craigdailypress.com

It wasn't exactly a dagger he held before him.

It was more like a paint-covered plastic butter knife. And the costumes included suit jackets and ties.

But, what they lacked in props, they more than made up for in enthusiasm and style.

The Craig Middle School Shakespeare class put on a condensed version of Macbeth on Thursday, the culmination of eight weeks of work in a class 22 students chose to take.

The class is an extension -- an elective that students get to choose if they aren't taking remedial classes.

"I feel like I know Shakespeare and understand Shakespeare," eighth-grader Gavin Thompson said.

And know Shakespeare he does. According to his teacher, Thompson knows every link in the entire play and could perform it by himself.

The extension is offered every quarter and the culmination of the class is a performance.

Sharon Skwarek teaches the class.

"I've got a background in medieval literature, and I thought kids should be exposed to it," Skwarek said.

This isn't the first brush with Shakespeare for many of Skwarek's students. Several were exposed in sixth grade as part of Mary Blakeman's academically able class.

"I think these kids want to do Shakespeare because they like to act and the language doesn't frighten them," Skwarek said.

She generally chooses comedies, but thought "why not" when choosing Macbeth for this quarter's class.

"A lot of the students were familiar with Macbeth," she said. "The problem is our play is not that sad, it's kind of funny."

Students raid their own closets for costumes and props, which in this case included a stick horse, a plastic butter knife and a McDonald's bag for a scene added by the class to inject a few laughs.

"We put in a little bit of modern humor into it even though it's not a modern play," Thompson said.

Mike Peters likes the serious nature of Shakespeare. The eighth-grader played King Duncan. He didn't have many lines, but he did have a death scene, the practice of which left Peters bruised and battered.

"I'm having a blast doing this," he said. "My death scene is very, very good."

Peters said the hardest part of the performance is remembering the lines and when to go on.

Whether students would re--member their lines had Skwarek in a nervous state Thursday. She said she had one actress who wouldn't let go of the script the day before.

But when the curtain went up, there was little stumbling and a lot of applause.

"They always pull though in the end," Skwarek said.

Christina M. Currie can be reached at 824-7031 or by e-mail at ccurrie@craigdailypress.com.