Students from Mount Seskin Community College, through their JCSP Library, attended a performance of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in the Mill Theatre in Dundrum on Friday 31st January.
The Mill Theatre’s production, aimed at Junior Cert students, is an exciting, contemporary, and engaging abridged 90-minute production, which recasts the play in a 1970s pastiche, flamboyant and theatrically over the top. For many of our students, this will be their first experience of a professional live theatre environment.
Particularly for our Junior Cert students as their mocks approach, seeing a live staging of their English play makes it a living, breathing text that they will better remember when they go to sit their exams, and provides additional context to the experience of Shakespeare story. Both the absurd humour and powerful emotional beats are so much more readily appreciable when seen in a live environment and our hope is that the theatre visit will make drama and Shakespeare a more relatable, enjoyable experience for our students.
The trip was very positive and students expressed their enthusiasm for the actors and the production afterwards.
Thanks to Mr Doyle Librarian for arranging this opportunity!
