WILMINGTON — The Muse Machine returned to Wilmington Middle School recently to present The Human Race Theatre Company’s “Shuffle off This Mortal Coil” marking its second in a series of performances funded by a private donor through the Wilmington Schools Foundation.
Eighth-grade students gathered in the school gymnasium to enjoy a performance featuring one actor’s look at the many deaths of Shakespeare, the world’s most creative assassin.
Calling upon students to journey through Shakespeare’s tragedies, the solo performer used the fun and silly, touching and heartfelt classic art of “clowning” to introduce herself as “The Greatest Actor in the World!” However, as things began to go terribly wrong during each production, students grew to suspect such a claim was in fact not true, as a medley of tragic deaths played out right before their eyes.
Among other famous Shakespearean characters, students met the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, the ill-fated lovers Othello and Desdemona, and angst-ridden lovers Hamlet and Ophelia, all of whom die by play’s end.
While often intimated by Shakespeare’s use of Early Modern English and iambic-pentameter poetic form, students easily followed the actor’s use of “clowning” as she acted her way through several of Shakespeare’s better known poems.
The Muse Machine will return Jan. 24 to perform “The Magic of the Movies” before an enthusiastic crowd of sixth-grade students.
The Muse Machine is a nationally celebrated arts education organization serving more than 70,000 students and their teachers each year throughout western Ohio since 1982.
Information for this article was provided by Diana Miller, who coordinates communications for several area schools.
