Clues to Acting Shakespeare (3rd ed) Read online

  Bolingbroke: They love not poison that do poison need, (1)

  Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead, (2)

  I hate the murderer, love him murdered. (3)

  The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labor, (4)

  But neither my good word nor princely favor. (5)

  With Cain go wander through the shade of night, (6)

  And never show thy head by day nor light. (V, vi) (7)

  Note: Line 6 follows the Folio. The Pelican edition prefers “through shades of night.”

  In As You Like It, the shepherdess, Phebe, is in love with Rosalind, who is disguised as a man and has rejected her.

  Phebe: Think not I love him, though I ask for him; (1)

  ’Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well. (2)

  But what care I for words? Yet words do well (3)

  When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. (4)

  It is a pretty youth; not very pretty: (5)

  But, sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him. (6)

  He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him (7)

  Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue (8)

  Did make offense, his eye did heal it up. (9)

  He is not very tall; yet for his years he’s tall. (10)

  His leg is but so so; and yet ‘tis well. (11)

  There was a pretty redness in his lip, (12)

  A little riper and more lusty red (13)

  Than that mixed in his cheek; ’twas just the difference (14)

  Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. (15)

  There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him (16)

  In parcels as I did, would have gone near (17)

  To fall in love with him; but, for my part, (18)

  I love him not nor hate him not; and yet (19)

  I have more cause to hate him than to love him; (20)

  For what had he to do to chide at me? (21)

  He said mine eyes were black and my hair black; (22)

  And, now I am rememb’red, scorned at me. (23)

  I marvel why I answered not again. (24)

  But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance. (25)

  I’ll write to him a very taunting letter, (26)

  And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius? (27)

  Silvius: Phebe, with all my heart. (28)

  Phebe: I’ll write it straight; (29)

  The matter’s in my head and in my heart; (30)

  I will be bitter with him and passing short. (31)

  Go with me, Silvius. (III, v) (32)

  In this speech, you will find an antithesis not found in the previous two examples.

  When lines have no antithetical thoughts, check to see if any ideas are antithetical to something spoken by another person. Note this example from The Merchant of Venice:

  Bassanio: This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, (1)

  To excuse the current of thy cruelty. (2)

  Shylock: I am not bound to please thee with my answer. (3)

  Bassanio: Do all men kill the things they do not love? (4)

  Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill? (5)

  Bassanio: Every offense is not a hate at first. (6)

  Shylock: What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? (IV, i) (7)

  In lines 2 through 7, the idea in each line is antithetical to the next line. You will find many similar exchanges in Shakespeare. Watch for them and play them accordingly. (There is nothing in the answer key about this example.)

  You will find many lines and short speeches with no antithetical words, phrases, or thoughts—just straightforward dialogue. In these cases, use the scansion and kick the box.

  As a final example, let’s look at one sonnet. The sonnets are rich in antithetical words, phrases, and thoughts. They are also rich in imagery, which we will consider in chapter 10.

  Sonnet 15

  When I consider everything that grows (1)

  Holds in perfection but a little moment, (2)

  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows (3)

  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; (4)

  When I perceive that men as plants increase, (5)

  Cheered and checked even by the selfsame sky, (6)

  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, (7)

  And wear their brave state out of memory: (8)

  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay (9)

  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, (10)

  Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay (11)

  To change your day of youth to sullied night; (12)

  And, all in war with Time for love of you, (13)

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new. (14)

  You will discover wonderful antithetical words, phrases, and thoughts in this remarkable sonnet, some of which are included in the answer key.

  Hath that awakened you?

  Ay, but not frighted me.

  THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, V, ii

  Before moving on, take your monologue and sonnet and work out the antithetical words, phrases, and thoughts. It’s more fun if you have a few people work with you and have someone check your readings after you’ve added the antithesis.

  CHAPTER 9

  Text Analysis

  By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes.

  MACBETH, IV, i

  THE SKILLS WE’VE been working on are part of “analyzing a text.” Each of the following skills is a form of analysis:

  • Scanning the lines

  • Locating where the rhythm breaks

  • Using elision and the feminine ending

  • Identifying short or shared lines

  • Noting caesuras

  • Marking the breathing spots

  • Supporting final words and phrases (kicking the box)

  • Discovering and separating phrases

  • Not running thoughts together

  • Stressing the antithetical words, phrases, and thoughts

  • Considering the speech structure

  • Understanding the various meanings of each word

  • Identifying the imagery

  As each of these skills is critical to acting Shakespeare successfully, analysis is not an academic exercise. Only when analysis of the text is completed and the words are spoken aloud should an actor proceed to “character analysis.”

  ANOTHER DIVERSION

  How is analysis tied to playing your action? With Shakespeare, once you know what the language is doing (rhythm changes, antithetical thoughts, etc.) and what it is saying (meaning of all the words, etc.), achieving your objective by playing your action is the same as with realistic text.

  There is this difference—in realism, the action you want to play may be buried in the subtext. In Shakespeare, the action is stated in the words themselves. We have returned to a point made earlier: You can’t make character choices—including which action to play—until what the language is doing and saying is absolutely clear.

  For examples, refer again to “Working with Subtext” on pages 46 to 49.

  Complete analysis of a script or sonnet includes even more than the application of those skills that are designed to help us speak the text clearly. It also includes in-depth study of word meanings. Various words had different meanings in the year 1600 than they do now. The actor needs to know as closely as possible what the word meant to Shakespeare, for this will help determine what he intended the line to mean. Immediate sources for these meanings are The Shakespeare Lexicon (see bibliography) and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The OED will clarify the meaning of every word at the time of origin. Check every word in your monologue and sonnet to understand what the word meant in Shakespeare’s time. Write the meaning in your text.

  Knowing the various ways in which a word might be used leaves the actor freedom of choice. The character will choose the use of the word that helps play the action.

&nb
sp; On the other hand, when an actor doesn’t bother to dig out the possible meanings of a word and makes an early choice on what the word may mean, the character can become locked into that reading. The action, however, may lead in another direction.

  Following is an example of “in-depth” study to determine what is being said in blank verse lines. From the point of view of simply interpreting words and phrases, we will do a basic analysis of Sonnet 15. For this analysis, footnotes from various editions, comments from scholars, and personal observations will be used. What each word means or could imply will be worked out.

  Begin the text analysis of either scene dialogue or a sonnet by discovering what each word means. Most editions include footnotes that explain unfamiliar words or phrases, but the notes from various editions might differ. Consult at least three.

  For analysis of scene dialogue, you will discover that there are hundreds of studies of each of Shakespeare’s plays. Some of these are useful to the actor, and a few examples are listed in part six. You should also be aware of a collection called the “New Variorum Edition,” in which the words, lines, and ideas are fully annotated. Each page contains only a few lines of text and a few dozen lines of footnotes. Sometimes the opinions of eight or ten different scholars or directors are quoted.

  For analysis of the sonnets, complete annotation is available in numerous critical studies. Two texts will be used here, and both are available to purchase for your personal library. Scholarly texts about the sonnets may seem complex at first. With practice, however, they become quite accessible. For the most part, they trace the usage of a word or phrase, and this can be helpful to the actor. Read through the following examples.

  I should think this a gull, but that

  the white-bearded fellow speaks it.

  MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, II, iii

  DETAILED EXAMPLE

  Sonnet 15

  When I consider everything that grows (1)

  Holds in perfection but a little moment, (2)

  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows (3)

  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; (4)

  When I perceive that men as plants increase, (5)

  Cheered and checked even by the selfsame sky, (6)

  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, (7)

  And wear their brave state out of memory: (8)

  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay (9)

  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, (10)

  Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay (11)

  To change your day of youth to sullied night; (12)

  And, all in war with Time for love of you, (13)

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new. (14)

  First, review the footnotes to the sonnet provided in your text. Then, read the footnotes listed here, as provided in the edition we have used throughout this book, The Pelican Shakespeare, edited by Alfred Harbage, and as provided in the HarperCollins edition, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by David Bevington. The edition also includes all research used for The Bantam Shakespeare.

  THE PELICAN SHAKESPEARE

  HARPERCOLLINS/BANTAM SHAKESPEARE

  Line 3, stage—the world

  Line 4, in secret influence comment—provide a silent commentary by influencing the action

  Line 2, holds in perfection—provide a silent commentary by influencing the action

  Line 6, Cheered and checked—applauded and hissed or nourished and starved

  Line 7, vaunt—boast

  Line 8, brave—splendid; out of memory—until forgotten

  Line 9, conceit—idea; stay—duration

  Line 11, wasteful—destructive; debateth—joins forces, fights

  Line 14, engraft—graft, infuse new life into, with poetry (Harbage, 1455).

  Line 2, holds in perfection—xsmaintains its prime

  Line 5, as—like

  Line 7, sap—vigor; at height decrease—i.e. no sooner reach full maturity but they (humans) start to decline

  Line 9, conceit—notion; inconstant stay—mutable brief time (on earth)

  Line 11, wasteful ... Decay—i.e. Time and Decay contend to see who can ruin you fastest, or join forces to do so, debating between them the best procedure

  Line 13, all in war—I, fighting with might and main (Bevington, 1619).

  For critical analysis of Sonnet 15, the following selections are taken from four pages of notes in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited with commentary by Stephen Booth, and a few examples selected from two pages of notes in William Shakespeare: The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint, edited by John Kerrigan.

  KERRIGAN: Line 3: This huge stage presenteth naught but shows. A renaissance commonplace; compare As You Like It II, 7.138–40. ‘This wide and universal theatre/Presents more woeful pageants than the scene/Wherein we play in’; and Jaques’ reply, ‘All the world’s a stage . . .’

  BOOTH: Line 4: This line is metrically unusual; it asks to be pronounced as a twelve-syllable, six-stress line, and sounds good when pronounced that way. [Note: As an actor reading this sonnet, you must choose between a twelve-syllable line or a feminine ending on “comment.” You would probably ignore the twelve-syllable suggestion, elide “influence” to “influ’nce” and select the feminine ending.]

  BOOTH: Lines 1–4: The quatrain moves in an appropriately orbital path. It begins with I consider and concludes with the stars . . . comment; it travels far from its starting place and ends up far from its starting place, but, in a way, the quatrain returns to its starting point, because line 4 can activate the atrophied literal meaning of “to consider”: “to look at the stars” (from Latin cum and sidus, sider-). Lines 3 and 4 are a complicated inversion of I consider.

  KERRIGAN: Line 4: Renaissance astrologers believed that the stars affected men by pouring down an ethereal fluid; this they called influence.

  BOOTH: Line 6: Cheered encouraged (“to cheer” did not yet have its modern and special theatrical meaning, “to shout applause”).

  BOOTH: Line 7: . . . at height decrease having reached their prime, begin to decline (height describes the peak of an actor’s career—or that of one of the heroes he plays; the full growth of a plant, and the highest point reached by a celestial body in its passage across the sky).

  BOOTH: Line 8: And wear their splendid finery (brave state) beyond the time when anyone remembers them or the outdated fashions they wear.

  BOOTH: Line 10: Sets you, places you, that is, evokes your image. Rich in youth (1) opulent, magnificent during the time of your youthfulness (in indicating duration); (2) possessed of abundance of youthfulness (in indicating that to which the attribute is limited); (3) richly clothed in youthfulness (in expressing relation to that which covers). (Booth, 155–157)

  KERRIGAN: Line 12: sullied night. The contrast with day of youth suggests ‘old age, with all its disfigurements’ rather than ‘death.’

  KERRIGAN: Line 13: all in war battling with all my might. The poet replaces Decay as Time’s antagonist (Kerrigan, 192–193).

  Where did you study all this goodly speech?

  THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, II, i

  This research is part of your personal text analysis as itemized on page 64. Now, as you begin rehearsal, nothing is unclear and the choices are at your fingertips. We haven’t yet studied imagery, but locating images is also part of your analysis and is the subject of the next chapter.

  It may be comforting to know that, for the most part, analyzing sonnets is more difficult than analyzing dramatic text. The ideas and images are more compressed.

  This type of analysis for each sonnet and play is available in much more detail in most libraries. Some of the research texts listed in part five can easily be added to your personal library.

  Discovering the meaning of Shakespeare’s language is a world unto itself. Once you enter into it and become excited about the riches hidden there, escape seems impossible. The wealth that you discover is transferred to your character, who, in r
ehearsal or performance, is supplied with rich, verbal treasures. To apply this type of analysis to your material takes only discipline and time.

  • Using the edition from which you took your monologue and sonnet, compile the footnotes or endnotes related to your material.

  • Obtain at least two other editions of both the monologue and the sonnet, and compile those footnotes.

  • Study the analysis of your sonnet from at least two different authors; you may have to choose between numerous interpretations.

  • Read the entire play and various analyses of the play from which you selected your monologue.

  • Be certain to check the OED for various meanings of each word.

  But thou art deeper read, and better skilled.

  TITUS ANDRONICUS, IV, i

  Answers from page 61: line 3, “purses”—“garments” and “proud”—“poor”; lines 3/4, “garments poor”—“body rich”; line 4, “mind”—“body”; line 5, “sun”—“clouds”; and note that the thoughts in lines 5 and 6 are a simile, not an antithesis.

  Answer from page 61: line 2, “prison”—“world”; lines 3/4, “populous”—“myself”; line 5, “cannot do it” to both “hammer it out” (also in line 5) and “compare” in line 1; line 6, “brain”—“soul”; lines 6/7, “female”—“father”; lines 9/10, “thoughts”—“humors.” Antithetical ideas: he will no longer be alone if he can hammer out thoughts into people (the cell will become populous).

  CHAPTER 10

  Love the Imagery

  I ONCE ASKED a fine professional actress what she thought was meant by imagery. She said, “In a text? Well, certain words allow me to draw pictures for the audience—put pictures in their minds. I think that is imagery.”

  Here is Webster’s first definition of imagery: The formation of mental images.

  The images in Shakespeare’s language are expressions of the character’s state of mind at that moment. Thousands of papers and books have been written about this subject, and you might want to study some of them at your leisure. For our purposes, remember this: Shakespeare’s characters speak what they are thinking, and they communicate much of the time through imagery. That imagery is often a very strong clue to who the character is.