Rotary Log: June 5 and 19, 2014 (the past, the future...and Shakespeare

Rotary meeting, June 5, 2014. Respectfully submitted by Cleo Villaflores

Diane Foley presented the Paul Harris Fellow award to Sara Treacy.  Sara heads our public relations committee, organizes the Salvation Army Soup kitchen service projects and is one of our club photographers.  Sara has shown her dedication to the club as well as the community. Congratulations, Sara, on an award well-deserved!!

The club also recognized four members who have attained new Paul Harris Fellow status for their contributions to the Rotary Foundation: Leo St. Martin, Richard Seery, Stella Scamman and James Petersen.

There were lots of new goals for the current rotary year that were accomplished .  We increased new membership and member engagement.  We also set the bar high for fundraising, the total raised was over $ 175,000.  The Basic Needs committee was revamped.  The Rotary club also partnered up with the Seacoast Mavericks.  We agreed to help with the new skating rink at Strawberry Banke and awarded thousands in scholarships.

Tricia Cummings also gave a wonderful speech about becoming President.  She is looking forward to working with all of us and the various committees and continue the path that has been launched.

Rotary Meeting, June 19, 2014.    Respectfully submitted by Aileen Dugan

Linda Browning introduced 2 new members on behalf of the New Member Committee.  Linda introduced Connell Tar, the new manager at Prudential Financial services in downtown Portsmouth.  He lives in Haverhill Mass, has been married for 41 years, and has two children and one grandchild.  Butch Ricci introduced Russ Grazier, Jr., who returned to the club after an absence of several years.   He is thankful to be sponsored by Diane Lavigne, who he brought into Rotary.  Thanks to the sponsoring Rotarians and welcome back Russ!

Jim Rini introduced our speaker, Dan Beaulieu, the co-founder of Seven Stages Shakespeare Company.  He thanked Portsmouth Rotarian Dick Seary for inviting him to speak.  Dan opened his presentation by asking what we knew about Shakespeare, prompting one club member to shout out “He’s dead!”  After a few laughs, Dan got straight to the point, which is that Shakespeare is loaded with baggage.  The most frequently asked question he faces about his company is "why Shakespeare?"  Most people have been exposed to Shakespeare at some point in their lives and he points out that many of these exposures have not been good! .  Reading Shakespeare on our own, often in high school, and expecting to get its meaning is ridiculous. The plays are meant to be performed and it is the actors that bring Shakespeare to life!  Dan drove his point home by reading the lyrics to the Beatle’s song “Come Together” aloud for us and asking us to imagine someone reading them in a classroom 100 years from now and trying to see them as exciting and relevant versus the gibberish that they sound like.   It's all about perspective and perceived value.   Despite all these bad encounters, Shakespeare is a survivor, illustrated by the fact that almost 500 years after he was born, we all know who he was and what he wrote still infusing modern literature and thinking.

A little history provided by Dan: Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford upon Avon during the middle of the plague.  He survived and at school age he received private tutoring for free because his father was an alderman.   At age 13 Shakespeare's father went into tremendous debt for reasons that are unclear, so he was kicked out of private school and all record of him disappears.  It is thought that he continued to receive tutoring “underground” as it were.  He was a Catholic and the Protestant reformation was fully underway, so it was a dangerous time to be Catholic.  Shakespeare reappears in the public record married to Anne Hathaway, who is 8 years older than him, and the daughter of a recently deceased, affluent farmer.  Their first child is born 6 months later.

Besides being a survivor, Dan makes the case that Shakespeare was also a rule breaker and a middle ages bad boy who stole many of his stories from others.  He was also a shrewd businessman who, when kicked out of his performance space by the owner, recruited a team to move the entire Globe Theatre across the river, stealing it from the owner right under his nose.   He mastered the rules of prose and then broke them on purpose.  Shakespeare was a paradox. He is obsessed with showing us every side of human character.  He likes to show us the contradictions in life.

Dan believes that theatre is necessary to humanity as it allows a safe place for failure.  Theatre is a great place to fail gloriously!  Creative artists challenge the rules.  Shakespeare is for our inner child and Dan spent 3 years bringing Shakespeare to children in the schools.  Shakespeare may be dead but his work is very much alive!  Go see his company perform The Comedy of Errors at Prescott Park, from July 13th to August 17th, Sundays at 2pm.