“I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression.” – Algernon, Act I
On 14 February 1895, Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest was first performed in London. 116 years later, class 3c took the chance of acting out several scenes of this play on this year’s Valentine’s Day - of course with wonderful expression...

Six groups had been arranged in the previous English lesson so the first ten minutes of this Monday’s lesson were spent with last minute preparations. Then, eagerly awaited, the first group entered the stage and wowed everyone by their rendition of a part of the first act in the book, a dialogue between main character Jack Worthing and his friend Algernon, played by Boris and Din. The second group had Luigi as Algernon’s butler Lane, Emilia as Lady Bracknell, Helen as her daughter Gwendolen Fairfax, Theodore as Algernon and Jan as Jack /Ernest Worthing. Their act was constantly interrupted by bouts of laughter both from the audience as well as the actors themselves. The third group brought even more laughter with Eliah as Jack/Ernest Worthing and Anja as Lady Bracknell. Especially Anja’s “Found? […] In a handbag?” was hilarious. Laura as naïve and simple Cecily was also very well received. The small group with Loreta as Gwendolen and Desiree as Cecily seemed very professional, not even needing the help of their books to remember the script. The last group made the audience roar with laughter, especially Maurus' personification of Gwendolen. As a wonderful end to the day's lesson Ms Whitebread offered everyone a blueberry muffin (“One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.”- Act II) and we all left the aula feeling happy, knowing that there’s no need to be scared of reading classics or acting in front of one’s class mates.

Text and pictures: Lāra & Chiara, 3c

“I write my forewords for intellectuals and my plays for dummies”. George Bernard Shaw allegedly made this statement as a reaction to the astonishment his overlong prefaces provoked in his readers. Unintimidated by this, we students from class 3A picked up Shaw’s play Pygmalion – as a play to read and a performance to attend. This report tells of the experience.
The task was to read Pygmalion with the aim to watch the play in the end. For a period of about three weeks, starting at the beginning of the new year, we were constantly reading one act after the other (there are five!) and every Wednesday morning, we discussed the assigned pages in class. Mr. Hänggi’s reading tasks served as a guideline for reading comprehension and interpretation. We found this play more difficult to read than the books we had read up until then – a set of short stories and one contemporary novel. The play Pygmalion was our first encounter with the classics of British Literature (despite being born in Dublin, Shaw has been claimed by Anthologies of British Literature…). The content of the play itself was stimulating and ideal for debate. The story of Eliza Doolittle, a working-class flower girl and her attempted rise in social status are at the centre of this work.
Watching the play after having read and dissected it was an exciting experience, because we were all curious about the way the cast would realise the different scenes on stage. Additionally, we realised the difference between reading a play and actually watching it. First, a foreign language forces you to concentrate on comprehension and thus limits imagination. So, watching this guest performance staged by native speakers at the Basel Theatre clarified a lot of scenes and meanings for us. How much more relaxing and pleasant it is to watch a play than to bring up the exhausting effort of reading!!
The Basel production of the play was great, entertaining and altogether successful. The actors added some changes to the play: the slightly dated ‘bloody’ was traded in for the modern and more shocking F-word, so as to make Mrs. Eynsford-Hill’s reaction to Eliza’s use of the word more plausible. The daughter of Enysford-Hill was missing altogether, so was the cab-driver. As the cast counted only five actors, several roles were played by one actor. The masterpiece of this production was the reorganisation of the stage between the scenes: the actors used five white linen panels that were moved back and forth between scenes, accompanied by polyphonic singing of greatest quality. Thus, a panel could be a pillar, a wall, a rosebush, or a blackboard for a phonetic chart.
The text of the play is already immensely funny – but spoken and acted out by the actors it was hilarious!! We must give great credit to the actors’ performance. Altogether, the experience of watching and reading this play was quite successful and made me keen on reading some more books – be it in class or on my own. It is a good opportunity to get into the English language and to appreciate its beauty. Mr. Hänggi chose a good book with a precocious statement. Reading the book with the aim of watching the play in the end made it an even more elaborate project.

Farah Grütter, class 3A

Class 2C are exchanging e-mails with two classes from Portville and Franklinville Central School (NY). One of the classes is learning German, the other one is learning French. On the pictures the students are writing the first letters, presenting our class, to their new pen pals. Now we just write e-mails, which is much faster, and we hear regularly from each other.

Portville Central School
E-Pals

In June 2010 class 1A visited the Kirschgarten Museum: to practise their English! We talked about the portrait of Johann Rudolf Burckhardt and explored the period rooms of the 18th and 19th century.

Historisches Museum Basel - Haus zum Kirschgarten