Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I initially talked about attending to Isis school in the previous post. The story this time will delve into the Isis School’s annual school play that had a significant part in my student life. School plays were held in one of the fairly substantial ancillary buildings with enough room for the parents of children to attend the performance. In fact, I remember the school play well – Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Because it was Shakespeare, all the boys had to wear tights.

School Plays

Normally only girls wore ‘tights’. I realized then that boys like looking at girls’ legs. However, with the boys wearing tights, it was suddenly the boys’ legs that became the centre of attention (at least, in my imagination). My skinny legs were anything but ‘shapely’.²⁹⁷ Fortunately, we were allowed to choose our own costumes. I found a cloak that would ‘cover’ my legs. Check out the photo to see mine ha ha :-).

“On my oath the fool has an excellent voice!’ said Sir Andrew. ‘I would rather have a shapely leg like the fool’s, and his sweet voice, than forty shillings” (Twelfth Night).

My Role

I remember my mother came to watch the performance even if I only had a minor role. I played Philostrates, so I only had two or three lines to remember; unfortunately, I still flunked my lines! Despite some of my criticisms of my mother here in these “Recollections”, I am perhaps still behaving like a ‘contrary child’.

Our mother was always there supporting us (more or less). However, this was something you didn’t always appreciate as a child, as you took it for granted. I was a little peeved at the time that I was only given a ‘minor’ role. The ‘major’ roles, at least for the boys, were given to third formers, while I was only a second former.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have been happy with a ‘minor’ role. As one can see from the photo that I was the only boy from my class in the second form performing in the play. There are two girls from my class who were given major roles, Bronwyn Thomas and Lydia Mason (whom I was in love with for a while!). One of them must have played Titania, the beautiful queen of the fairies. Perhaps the other main female character was Hermia. One of the main male characters was Lysander. However, I can’t remember for sure who was who.    

²⁹⁷ Of course, fashion changes – the ‘skinny look’ became fashionable later in the late sixties, and also in later decades.