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