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Overview
Playing Shakespeare; not reading him, not writing him; but playing him.
One guide comes from Shakespeare’s speech from Hamlet’s speech to the players.
Approaching Shakespeare
Elizabethan actors were able to use the subtle cues that Shakespeare writes within the
text.
There are few absolute rules when playing Shakespeare, but many possibilities. Actors
should work as explorers, investigating the work and the text through character, action
and story.
How does Shakespeare’s text work? John Barton (former director at the Royal
Shakespeare Company) said he doesn’t believe there is only one way to perform
Shakespeare. Rather, each director, actor, or teacher may have their own interpretation.
Actors can examine what is inherent within the text to make choices for communicating.
Shakespeare’s text was very much about listening.
Most audiences may not listen to Shakespeare’s text in modern day, unless the actors
make you listen.
Modern Audiences: How can the actors make the audience listen to the text?
Two Traditions - How to marry the Elizabethan text with a modern tradition.
Heightened language must be found by the actor, and heightened performance must be
married with the naturalistic.
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SHAKESPEARE: OUTLINE FOR THE GIVENS
‘In his plays, Shakespeare used prose about 30 percent of the time, to define characters of ‘lower’
social status than his nobles, to create colloquial, informal, or relaxed tone, or to make a character
who usually speaks verse sound particularly genuine and straightforward.’ (Speak the Speech
XXVII)
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BASIC STEPS TO PLAYING SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare created language full of imagery, figurative language, and sound devices.
SOUND = MEANING:
In Shakespeare there is interplay of sound and meaning.
Prologue
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Romeo & Juliet
Sound Devices:
Rhyme: repetition of the last sounds in 2 or more words
“In fair Verona, where we lay our Scene”
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds
o From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Consonance: repetition of medial or ending consonant sounds
o Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
Alliteration: repetition of initial consonants
o “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes”
Repeated words: in one or more phrases
o Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
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RHYME SCHEME: pattern in which lines of verse are rhymed.
In the SONNETS Shakespeare uses 14 lines where alternating lines rhyme.
Every 4 lines Shakespeare introduces new rhyming sounds: ABAB CDCD EFEF
The last 2 lines form a couplet. COUPLET = two consecutive rhyming lines: GG
NOTE: Rhyme is strong in and of itself. Without having to over stress the rhyme, it is good to
be aware of it.
PUNCTUATION: Punctuation gives you your breathing cues, which can help with getting
across the meaning of the line. In Shakespeare’s time punctuation, like spelling, was sometimes a
‘creative’ act. Shakespeare’s original punctuation was intended for the actor’s use, as cues for
understanding the character’s mode of thinking.
Punctuation is used:
1. To map out thought progression.
a) ( , ) commas: the weakest indication of thought progression; commas set ideas apart but
don’t necessarily indicate pauses; they serve as visual signs of thought shifts
b) ( ; ) semi-colons: stronger than commas; they indicate the connection between two related
ideas.
c) ( : ) colons: even stronger; used differently in Shakespeare’s time from today; the colon
seems to complete an idea, and signal an energetic charge into the next idea.
d) ( . ) periods: indicate a complete stop; periods complete an idea, they complete a sentence.
Verse Rhythm
- = unaccented
/ = accented
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Blank verse is actually close to how we talk – and in that way, is close to naturalism
Much of Shakespeare is not spoken within scanning
Shakespeare sets up a norm, and then breaks it, to signify some kind of meaning to the
audience, and also to the actor. Syncopation:
o Syncopate: to take a beat that is regular and break it up using irregular beats, or
o Contrapuntal stressing: to put and accent on beats that are not regularly
stressed.
Variations
Iamb ( - / ) unstressed, stressed
trochee ( / - ) stressed, unstressed
pyrrhic ( / / ) stressed, stressed
amphilbrach ( - / - ) unstressed, stressed, unstressed
The first two syllables in an iambic line are inversed in their stress. This creates a trochaic foot.
DUM-de de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM
/ - - / - / - / - /
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, (Julius Caesar)
These variations only occur in two places and never anywhere else:
at ending or beginning of a line
at ending or beginning of a phrase on either side of the caesura
CAESURA
A caesura is pause in the middle of the line.
Usually it’s indicated with punctuation, but not always.
When a new idea is expressed after a caesura, it has come quickly on the heels of the one
that preceded it.
Refers to a natural pause in the middle of the line.
Both trochaic variations and feminine endings can happen around these pauses.
A light stress at the end is a ‘feminine ending’, as a weak ending. There is controversy around
this because we associate feminine with weak, and the with the rise of feminism, there is a push-
back within this. However, what it is getting at is that there is a potential for two options, strong
and weak, that provides a balance, or perhaps alternatives to delivering a line.
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This happens when a verse line follows the regular pattern through the first 4 feet but on
the fifth foot an extra unstressed syllable appears added to the iamb. Thus, the line has an
extra beat.
Stresses tend to land on the strong words within the line, and this can be determined
when considering the character, situation, etc., to give clues as to what the actor might be
trying to say, and why. Typically, strong words are VERBS and NOUNS
A shared verse line between two speakers, means ‘pick the cue up’, and don’t add a pause.
Pick up the cue – meaning – think faster; think as you speak. Don’t think before the line,
but think and react on the line. Our naturalistic bias tends to make us add more pauses
that are not necessary or appropriate in Shakespeare.
BROKEN OR SHARED LINES - When a line of verse is begun by one character and
completed by another. Both characters share a verse line.
Sometimes this indicates a quick cue pick-up.
Less often, it's a cue to pause.
i.e. Macbeth and Lacy Macbeth Scene
We may find verse lines that are missing more than one 1 or 2 syllables, and are not shared lines
between characters (see below for ‘shared lines’).
Shakespeare intends for an action to go in place of the missing syllables.
There are possibilities within the text. One must ask the question as to what they could
do in using or speaking the text, and then make a choice that supports the character’s or
actor’s logic.
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Elision – the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking (as in I’m, let’s, e’en). The process
of joining together or merging things, especially abstract ideas.
Elision is the term referred to when contracting a syllable to make for instance a 3-
syllable word work as a 2-syllable word.
In-te-rest vs. In-trest
If Elisions are formally noted within the text we call them contractions: I’d, he’d, etc.
CONTRACTIONS
Shakespeare used contractions in order to keep the ten-syllable iambic pentameter line. Hence,
Shakespeare contracted words and created surprising pronunciations
SHAKESPEARE sometimes adds an extra syllable to keep the 10-syllable iambic pentameter
line. i.e. ba – ni-shed