1. Three or four scenes to establish dramatic conflict. The easy / obvious choices here are senex characters—Malvolio, Egeus, Leontes, Lear, Shylock, Angelo, and maybe Richard 3 / Gloucester. From the official list, I’d nominate AS YOU LIKE IT 1.2 (wrestling scene) or
COMEDY of ERRORS 3.1 (Ephesus locked out of house scene), though three longer scenes not on the list would work probably better (they’re increasingly disturbring):
·LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST 1.1
·MIDSUMMER 1.1
·LEAR 1.1
…followed by
·MACBETH 3.2-3.4, Lady M “Is Banquo gone
from court” through the murder and the banquet scene (about 230 lines)
2. Transition scenes, some of the drunk scenes, some of the “purpose of playing” / meta-theater scenes, and some of the history material:
·HAMLET
2.2 Entrance of players, First Player speech
·TWELFTH
NIGHT 2.3 “Approach, Sir Andrew”
drunks scene interrupted by Malvolio (170 lines, 5 people)*done in 2005, so,
alternatively:
·TWELFTH
NIGHT 3.4 sword-fighting scene, which opens with “mad” Malvolio,
cross-gartered, and goes all the way to Viola’s hopeful “Ne named by brother
Sebastian” moment.
·HENRY V “O for a Muse of Fire”
·HAMLET
3.2 Advice to the players (to line 40, “Go make you ready”)
·RICHARD
II 4.1 Deposition (323 lines, 10 or 11 speaking parts)
·ROMEO AND JULIET Queen Mab
3. The heart of Shakespeare across genres. A number of scenes might work here, but I like best the idea of
·KING LEAR 2.2 (the original list has 2.4, from Bevington, but most editions, including Norton and Arden 2 and 3, have 2.2), beginning with Kent in the stocks and ending with Cornwall, “shut up your doors.” A long scene of 470+ lines, but one with lots of parts, and it’s the heart of the play!
4. Green Worlds: fun, drunkenness, misrule, songs, and the promise of redemption to come.
·AS YOU LIKE IT 2.5 Ducdame
·TWO GENTS 4.1 Outlaws / Pirates
·MACBETH Porter Scene (2.3, lines 1-45)
·TWELFTH
NIGHT 3.4 sword-fighting scene, which opens with “mad” Malvolio,
cross-gartered, and goes all the way to Viola’s hopeful “Ne named by brother
Sebastian” moment.
·MEASURE
FOR MEASURE 3.1, “Be absolute for death” through the bed-trick plan with the
Duke/Friar (though we could stop about line 200 … no need for the exposition
that follows, really, and by line 200, we’ve established Isabella’s redemptive
potential)
5. Redemptive endings. Happy bits from any of the plays, but I’d nominate as the final moment the entire last section of
·WINTER’S
TALE 5.2-5.3