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 11
... mean when you say ' naturalistic ?? That word can mean different things to different people , can't it ? Yes , you're right , we must define it . By ' naturalistic ' I mean the acting style and the kind of text which is the norm in the ...
... mean when you say ' naturalistic ?? That word can mean different things to different people , can't it ? Yes , you're right , we must define it . By ' naturalistic ' I mean the acting style and the kind of text which is the norm in the ...
Page 19
... mean by it a style which deliberately gives an impression of ordinary everyday speech and behaviour . We don't mean it in the more general sense of ' being true to nature ' . Ben Kingsley : Yes , it's a dangerous word and can be ...
... mean by it a style which deliberately gives an impression of ordinary everyday speech and behaviour . We don't mean it in the more general sense of ' being true to nature ' . Ben Kingsley : Yes , it's a dangerous word and can be ...
Page 124
... mean by ' soil ' and ' common ' . Jane Lapotaire : It's sexual ambiguity . Yes . ' Soil ' means the earth and ' common ' means a common land . But ' soil ' also means sexually soiled and ' common ' means sexually common . Just those two ...
... mean by ' soil ' and ' common ' . Jane Lapotaire : It's sexual ambiguity . Yes . ' Soil ' means the earth and ' common ' means a common land . But ' soil ' also means sexually soiled and ' common ' means sexually common . Just those two ...
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