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"Hamlet" production, Arthur Hill High School in Saginaw, Michigan, 1957
Can high school students dramatize and enjoy Shakespearian plays? That is the question Mr. Arthur John Harris wants to answer with Hillites. The answer is yes from those who took part and those who saw the production of the first act of "Hamlet" last week.
"Shakespeare said the most important things in life better than anyone else before or after him," is Mr. Harris' way of expressing his interest in this Elizabethan playwright. Mr. Harris found his college course in Shakespeare, the teaching of his plays to high school students in Reed City, and the performance in a play while in Colorado all enjoyable.
"It was in England on a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1954, I just happened to settle in Stratford. The Shakespearian shrine in Stratford attracts world authorities on Shakespeare and here the best Shakespearian productions in the world are presented."
While studying at the Institute, he did extensive reading in Shakespeare and his contemporaries as preparation for a master's degree. Here he enjoyed the advantages of having a tutor who read his papers and discussed various points with him.
He attended seminars on drama and criticism of writers of the period and lecture courses on bibliography and paleography (study of deciphering writing of any Elizabethan literature). On suggestion of his tutor and as he was doing a stage history of the play, he chose Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" for his thesis.
Naturally a theatre enthusiast, Mr. Harris spent a good deal of his time at the Shakespearian Memorial Theatre in Stratford. On query he says "King Lear" is his favorite Shakespearian drama and John Gielgud his favorite actor.