Getting to Know the Headmaster - Part 6: Drama
Maggie Smith and Brian Bedford as Beatrice and Benedict in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's 1980 production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing
Drama in the Bond Family
One of the salient features of the Bond family is that we are very dramatic—at least in the literal sense of being serious about theatre, film, and literature. It may be that my wife and I emphasized the dramatic arts because we were seeking to compensate in some measure for the diminished contact with the wider world that results from homeschooling. But, as Socrates explains in Plato’s Republic, cultivating a love for drama carries with it its own dangers, so much so that Socrates banishes the poets because they corrupt young souls. And yet Socrates, who claims that the purpose of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful, invites the poets, or those who love poetry, to come to its defense, an invitation taken up by Aristotle who argues in the Poetics that the catharsis produced by poetry contributes to the health of the soul by purifying fear and pity.
The far-reaching effects of the dramatic arts on our family—about which my wife and I had little or no notion when we were first married—began with our honeymoon in 1986 when we attended the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada. Six years earlier, I had been introduced to the Festival when I travelled with friends from Chicago to see what I had been told was the best Shakespeare in North America. I was not disappointed. Among other wonderful performances, I was blessed to see Maggie Smith and Brian Bedford play Beatrice and Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing, and the experience was life changing. I had always loved live theatre, but I had never seen anything like the power and beauty of the performances at Stratford.
As our children grew, we introduced them to good movies with a weekly family movie night, and we also took them to live theatre whenever possible. We were especially eager to have them experience the sublime plays of Shakespeare. Therefore, when my oldest son turned thirteen, I took him and his younger brother of eleven to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to see Henry IV Part II, Henry V, and Twelfth Night. I was cautiously confident they would enjoy the plays, but I could not have anticipated just how much. Soon a Bond family tradition was born as all their younger siblings, when they reached their thirteenth birthday, followed suit by making the pilgrimage to Stratford. I also began to take my high school students on summer trips to Stratford, and I brought my children along for the ride since they had fallen in love with Shakespeare.
The impact of Stratford on the souls of our nine children was dramatic indeed as they all became involved in theatre in one way or another. When our oldest purchased a used VHS movie camera at a local yard sale for $3, he began to make his own films with his siblings as actors; and they, when old enough to purchase their own cameras, directed their younger siblings in turn. My wife and I were amazed at our children’s creativity and talent because they were given no formal training in the dramatic arts, but that did not keep them from writing scripts, directing movies, devising stunts, and giving performances which delighted us all. Since those early beginnings they have pursued the dramatic arts in various and sundry ways: stage managing, creating podcasts, singing, playing the piano, teaching, as well as acting, directing, and writing professionally. Forgive a father’s pride, but I have always felt that my children could have been stars at Stratford if that were something they desired to do.
But the greatest joy of having a dramatic family is not so much our children’s wonderful accomplishments as performers, directors, or writers, but rather that the dramatic arts became a major part of our family conversations as we discussed the merits of this or that performance. As a result, certain favorite lines by favorite actors in favorite shows are to this day repeated ad infinitum with no diminished enjoyment over years of taking delight in hearing these lines recited. God willing, my wife and I hope that one day we can take our grandchildren to Stratford to initiate them into the Bond family tradition.
Happily, the Chesterton Academy of St. John the Evangelist places great emphasis on studying and performing Shakespeare, so I eagerly look forward to organizing trips to Stratford so that our students can share in the inexhaustible treasures of the Bard—and also become dramatic!
