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 27
... friends , once more If you try to scan it as an iambic pentameter— Once more unto the breach , dear friends , once more Henry V : III.1 . it becomes totally unnatural . Obviously it's not written that way . So how do the stresses come ...
... friends , once more If you try to scan it as an iambic pentameter— Once more unto the breach , dear friends , once more Henry V : III.1 . it becomes totally unnatural . Obviously it's not written that way . So how do the stresses come ...
Page 28
... friends , once more , Or close the wall up with our English dead ! The point I want to make here is that blank verse as such is neutral . Shakespeare gets his dramatic effects by the way he rings the changes on it . A basic norm is set ...
... friends , once more , Or close the wall up with our English dead ! The point I want to make here is that blank verse as such is neutral . Shakespeare gets his dramatic effects by the way he rings the changes on it . A basic norm is set ...
Page 80
... Friends , Romans , countrymen , lend me your ears ; I come to bury Caesar , not to praise him . The evil that men do lives after them , The good is oft interrèd with their bones ; So let it be with Caesar . The noble Brutus Hath told ...
... Friends , Romans , countrymen , lend me your ears ; I come to bury Caesar , not to praise him . The evil that men do lives after them , The good is oft interrèd with their bones ; So let it be with Caesar . The noble Brutus Hath told ...
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