LAGUNA BEACH : Shakespeare Studies, as They Like It

“To be, or not to be?” wasn’t the question for about 90 youngsters who donned 16th-Century costumes Friday for a Shakespeare festival at a Laguna Beach elementary school.

The question was how much fun can fourth-graders squeeze from a lesson about a long-dead playwright who created some of the most tortured souls in literature?

The kids’ answer: Plenty.

In fact, the 10th annual Shakespeare Faire--the culmination of an eight-week course on the Elizabethan period--is the best day of the school year, said some who gathered in the sunshine at Top of the World Elementary School to dance, act, feast, play games and skip around Maypoles.

“The kids are just into this,’ said Suzi Poss, whose 9-year-old daughter, Kendra Spangenberg, practiced for weeks to alter her voice for her role as a witch in “Macbeth.” “They’ve made it completely fun.”

The festival was created by two Top of the World teachers, Lois Rake and Terry Hustwick, who 10 years ago planned a study session that would allow them to anchor all fourth-grade lessons in the 16th Century for two months.

The youngsters study Shakespearean plays, practice Olde English calligraphy and speak with 16th-Century words. They study the art, dress and architecture of the era. They learn its dances, songs and games.

The kids submerge themselves in the world of William Shakespeare. And they say they love it.

“I’ve been in this school since kindergarten, and I’ve been waiting for this,” said 10-year-old Jamie Falterman, who snagged the plum role of Juliet in one of the four plays featured Friday.

One girl said the festival was almost as good as Christmas Day.

During the morning, the youngsters performed in plays, read poetry, danced and made music. In the afternoon--dressed as royalty or peasants--they played chess, croquet and blind man’s bluff. They trimmed Maypoles with pink and purple ribbons and perched on bales of hay to watch puppet shows.

In between, they dipped their fingers in a tub of water blanketed with rose petals and lined up for a banquet of meat pies, chicken legs, crusty bread, fruits, vegetables and spicy cider.

While picnicking out on a grassy patch of schoolyard, a cluster of girls chatted easily about Queen Elizabeth I, King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. There were advantages to living in the 16th Century, they said--the food was great and the girls didn’t attend school--but there were drawbacks as well: no skateboards, roller skates or surfboards.

And you could get your head chopped off. “Then there was the black plague,” added 10-year-old Sally Jahraus. The other girls nodded. Elizabethan England would be nice to visit, “but you wouldn’t want to stay a long time,” Laura Preston concluded.

All agreed, however, that being transported to another era for a short time was fun.

Even boys whose everyday wardrobe consists mainly of shorts and T-shirts seemed comfortable in tights and puffy-sleeved shirts.

Aaron Krinsky, who played Romeo for a day, said he would have been Hamlet if the prince didn’t have to wear such dreary clothes. “Hamlet had to wear black because he was in mourning,” he said. “But I really wanted this costume, just like this,” he added, pointing to his brightly colored garb. “So I wanted to be Romeo.”