Drama and Public Speaking at Donahue Academy
Recently, thirty-two Grade 6 students took turns, across two casts and four performances, delighting fellow students from Grades 4 through 8, and some of their parents, with a 30-minute performance of the Great Bard’s Julius Caesar. The performance took about two months of preparation from line memorization to rehearsals.
Mr. Landon Fulmer, their teacher, introduced the play and helped the audience contextualize the significance of Julius Caesar. Asking a young member of the audience his name, he said: “to appreciate Julius Caesar’s importance in world history, you have to realize that his given name, Caesar, became synonymous with a great leader. After him, if you were a ruler, you were a Caesar. So it’s like saying, ‘he’s a Xavier!'”
The play, he added, “commemorates the murder of Julius Caesar, who was not only a great military general, but also the religious leader of Rome for a time.” To highlight his boldness and confidence, Mr. Fulmer drew a parallel between key moments in Julius Caesar’s reign and current affairs. For instance, he said, “when Caesar was recalled to Rome from battle, he was supposed to cross the Rubicon, which marked the border of Rome proper, as a citizen, alone. Instead, he took leave with his army behind him, as if to say, ‘I don’t trust you.’ That would be akin to President Truman firing General MacArthur on the tarmac during the Korean War, and General MacArthur turning around with his troops and conquering the USA.”
He continued with another parallel, “when you think of the murder of Julius Caesar, think of the murder of a famous leader, for instance, think of the attempted assassination of President Trump during the ast campaign; now imagine that he is actually president, and the leader of the House kills him during his State of the Union speech. That is how shocking the murder of Julius Caesar was to his contemporaries.” Without further ado, the students took to the stage and delivered an impressive performance full of emotion and a captivating delivery of Shakespeare’s famous lines. “The valiant never taste death, but once!,” charged one of the afternoon’s Julius Casears emphatically.
At the play’s conclusion, to much applause, the student audience was invited to ask questions. “Why did the Soothsayer say ‘beware of the Ides of March?’,” asked one. “What does the Ides of March mean?,” returned Mr. Fulmer. “It means March 15,” shouted another student. “Yes, in the Roman calendar it corresponds with March 15, and it’s associated with a full moon, and perhaps misfortune,” added Mr. Fulmer. The conversation went on to the symbolism employed in Shakespeare’s plays. At Donahue Academy, learning cannot be contained to a single grade. Everyone was edified, and students from younger grades certainly look forward to what awaits them in Grade 6 while the classes above them look fondly at this Logic Stage’s rite of passage.
