Shakespeare watch first or read first?

[Kendall]

When it is a novel such as Pride and Predjudice, I am definitely in the read the book first camp.  But what about Shakespeare? We are going to start with Much Ado About Nothing this year. It is a play after all.  What would you do?  Watch first or read first?

 

Thanks,

Kendall

 

 

[Miss Tick]

Read an abridged version first. I always thought that was heresy until I started teaching my dc and realized how much easier they found it to understand what was going on if they already had the main thread of the story in mind. If they are all high school age I would also study a few of the famous lines from the play and talk about background and fact v. fiction beforehand.

[gstharr]

I would start with a good annotated version and a dictionary. 

[Lori D.]

We've done it different ways, and it seems to work out fine.

However, my preference is to:
- first read a quick summary of the play so as to have a general idea of plot and characters to not have to figure that out while also getting used to the language and sentence structure
- then watch a film version (or live performance if possible)
- and then go back and read/dig into some of the most powerful passages

I think it is absolutely fine to just watch and NOT read. We've done that, too. Plays were designed specifically to be watched and listened to. 😉 

Another option is to first watch the Animated version of the play (on YouTube or Vimeo) for familiarity of story, language, and famous passages. These are abridged -- the story and all the original language, but cut down to a 28-minute version.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Lori D.

[almondbutterandjelly]

My dd is a visual picture learner.  We always watched the movie first to give her a library of images in her head for when/if we read the words.

[EmilyGF]

We split the difference and read along with an Arkangel audio performance.

[cintinative]

We're currently stumbling through this for the first time. In the past we have read abridged versions and then saw the play. 

This time, I wanted them to actually read it. So we watched the play (on TV). Now, I read the summary of the acts we will listen to and we are reading along while we listen to an audio version of the play.  The negative to this approach is that it moves fast, and there is not necessarily time to look at the notes in our book (we are using Oxford School Shakespeare's edition).  I am not confident this is the best approach, though! 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

When we did Shakespeare study (as opposed to just watching a play for fun), we watched the Branagh & Thompson version of Much Ado, then did a small group reading with neighbors. Then we watched a different version. 

 

[G5052]

I took an online college-level Shakepeare class in the spring, and we read a good summary first. Then we watched a movie with the subtitles on and then read the play from the Oxford edition (good annotations). 

I found that to be very effective for me. The final paper was to pick a play and watch several different versions and write a paper.

Edited July 8, 2020 by G5052