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 37
... live . Enough . King John : III.3 . So how do you think Shakespeare is using the verse there ? Patrick Stewart : Well , what we've got are two verse lines . Though the first one's only got one word in it : " Death . " And the second ...
... live . Enough . King John : III.3 . So how do you think Shakespeare is using the verse there ? Patrick Stewart : Well , what we've got are two verse lines . Though the first one's only got one word in it : " Death . " And the second ...
Page 79
... Live thou , I live . With much , much more dismay I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray . There's a huge difference , isn't there ? But in the second speech Portia isn't just switching into romantic language because ...
... Live thou , I live . With much , much more dismay I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray . There's a huge difference , isn't there ? But in the second speech Portia isn't just switching into romantic language because ...
Page 245
... lives as it dies , or it dies as it lives . But how can we work on it ? How can we find our way with it ? I don't think it's all that hard with purple passages . Where the poetry is obvious poetry , most actors respond to it and the ...
... lives as it dies , or it dies as it lives . But how can we work on it ? How can we find our way with it ? I don't think it's all that hard with purple passages . Where the poetry is obvious poetry , most actors respond to it and the ...
Contents
The Two Traditions Elizabethan and Modern Acting | 3 |
Using the Verse Heightened and Naturalistic Verse | 27 |
Language and Character Making the Words Ones Own | 56 |
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 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 question rehearsal rhythm Richard Pasco Roger Rees scene sense Shake Shakespeare's text Sheila Hancock Shylock soliloquy sonnet sooth I know sounds speak speare strong stresses talking tell theater thee there's thing thou thought Tony Church Troilus Tubal verse line verse-line VIOLA words