Salma Mahmoud
In the fall semester of my junior year, my entire grade traveled abroad to London to study at Shakespeare’s Globe and enhance our ability to engage with classical text and perform in larger theater spaces. The goal was to train and absorb as much as we could throughout the semester and demonstrate what we learned in an abridged performance of “The Taming of the Shrew” during our last week of classes. To prepare for this final performance, we took voice, text analysis, movement, and acting classes, all of which focused on Shakespearean language so that we became familiar with the genre and style and were comfortable with plays that often feel distant because of how different the state of the world was in when written, but are universal in the way they reflect human emotions and actions. After watching my grade complete our final performance at the end of the semester, I couldn’t have written a better ending for the Drama department’s time abroad here in London if I tried. It was a joy for my group to perform the scenes we put so much thought and care into for months in front of our peers and professors who supported us throughout the fall. It’s inspiring watching my peers tackle such challenging texts and complete them with confidence. I appreciated how all the directors encouraged us to bring our personalities and ideas into these characters while uplifting the themes and issues our grade found important. I am so grateful to everyone at the Globe for welcoming the students at Syracuse University with open arms and creating such a unique opportunity for us to improve our crafts.
By participating in the style of education the Globe has to offer, constantly performing new pieces, and watching my peers, I understood the fundamentals of performing in the round. Distance and time ultimately played a key role in a well-executed performance of Shakespeare – distance in the sense of having the freedom to take up as much space as you need to accomplish your objective and slowing down to ensure that important information isn’t rushed past the audience leading to their disengagement because they couldn’t understand the content. Moreover, we learned how actors can strengthen their relationship with both the audience and the space they inhabit. In a voice class, we learned the most effective ways to communicate with the audience on a stage of that depth, including building new eye contact habits such as speaking text from ten o’clock to two o’clock and vice versa so everyone gets seen. We then moved on to geography and how different spots onstage offered different acoustics and affected how our voices got across to the audience. For instance, the upstage center is the most powerful spot onstage because it allows the entire audience to see you and offers the roof that amplifies the acoustics of your voice, while downstage is shallower. Additionally, using as much of your pitch range when speaking is vital because it adds more complexity and depth- constantly using volume makes the voice one-dimensional. Throughout the semester, I realized the courses that educationally benefited and challenged me the most were voice and scene rehearsal.
As one of the cultural meccas of the world, London is where literature, art, and connectivity thrive, encouraging all creatives to push beyond their limitations for innovation and re-imagination. My time abroad allowed me to engage with theater across a wide production range, from small-scale to West End, and learn new acting techniques that read on film and how they differentiate from the skills needed to perform on stage. To explain, getting the opportunity to interact with as much material as possible allows one to deepen the understanding of the relationship between audience to actor and audience to space. These relationships factor into a show’s success and if its purpose is clear and comprehensible. From these experiences, I can learn how to make my work effective through its text and use the space to its advantage for a well-thought-out execution through its production. Moreover, the opportunity to gain advanced acting techniques that will improve my application to engage with modern, classical, and poetic texts will strengthen my range and widen the possibilities of what I can achieve in this industry, whether it be the workshop of a new contemporary play, a Shakespeare festival, or the pilot of a new series. Therefore, attending the Globe’s program has enhanced my creativity and collaborative skills, improving my artistry.
