Hamlet may have been the subject, but there were no signs that anyone at the Shakespeare summer camp doth protest too much - if at all.
The likes of the ill-fated prince of Denmark, Henry IV and others were staples of a week in which Carroll County youths immersed themselves in Elizabethan-era language, lovers' quarrels and, of course, tragedy's bloodshed.
From rising third-graders to incoming high school freshmen, the 60 or so participants also spent their days in and around South Carroll's Century High School, contemplating life's dilemmas - or, at least, those of Shakespeare's characters.
"How would you guys feel if your dad died and your mom married your uncle the next day?" Kathleen Bromelow, a Century High graduate and one of the camp counselors, asked those in her group as they discussed Hamlet last week.
"Whoa," said Rebecca Clark, 8, voicing thoughts her peers seemed to share as they exchanged looks of distaste.
A short distance away, another counselor threw out a different scenario.
"Your best friends have just betrayed you," said Heather Phipps, a 2006 Century graduate. Immediately, her group assumed the attitude of the betrayed, crossing their arms and glaring at each other, or looking over their shoulders in a suspicious manner - part of an acting exercise.
"You would think a Shakespeare camp, nobody would even want to come," said Tom Delise, the camp's director and a teacher at Century High. "But they're at the stage where ... they have no preconceptions about Shakespeare."
Now in its second year, the camp is part of Delise's mission to spread Shakespeare throughout the community and combat what he describes as the "gag reflex" many people have when it comes to the Bard's works.
Delise also started the high school's student acting troupe, the Rude Mechanicals, and is involved in an adult group, the Distracted Globe Players. The troupes and camp are part of the Shakespeare Factory, an organization that strives to teach Shakespeare through performance.
The money the camp brings in goes toward scholarships, field trips and hiring actors to work with the troupe, Delise said, adding that he gave $3,000 in scholarships to five Rude Mechanical graduates this past school year.
The commitment to performing Shakespeare applied to the activities of last week, which ended with three scenes - one from Henry IV, Part 1; two from Hamlet - for parents Friday. Camp participants were rarely without an opportunity to perform during the week, either, as they acted out bits of a plot or imitated characters in activities that added a dash of Shakespeare to playground-like games.
"These are but wild and whirling words," said Rachel Gilbert, reading a line from Hamlet.
"Horatio," shouted the group of kids in front of her, naming the character who utters those words.
"Yes," Gilbert said. The group moved to the left - the direction assigned to that particular quote.
"O my prophetic soul! My uncle," Gilbert said.
"Hamlet," her chorus shouted, remaining in place.
"Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" Gilbert said.
"Um, Claudius?" several of her charges guessed, referring to Hamlet's uncle.
"No," Gilbert said, "Ophelia."
The game, called "Robot Controller," was supposed to familiarize the kids with the play's characters, Gilbert said. And, as one of the first morning exercises, she added, "it gets them moving, wakes them up."
Bromelow and co-counselor Samantha Dixon led their group through a round of "vocab tag," which involved defining words that crop up in Shakespeare's texts, such as mirth, harbinger and divination.
Like Bromelow, Dixon and Gilbert, many of the camp's counselors are current or former members of the Rude Mechanicals.
"It's really awesome to watch their faces light up when they get Shakespeare," Bromelow said of the young campers.
The kids' interest in the subject sharply contrasts the attitudes of some high school students, "who bad-mouth it," said Andrea Irons, a Century High graduate who also acted with the Rude Mechanicals.
For Nick Glauser, a 2006 graduate, participating in the camp means giving the youths an opportunity he didn't have at their age.
"I would have loved to have gotten into Shakespeare earlier," said Glauser, who is studying theater and film at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Glauser said he doesn't expect most of the campers to walk away fully comprehending the Bard's work. But, he added, "if they get an interest to pursue it, then I think our job is done."
arin.gencer@baltsun.com