
secret I do not worry about preparing
these children for a standardized test
at the end of the year instead I teach
them skills if they’re going to be using
for the rest of their lives that’s the
point you see so through a rigorous
curriculum but also with immersion into
the arts these children internalize a
set of values that they will use forever
discipline focus integrity teamwork a
joy of learning and they develop a
command of language which has to be seen
to be believed
and you’re about to you know this
morning session is called the classroom
but a classroom shouldn’t be about a
teacher talking it should be about
students doing
therefore thank you so
the Hobart shakespeareans don’t play
virtual baseball they play baseball they
don’t play guitar hero and rock band
they play the guitar and they are a rock
band and when these children stay late
after school and come in on Saturdays to
study Shakespeare they don’t take a test
on Hamlet they act Hamlet so ladies and
gentlemen and our friends around the
world after you go guys here’s Dave and
Julie let’s have some fun with the
Hobart experience good my lord how does
your honor for this many a day I humbly
thank you well well well my lord I have
remembrances of yours that have been
long long to redeliver I pray you
receive them no not I I never gave you
what my honor Lord you know right well
you did are you honest my lord are you
fair what means your lordship
I do love you once indeed my lord you
made me believe believe me I loved you
not I was the more to see ya they to a
nunnery why was that be a breeder of
sinners will help him you sweet heaven
so das Perry I’ll give you this place my
dowry for wise men know well enough what
monsters you make of them go to a
nunnery up quickly to farewell
now I am alone my a coward who calls me
villain breaks my pate across plucks off
my beard and blows it in my face
tweaks me about the nose gives me the
line 2/3 us the best along shoes does
this to me huh soon as I take it free
cannot be but I am
pigeon liver and lack gall to make
oppression bitter or ere this i should
have fatted all the region kites with
this slave’s awful bloody body villain
remorseless treacherous lecherous
kindness villain of bechet’s what a
mastermind I have heard that guilty
creatures sitting in the play have by
the very cunning of the scene been
struck so to the soul de presently they
have proclaimed their malefactions for
murder though it has no tongue will
speak with its most miraculous organ
I’ll have these players play something
like the murder of my father before my
uncle the plays the thing wherein I’ll
catch the conscience of the king and so
Hamlet goes on to write some dozen or 16
more lines into the actors speech and he
even gives it a new title he calls it
the mousetrap and 400 years later Agatha
Christie stole that title for her own
play which is now the longest-running
play in the history of world theatre
recently there was a tourist in London
standing in the rain and waiting for a
taxi when one arrived he said take me to
the mousetrap theatre and all through
the journey he was grumbling about
British rain and British taxis to the
taxi driver he arrived safely but did
not leave a tip just as he was stepping
as
side to see the most famous trailer
whodunit of all time the taxi driver
wound down his window and shouted after
him the detective did it and so if you
haven’t seen the mousetrap you needn’t
bother now well we hope there’s nobody
here who thinks that Shakespeare didn’t
write this place there are some people
who just can’t send a thought that are
perfectly middle-class men from the
middle of nowhere
arrived in London and wrote two plays
they even write books to prove their odd
little theories some people intellectual
snobs perhaps like to think that the
philosopher Francis Bacon wrote the
place and then there are social snobs
who like to think that the Earl of
Oxford wrote the place somewhere no
doubt is a keen viewer of Masterpiece
Theatre who likes to think that Alastair
Cook wrote the plays Mark Twain put it
very well he said that in his view the
plays are either written by a man called
Shakespeare or a man calling himself
Shakespeare we agree so always remember
if you cannot understand my arguments
and declare it’s Greek to me you are
quoting Shakespeare if you claim to be
more sinned against than sinning you are
quoting Shakespeare if you recall your
salad days you’re quoting Shakespeare if
you have worn so wrote they don’t anger
if your wish is father to the thought if
your lost property has vanished
it’s a thin air Shakespeare even if good
riddance and send me back if you wish I
was dead as a doornail if you think I am
I know I saw a laughing saw a devil
incarnate stony-hearted villain what do
you mind you or blinking led by Joe oh
yes a with it again but me no but it is
all into me for you are quoting
Shakespeare well power
you