The Actor S And Intelligent Reader S Guide To The Language Of Shakespeare

Author s Note: This book is intended to help the actor or intelligent reader master the forms of Shakespeare s language. Anyone who acts Shakespeare s plays well must have a confident feel for the language of his plays. Anyone who reads his plays well must be a Shakespearean actor deep inside his or her mind! It has been my honor, as founder and director of The Young Shakespeare Players, to direct thousands of actors in full-length Shakespeare roles. My experience with these players -- from age 7 to 80, with most between 13 and 18 -- has helped tell me what the serious Shakespeare actor or reader must grasp. Our young actors always quickly understood that they needed to start to make Shakespeare s language their own. They always especially emphasized the resonance of his words, and their precise and evocative beauty. I find inadequacies in published works on understanding and using Shakespeare s language. Some are overly simplified, or even wrong-headed. Some are excellent, but simply do not go far enough. They tend, for example, to take an element of Shakespeare s writing craft (say, his use of verse rhythm or antitheses), explain its meaning briefly, give a few examples, and move quickly on. Often, the actor/reader leaves with too little experience to apply this knowledge the next time the element crops up. We need, instead, a way for the serious actor or reader to immerse in the key elements of Shakespeare s text, so that each becomes familiar and instantly recognizable. And so, we developed the RISARA model, which is the basis of this book. The RISARA model RISARA is an acronym for six major ways in which Shakespeare shaped and varied the language of his plays: R - Rhythm and stress. Shakespeare wrote most of the lines in his plays in verse -- language formed into expected rhythm patterns and line lengths. Then he regularly broke the rules of his own verse form. The R in RISARA leads the actor/reader to ask: Does the rhythm vary from the regular pattern or normal line length? If so, why? Can this variation help us more clearly understand the meaning? I - Imagery. Shakespeare's movie cameras and special effects were he words, spoken by the actors; and his screens were the ears and minds of the audience. What pictures do Shakespeare s words evoke? How does the imagery help define the emotions and characterizations in his plays? S - Sound. In Shakespeare s time, language was more important for how it sounded than for how it looked on a page. Does the sound of Shakespeare s words add to the feeling of the passage being read? How does the actor/reader use it to enhance the meaning? A - Antitheses. Shakespeare used no figure of speech to greater effect than antithesis -- the formal contrast set up to sharpen and guide the thinking of character and audience alike. In any passage, does Shakespeare emphasize his meaning by comparing antithetical words or ideas? Do such comparisons need special emphasis to bring out the meaning? R - Repetition. Schoolchildren in Shakespeare s time were thoroughly trained in rhetoric and formal figures of repetition. Shakespeare often used these to strengthen a passage by repeating certain sounds, or words, or whole phrases. We need to ask: How did he use repetition in this passage? How does the repetition enhance the mood or character or image? A - Architecture. Shakespeare built a kind of architecture into his words in other ways -- from changes of direction in speeches, to phrasing of individual verse lines, to shifts between prose and verse, and much more. How do these architectural elements add to the meaning or feelings of the scene, or speech, or passage? What can the actor/reader do to emphasize these architectural features?"

Presents information and advice to help actors bring Shakespeare's language to life.

Shakespeare's plays were written some four hundred years ago, and while his characters are enduring, they are also alien. In grappling with the text of his plays, the modern actor must bring Shakespeare's Renaissance characters to life for a modern audience. And while it is difficult enough for twentieth-century spectators to make sense of the plays, it is also hard for modern actors to understand the Elizabethan world that created the personalities so vividly sketched in Shakespeare's texts. This reference is a convenient and practical guide for actors faced with the task of playing Shakespeare's characters. The volume begins with an overview of Elizabethan theatrical conventions, including the training of actors. It then looks at the dramatic tradition of personification, which Shakespeare's world inherited from the medieval stage. Later chapters give special attention to how language reveals character and to the social and cultural contexts of the Renaissance. Throughout, the emphasis is on how to translate Shakespeare's text into action on the stage. While the volume contains much useful information, that information is presented to meet the special needs of theater professionals.

Here art thou real Shakespeare. The resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's plays - largely due to recent film adaptations - has reminded the world that Shakespearean theatre is a social art form. This guide focuses on the essence of the spoken word of his plays rather than simply dissecting them. It also explores the cultural and historical contexts for the major plays, offering the director's and actor's perspective in addition to that of the scholar and close reader. Each major play is explored in depth, explaining Shakespearean terms Offers commentary on the experience of each play on and off stage with attention to language and verse Appendixes include Shakespeare's likely collaborations, a glossary, suggested further reading, and resources for viewing live performances and video/audio recordings Perfect for students, general readers, theatregoers, and actors Published to commemorate Shakespeare's 443rd birthday

John Russell Brown is arguably the most influential scholar in the field of Shakespeare in performance. This collection brings together and makes accessible his most important writings across the past half-century or so. Ranging across space, words, audiences, directors and themes, the book maps John Russell Brown's search for a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's plays in performance. New introductory notes for each chapter give a fascinating insight into his critical and scholarly journey. Together the essays provide an authoritative and engaging account of how to study Shakespeare's plays as texts for performance. Drawing readers into a wide variety of approaches and debates, this book will be important and provocative reading for anyone studying Shakespeare or staging one of his plays.

Romeo and Juliet always use 'thou' to each other, but they are the only pair of lovers in Shakespeare to do this. Why? All the women in Richard III address Richard as 'thou', but no man ever does. Why? When characters address the dead, they use 'thou' – except for Hamlet, who addresses Yorick as 'you'. Why? Shakespeare's contemporaries would have known the answers to these questions because they understood what 'thou' signified, but modern actors and audiences are in the dark. Through performance-oriented analysis of extracts from the plays, this book explores the language of 'trulls' and termagants, true loves and unwelcome wooers, male impersonators, smothering mothers, warring spouses and fighting men, as well as investigating lèse-majesté, Freudian slips, crisis moments and rhetorical flourishes. Drawing on work with RSC actors, as well as the author's experience of playing a range of Shakespearean roles, the book equips the reader with a new tool for tracking emotions, weighing power relations and appreciating dazzling complexity.

A handy yet authoritative guide to all Shakespeare's extant works (with information about those known to be lost), this volume provides cast lists, scene-by-scene plot synopses, and contextual information for Shakespeare's plays, and thorough entries on his poems. It is a perfect primer for anyone wishing to be better acquainted with Shakespeare.

"Shakespeare's Figures of Speech provides a unique and vital resource for the Shakespearean actor and director. We have long needed such a reference." Dr. Sidney Berger, Co-Founder Shakespeare Theatre Association of America "With this book, students, readers, and actors will above all enhance their understanding of Shakespeare's verbal richness by getting a grasp of the forms he used." Dr. Ann Christensen, University of Houston "Kate Pogue begins her book by boldly saying in the foreword, 'This book will change the way you read Shakespeare, ' and so it will." Dr. Michael Dressman, University of Houston Downtown