Playing ShakespeareTogether with Royal Shakespeare Company actors including Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet, director John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. Barton begins by explicating Shakespeare's verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare's most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. |
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Page 6
... actors . On this subject each actor and his experience of acting is worth many books . So what I shall be saying in Playing Shakespeare is by itself worth nothing . It only has value if it comes alive in the performances of living and ...
... actors . On this subject each actor and his experience of acting is worth many books . So what I shall be saying in Playing Shakespeare is by itself worth nothing . It only has value if it comes alive in the performances of living and ...
Page 20
... acting against which modern actors , of whatever generation they come from , rebel , is not so much the style of the writing as the style of the actors of the previous generation . And I suspect that actors from Richard Burbage , the ...
... acting against which modern actors , of whatever generation they come from , rebel , is not so much the style of the writing as the style of the actors of the previous generation . And I suspect that actors from Richard Burbage , the ...
Page 23
... acting problems . Used in moderation they can help to clear the head but we can't finally use them to pin acting down . Sooner or later we have to look at specific bits of text and seek particular solutions . I must confess that I ...
... acting problems . Used in moderation they can help to clear the head but we can't finally use them to pin acting down . Sooner or later we have to look at specific bits of text and seek particular solutions . I must confess that I ...
Contents
Foreword by Trevor Nunn page | 1 |
Objective Things | 5 |
The Two TraditionsElizabethan and Modern Acting | 6 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
actor actually Alan Howard ambiguity antitheses Antonio audience Barbara Leigh-Hunt believe Ben Kingsley blank verse Brutus Caesar character course Cressida David Suchet de-dum death Desdemona director Donald Sinden dost doth Elizabethan EMILIA emotions example FALSTAFF feel FESTE give Hamlet happens hath heightened language Henry honour Ian McKellen intention irony Jane Lapotaire Judi Dench King Kingsley Lisa Harrow listen look mean Merchant of Venice Michael Pennington Mike Gwilym naturalistic Norman Rodway once ORSINO Othello passage passion Patrick Stewart pause perhaps Playing Shakespeare poetic poetry PORTIA prose question rehearsal rhythm Richard Pasco Roger Rees scene sense sentence Shakespeare's text Sheila Hancock Shylock soliloquy sometimes sonnet sooth I know sounds speak speech strong stresses talking tell theatre thee there's thing thou thought Tony Church tradition Troilus Tubal verse line verse-line VIOLA words