ABSTRACT
Students embarking for the first time on the acting—rather than the mere reading—of Shakespearian plays are often too diffident to offer their pupils much constructive help. Many of them, having had little or no experience of acting themselves, are content to leave the children standing stiffly in a semi-circle reading monotonously and rarely moving from the beginning of a scene to the end. The teacher who gave the lesson has built up a tradition with his classes. It is recognised that Shakespeare’s plays are eminently actable. Simple costumes and properties are always brought to the lesson and the form artists make themselves responsible for drawing on the blackboard a kind of backcloth for the scene which is to be acted. A student’s greatest difficulty in teaching Shakespeare is to know when to comment, when to probe and question and when to leave well alone.
