Playing Shakespeare: An Actor's GuidePlaying Shakespeare is the premier guide to understanding and appreciating the mastery of the world’s greatest playwright. Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors–among them Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet–John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. The director 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. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students. |
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Page xv
... sounds condescending . He anatomizes the text but not the habit of mind of the actor who has to play that text . He does not , for instance , seem to understand the natural fear that many actors have of poetry . I hope that Playing ...
... sounds condescending . He anatomizes the text but not the habit of mind of the actor who has to play that text . He does not , for instance , seem to understand the natural fear that many actors have of poetry . I hope that Playing ...
Page 7
... sound sad . What we play must be specific and fresh . Alan Howard : So we must dig into a character socially and psycho- logically . Ian McKellen : Yes , socially , which means being concerned with other people , our audience and other ...
... sound sad . What we play must be specific and fresh . Alan Howard : So we must dig into a character socially and psycho- logically . Ian McKellen : Yes , socially , which means being concerned with other people , our audience and other ...
Page 11
... sound is just the outward expression . So in other words , rehearsal of a scene is going to be about character and relationships and situations and certainly about social back- ground . Today the director helps to sift those ...
... sound is just the outward expression . So in other words , rehearsal of a scene is going to be about character and relationships and situations and certainly about social back- ground . Today the director helps to sift those ...
Page 18
... sounds as if the actor is being very self - conscious about what he is saying . The trick is , I think , for the character rather than the actor to put the words into inverted commas . In this way he acknowledges to the audience that ...
... sounds as if the actor is being very self - conscious about what he is saying . The trick is , I think , for the character rather than the actor to put the words into inverted commas . In this way he acknowledges to the audience that ...
Page 33
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Contents
3 | |
27 | |
Language and CharacterMaking the Words Ones Own | 56 |
Using the ProseWhy Does Shakespeare Use Prose? | 83 |
S Set Speeches and Soliloquies Taking the Audience with You | 106 |
Using the SonnetsGoing Over Some Old Ground | 128 |
Subjective Things | 147 |
Irony and AmbiguityText That Isnt What It Seems | 149 |
Passion and CoolnessA Question of Balance | 167 |
Rehearsing the TextOrsino and Viola | 188 |
Exploring a CharacterPlaying Shylock | 211 |
Contemporary ShakespeareA Discussion | 227 |
Poetry and Hidden PoetryThree Kinds of Failure | 243 |
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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 COSTARD course Cressida David Suchet de-dum death Desdemona director Donald Sinden dost doth Elizabethan EMILIA emotional 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 Peggy Ashcroft perhaps Playing Shakespeare poetic poetry PORTIA prose rehearsal rhythm Richard Pasco Roger Rees scene sense Shake Shakespeare's text Sheila Hancock Shylock soliloquy sonnet sooth I know sounds speak speare speech strong stresses talking tell theater thee there's thing thou thought Tony Church Troilus verse line verse-line VIOLA words