To Be or not to Be a Perspectivist

My strength is in my perspectivist approach towards issues. I believe that we as finite human beings can never fully understand the full truth of a thing or issue, but the more perspectives we look through, the more facets we see, and the closer to the truth we become. I'll use my experience learning Shakespeare at Loras College as an example.

(picture from our production of Hamlet. upstage, center is our female Horatio, and my hand-painted skull)

During one of the semesters at Loras, I was given the unique and coincidental opportunity to learn Shakespeare through the lens of a Literature class, a Theatre class, and actually taking part in a Shakespeare stage production. Not only that, but we discussed the specific play Hamlet in all three mediums over the same few weeks. I thought that I'd be bored with Shakespeare and Hamlet... that I would get sick of hearing the same lectures, taking the same notes, and hearing the "To be or not to be..." speech over and over for weeks, but I was wrong.

I was shocked to learn how different Hamlet was from lit class, to theatre class, to a theatre production. Partially because my professors and director understood Shakespeare differently, and partially because they took different approaches to teaching about him. In my litereature class, Dr. Merrill taught us that Hamlet was in his early 30's and we all debated about the character's motivations and whether or not he was actually crazy. In the theatre class we discussed the effects that Shakespeare had on the rest of the community, how he was popular culture back then and why a character like Hamlet might appeal to both the wealthy and the lower class of Elizabethan England. While working on the Hamlet stage production, the director taught that Hamlet was about our age, 21-22 years old, and we should try to make the play relate-able to a college-aged audience. The cast member who played Hamlet was instructed to act like a 21 year old, and also was instructed to choose to have the character become crazy or just act crazy.

Looking at Hamlet through a literature lens, we looked at all the characters and Shakespeare's plot choices for all their potential, for everything they were, could have been, or purposefully were not. Looking at Hamlet through a theatre lens, I looked at the play as Pop culture and how it influenced the public. And through the lens of actually performing the play, I learned to take a position and make it work for a modern audience.

So, what came from my well rounded understanding of Hamlet is that I gained the authority to be able to effect change. I used my writing skills to get my ideas across to a director who had his own. The director was usually pretty good about people contributing their ideas to a play, but he really had his own vision for Hamlet. I knew that there were only 2 big female roles in the play and that the female Loras Player women usually don't get as many opportunities as the men do because there are just always more female roles than male roles in theatre. So, because he was my theatre professor, I wrote him a paper about how Horatio could be casted as a female, and I provided my evidence I learned from both the literature class and the theatre class, and sure enough he casted Horatio as a girl! I wrote the paper in such a way as to not directly stumble upon his plans for Hamlet, but just convincing enough where he couldn't help but take what he read from my paper and apply it to his own play. He acknowledged it as my idea and then throughout the rest of the play, he valued my opinion a lot.

(picture from our production of Hamlet, I made all the helmets and crowns in this picture, the female Horatio is on the far right, and I'm standing in the green dress as a lady in waiting)

When I painted Yorick's skull I made it dirtier and earthier looking than he originally wanted because I thought it would be more frightening and realistic looking, and he kept it. I also designed and constructed the crowns and helmets using what I knew of the director's vision, what I learned from the literature class, and my knowledge from theatre class. Once in a while, the actors asked me to act as dramaturge for them and help decipher what certain lines meant because they knew I had a well rounded understanding of the play.

There have been several other instances in which I have had multiple classes that teach the same subject from different lenses, and I know that it has only strengthened my understanding about the world and how to think and piece information together from various sources.