A Midsummer’s Dream Trip

Three hundred and eighty-five years after William Shakespeare’s death, his plays and poems remain elegant cryptograms for high school students to decipher. But for Vanessa Herman, a senior at Birmingham High in Van Nuys, Shakespeare’s writings are a ticket to New York City and--if all ends well--to England.

As Los Angeles’ delegate to the English-Speaking Union’s national Shakespeare competition, Herman can’t afford to study the Bard like your average high school senior. She must practice--and convincingly interpret--his words.

Performing a gender-bending soliloquy from “Twelfth Night” before classmates recently, Herman slipped into the role of the cross-dressing Viola, marveling at the power of disguise.

“Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much,” she read.

On April 23, which is recognized as the anniversary of the playwright’s birth and death, Herman, 17, will be among 57 American contestants from the international union of Anglophiles who will recite their pieces at New York’s Lincoln Center and vie for a two-week visit this summer to the Oxford School of Drama.

Students are judged on their interpretation and performance of monologues from Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 154 sonnets. They also perform a “cold reading” of a work they have not prepared.

Before a panel of Shakespearean scholars, actors and directors, Herman will take on the role of Blanch from “King John,” the niece of the British king whose marriage to a French prince is arranged to prevent war between the two countries.

In the 20 lines that Herman has memorized, Blanch begs her husband on their wedding day not to go to war against her uncle.

“What motive may be stronger with thee than the name of wife?” she asks Lewis, the dauphin.

Herman has sympathy for Blanch’s dilemma. “Either way, she loses,” she said. “It’s a no-win situation.”

The sonnet Herman will recite, No. 30, laments new pain caused by old regrets. In reciting it, she puts on a faint smile to convey its nostalgic, wistful tone.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.

Herman selected the sonnet after reading it in her Advanced Placement literature class.

“That’s the one that I connected the most with,” she said. “It felt closer to me.”

The wild card in the Shakespeare competition, on which the top prize really hangs, is the cold reading.

The contestants are given a choice of four passages from plays that none of them selected for their prepared monologue. In 10 minutes, they must interpret the passage for performance--but not necessarily memorize it--using only a plot summary and a description of the character speaking to give the words some context.

“It’s really amazing what they’re able to accomplish,” said Karen Jeff, director of education for the English-Speaking Union. “We horrify some of the professional actors who judge for us. They think it’s a terrifying experience.”

For weeks, Herman’s theater teacher at Birmingham, Amanda Swann, has been plucking monologues from a compilation of Shakespeare’s plays to perfect her student’s cold-reading skills. Herman devours the characters’ speeches, marking up the thick book with pencil as she scans the meter of the passages to grasp their intended inflection and pronunciation. She underlines words to stress in her performance.

Herman’s dramatic talents have won her several awards at other competitions, including recognition as best actress for playing Anne Frank in a statewide theater contest. When she enters college--probably at New York University--theater will remain in her studies, she said, but it will not be her major.

Since the English-Speaking Union Shakespeare competition’s creation in New York City in 1983, and its nationwide expansion in 1988, the contest has drawn its share of hopeful young actors. That is not the program’s goal, however, said the union’s Jeff.

“We’re not trying to create actors. We’re really trying to excite students about language and literature,” she said. About 14,000 students participated in this year’s competition, the union estimates.

“What we’ve been trying to promote is [that] Shakespeare is timeless and his themes are universal, and kids can relate to that,” Jeff said.

The English-Speaking Union’s other California branches, in San Diego, San Francisco and Palm Springs, are also sending contestants to the finals in New York. Jim Cathcart, a sophomore at La Quinta High School, will recite a monologue by Dogberry, the dopey constable from “Much Ado About Nothing.”

“I like the challenge of Shakespeare,” said Cathcart, 16, who plans to pursue acting after graduation. The contest is “a chance to perform and see how other people interpret their Shakespearean pieces.”

The trip to Manhattan is also an enticing “carrot,” said Cathcart’s theater teacher, Sherry Wollenberg. In addition to the competition, the students will take part in workshops at New York University and see a Broadway show.

“I just really don’t know everything to expect,” Herman said, “but I am hoping for that atmosphere where you feel that energy.”