Clues to Acting Shakespeare (3rd ed) Page 3

  WHAT GOES WRONG?

  Pause awhile

  And let my counsel sway you in this case.

  MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, IV, i

  Everything. But primarily this: When you develop character first, you then tend to “adjust” the language to fit what the character wants to do, and you say the lines “the way the character would say them.”

  This approach spells disaster, because you are deciding how to say the lines before you know what you are saying. This Stanislavski acting principle is especially true when acting Shakespeare: Know what you are saying and why you are saying it, and the how will take care of itself.

  The importance of Stanislavski’s advice is amplified with Shakespeare, because, when compared to realistic text, the what is much harder to determine. When reading a blank verse line, you have a greater chance of being entirely wrong in your interpretation of what is being said, in which case, nobody will have any idea what you are saying.

  You may have noticed, when watching Shakespeare, that the British actors, especially on film, sound much better than the Americans. Are they better actors? No. Are they better at Shakespeare? Yes. They are better trained to handle heightened text.

  WHY THE BRITISH SEEM BETTER AT THIS

  Thus comes the English with full power upon us.

  HENRY V, II, iv

  We often hear the argument that American actors will be better at Shakespeare if they use a British accent. John Barton argues convincingly in his book Playing Shakespeare and the accompanying videotapes that skill in handling Shakespeare has nothing to do with accent. He also points out that, when comparing American and British accents, the American is probably closer to actual Elizabethan speech. The American sound is rougher, less refined, more authentic.

  And yet, when Americans approach Shakespeare for the first time, both professional and student actors seem to add this vocal affectation. This application (or coloring) not only weakens the voice, it destroys all chance at truth and honesty of character. Use your best and strongest natural speaking voice when handling Shakespeare’s language.

  TWO APPROACHES TO TRAINING

  The primary reason why British actors are better than American actors at playing Shakespeare is simply the method of training.

  The British start actor training with voice and movement, plus scene and language study. Many American training programs, acting schools, and studios begin with inner motivation, self-discovery, and characterization. It can be argued that the American system of actor training should be reversed: Teach Shakespeare performance with its required skills first, then teach realistic acting technique.

  If this reverse were realized, Americans would have an earlier opportunity to play Shakespeare, and there would be no difference between British and American actors. Then why don’t we do it?

  The reverse isn’t practical for the American job market. Work for actors in America is 99.5 percent in realism and 0.5 percent in plays with heightened language. American children are raised on television and film, so they are familiar with realistic text and acting styles long before actor training begins. Except in studio work or school, an American actor might work an entire career and never have a shot at a Shakespearean role.

  Dustin Hoffman, one of America’s best actors, reached the age of fifty-one without ever having played Shakespeare. His opportunity came when he played Shylock in Sir Peter Hall’s production of The Merchant of Venice in 1989.

  Of necessity, the business side of acting attracts American actors to realistic training, which is where the roles are.

  In England, the foundation of most regional theatres is the Shakespeare canon, and the plays are included in every season. His plays are also produced extensively at the various festivals in England and Canada and at the Royal National Theatre in London. School children perform the plays in grade school and see numerous productions. Most actor training programs are independent and not housed in universities, as they are in America. Most British acting coaches see Shakespeare training as mandatory. The classic repertoire of British drama is in heightened language. In England, an actor cannot avoid Shakespeare training; in America, the actor must search for it.

  Recent trends in England, however, such as the job market in film and television and declining funding which leads to a declining number of classical stage productions, indicate that British actor training is showing an added emphasis on the American approach.

  When rehearsing American actors for two Los Angeles Shakespearean productions in 1999, Sir Peter Hall was asked by the trade newspaper Back Stage West if he rehearsed longer than he would have in England. He replied:

  A little more. But to tell the truth, the tradition is not in a healthy state in Britain now either, because there’s not enough Shakespeare being done there, because drama schools don’t teach actors something they’re probably never going to do. So I don’t even do a Shakespeare play in England now without two weeks of teaching before I start. It wasn’t all that different here, just a bit longer. (Scott Proudfit)

  The “classic” repertoire of American plays is realistic or musical. When the Stanislavski techniques emerged in the 1920s, they were absorbed within ten years into American theatres and schools. Extensive training in voice, movement, and script analysis are recommended in Stanislavski’s writings. But his early disciples in America largely ignored these techniques and favored concentration on motivation, sense memory recall, subtext, objectives, the magic “if,” self discovery, etc.—in other words, the basic tools these teachers and directors believed were required to act the realistic texts that American playwrights were writing.

  BETTER TRAINING

  Let your reason serve

  To make the truth appear where it seems hid.

  MEASURE FOR MEASURE, V, i

  The simple reality is this: An actor trained in Shakespeare performance can easily adjust to realistic text for stage or film. On the other hand, most actors trained in realism, especially for film, have no idea how to adapt that training to Shakespeare. In fact, the actor’s training can actually hamper success. Except for the practical side of “making a living,” it would make sense to reverse actor training in America. Is acting a business or an art?

  Experimenting with the reversed training procedure, I have coached a half-dozen or so groups in which beginning actors (about age seventeen) were mixed with professionals, many of whom had numerous Broadway and LORT (League of Resident Theatres) credits. In these groups, the professional actors performed “final projects” at a higher level, but they did not learn the specific Shakespeare skills any faster than the beginners. One can conclude that the skills are easy to identify and learn, and that other factors like voice training and experience determine the level of performance.

  A few M.F.A. acting programs now concentrate training on classical text. I have no doubt that young actors could be trained even earlier and, if started with voice work and the skills required to play Shakespeare, would graduate better prepared for the entire range of job opportunities.

  WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL SKILLS?

  Assuming an actor has a trained voice, the skills needed to play Shakespeare truthfully are:

  • Learning to phrase and support the language

  • Having the freedom to speak while playing your action

  The first skill is tied to analysis of text, the second to voice and character.

  WHAT ABOUT MEANING?

  It is not especially difficult to study Shakespeare’s language and explain its common meaning. As understanding improves, the actor is able to “dig deeper” and find more possibilities. One’s knowledge and skill at the moment of reading a text are always changing, and among writers, Shakespeare especially seems to change.

  Each time we come back to take a fresh look at a speech, we’re amazed at the new ideas Shakespeare somehow inserted into the text since our last reading! We also begin to realize that the layers are infinite and that we will always discover something new.

  On
ce the actor has a trained voice, the goal is to discover what’s in the language and speak freely. What’s in the language is discovered by learning and applying some basic skills to the blank verse. If the listener is actively engaged, the actor is using the correct verse skills.

  Some directors believe that there are no rules applicable to performing Shakespeare, but that idea is certainly untrue. Specific skills needed to handle the language must be thought of as rules. If the actor ignores these skills, most listeners do not understand what is being said and simply doze off. How long can an actor hold an audience that can’t hear? The same is true if they can’t understand, and all the work put into discovering the language and character will go unrewarded.

  Discovering what the language means, and then having the skills to speak that discovery, is what separates actors from English professors. I’ve heard dozens of English teachers and professors read Shakespeare aloud, but the only ones I have heard read effectively are actor-trained. This problem reflects a misunderstanding about drama—plays are written to be spoken aloud. Speaking and acting skills are required for the listener to hear what the language is doing. Lacking these skills and still reading aloud is a sure way to confuse the listener.

  As all actors know, an idea (or interpretation) in one’s head doesn’t transfer automatically to the audience’s ears. That step takes special skills with any text, and Shakespeare is no exception. In fact, plays written in heightened text require far more speaking skills than realistic plays.

  Director Peter Brook coined a wonderful phrase applicable to unclear actors and confused listeners: “The trouble with Shakespeare is that it goes on without you.”

  WHAT IF THESE SKILLS ARE TOO DIFFICULT?

  Sir, I am too old to learn.

  KING LEAR, II, ii

  Who would attempt to sing an aria in public without first learning something about voice and music? To handle the technical challenges in the aria, the singer must have the instrument (the voice) and training (the skills). One could certainly sing the aria and ignore the composer’s notations, but then the listener is cheated out of hearing the music’s real possibilities. The performance is less than satisfactory, because the material has been “adjusted” to the singer’s limitations. Untrained listeners, of course, don’t know the difference.

  “Adjusting” the material to fit personal strengths and weaknesses is what some actors do all the time. We usually refer to these performers as “personalities” rather than actors.

  Philip Bosco, the fine American character actor, remarked in an interview about preparing to act Shakespeare in In Theatre magazine that “fame doesn’t give you talent.” An actor may have a pleasing personality on film and be paid a lot of money, but may not be equipped with the essential skills, especially a trained voice, to handle Shakespeare or other classics.

  If an actor without correct preparation accepts a Shakespearean role, the necessary procedure is to secure a coach and learn the skills. Simultaneously, the actor must develop the voice to handle the language.

  Shakespeare’s plays are often cut or “arranged” for specific situations. These changes are the director’s or producer’s production choices, but not usually language changes. Refrain from rewriting Shakespeare’s language to accommodate your personal vocal limitations as, for example, you might transpose a song to better fit the vocal range of a singer.

  Instead, develop your skills to act what the language requires. If you are not willing to learn the skills, avoid Shakespeare, spare the audience the boredom, spare yourself the bad acting, and don’t insult the author.

  TO SUMMARIZE

  O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night

  To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!

  ROMEO AND JULIET, III, iii

  What we want to do, then, is handle the language so that the audience clearly understands the character’s intentions. We know that the more skillful we become at speaking the language, the more the audience will be involved.

  Now let’s begin on the specific skills.

  USEFUL IDEAS TO REMEMBER:

  CHAPTER 2

  The Basic Skill Set for Working with Heightened Language

  THERE ARE TEN basic skills required to play Shakespeare. Some are identical to the skills required to act realism.

  TEN BASIC SKILLS

  1. Play your action and achieve your objective.

  2. Stay in the moment, listening, not thinking ahead.

  3. Use scansion, phrasing, and the caesura.

  4. Support the thought all the way through the line. The end of the line is often as important, or more important, than the beginning.

  5. Breathe at the correct places.

  6. Let the words be the expression of your thoughts. Do not think, then speak. Speak what you think when you think it.

  7. Understand the speech structure and rhythm.

  8. Play the antithetical words, phrases, and thoughts. Use the caesura to help you. These skills will clarify your phrasing and prevent you from rushing.

  9. Use analysis to understand all words and thought patterns.

  10. Love the imagery.

  These skills will be studied one by one. All actors know that skills are to be mastered and “forgotten,” then revisited during rehearsal. In performance, the moment and the action must take over. Most actors would rather be “involved in the moment” than engaged in the “chore” of text study. Not surprisingly, then, it is more difficult to learn the skills and apply the discipline needed to practice them than it is to forget the skills and allow the moment to take over.

  From the above list, number 1, “play your action,” and number 2, “stay in the moment,” are the same skills used in acting realism. We won’t spend time reviewing them.

  REQUIRED TEXT

  At this point, you need to choose two sections of Shakespearean text: (1) a monologue in blank verse (not prose) and (2) a sonnet. Ten or twelve lines are enough for the monologue, and these can be cut from a longer monologue. Pick a sonnet you enjoy.

  Your selections will probably be regular lines—ten syllables in each—but you may have to adjust to feminine endings or short or shared lines. Rhymed couplets are fine. Scan the lines, mark the feet and stresses, note the elision, circle the caesuras, the breathing places, and the words that break the rhythm.

  I just used a series of words and instructions that you may not understand. Before I explain the ultimate exercise, “kick the box,” we’ll take a detour and learn these terms. You’ll soon be on your feet and working aloud.

  WHAT IS BLANK VERSE?

  My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word.

  RICHARD III, I, ii

  Simply stated, blank verse is a ten-syllable line of English words. It can rhyme with another line or be unrhymed. There are regular and irregular versions of the blank verse line. The ten-syllable line is also called iambic pentameter. Iamb is the Greek word for foot, which has a heel and a toe. Iambic also applies to a word with two syllables wherein one syllable is usually stressed and the other unstressed—like heel-toe, or dee-dum.

  An iambic pentameter is a line of verse that consists of five metrical feet—in this case iambic feet, so we have ten syllables per line.

  Here’s a blank verse line from Hamlet, spoken by Horatio about the Ghost, with the feet separated and the stresses marked: for unstressed syllables; for stressed.*

  Walk around and think of your foot falling “heel toe, heel toe, heel toe, heel toe, heel toe,” and count five feet with ten “syllables.” The “heel” is unstressed and the “toe” is stressed. The stresses in verse are often defined “dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum.” Keep walking and substitute “dee dum” for “heel toe.” That’s the rhythm of blank verse.

  Blank verse was developed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the late sixteenth century and is usually considered the written form closest to actual English speech. You speak blank verse all the time, usually without realizing it. For exampl
e, “What do you want to do this afternoon?” and “Let’s go to town and buy an ice cream cone” are two lines of blank verse! Converse for awhile in blank verse, and write out a few original lines of your own.

  Use this space to write a few lines of original blank verse:

  WHAT IS A REGULAR BLANK VERSE LINE?

  A regular line is comprised of ten syllables with alternating stresses: “Dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum.” In a regular line, the stressed syllable is always the second syllable of each foot. This definition will lead us to suspect that there may be lines which are not “regular.” That is true and, in fact, is a key to how Shakespeare’s language works. He will change the regular rhythm and catch the listener’s ear. Learning to recognize these changes and handle them convincingly is a key to speaking this language. We’ll work on that soon. The blank verse form is used in modern daily life and in classical dramatic text and poetry. Invent a few more blank verse lines for practice.

  I pray you mar no moe of my verses

  with reading them ill-favoredly.

  AS YOU LIKE IT, III, ii

  WHAT ARE FEMININE ENDINGS AND ELISION?

  A blank verse line is sometimes spoken with eleven syllables rather than ten. The final syllable is not stressed and remains soft. The most famous line in Shakespeare illustrates the added syllable, the “dee” without the “dum,” as Hamlet contemplates action.