In helping Janelle prepare for her Shakespearean puppet show this last Wednesday, I had an opportunity to reflect on how it helps to engage Shakespeare on a more creative level. I haven't done much of a creative so far this semester, at least as far as Shakespeare is concerned, so it was fun on that level. It was also fun because we had to pick and choose how all of our sock characters looked. It was interesting to see how different perceptions of characters showed in our interpretations of how the sock puppets should look.
For instance, I was in charge of making the Mercutio puppet (the scene we're performing is from Romeo and Juliet). I took considerable joy in making this particular puppet because Mercutio is such a comical, yet round character. I gave him a mustache and a sword belt, knowing his feisty nature. It just seemed to fit.
I know this doesn't go very deep, but it really fascinated me to see how I interpreted characters through their appearance. And when we were making sock puppets, which only retain a few humanoid characteristics, it was interesting to see which characteristics were consistent.
