Playing Shakespeare: An Actor's GuideNow in its first American edition, Playing 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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Playing Shakespeare: an actor's guide
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictWalking the boards in a play by the Bard can be one of the most rewarding and frightening experiences of an actor's life. Drawing on 35 years' experience as associate director of the Royal Shakespeare ... Read full review
Contents
Objective Things | 3 |
Using the VerseHeightened and Naturalistic Verse | 27 |
Taking the Audience with You Ioé | 106 |
Using the SonnetsGoing Over Some Old Ground | 128 |
Subjective Things | 149 |
Passion and CoolnessA Question of Balance | 167 |
Rehearsing the TextOrsino and Viola | 188 |
Io Exploring a CharacterPlaying Shylock | 211 |
Contemporary ShakespeareA Discussion | 227 |
I2 Poetry and Hidden PoetryThree Kinds of Failure | 243 |
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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 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 lord 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 rehearsal rhythm Richard Pasco Roger Rees scene sense sentence Shake Shakespeare's text Sheila Hancock Shylock soliloquy sonnet sooth I know sounds speak speare speech strong stresses talking tell theater thee there's thing thou thought Tony Church Troilus Tubal verse-line viola words
Bibliographic information
| Title | Playing Shakespeare: An Actor's Guide A Methuen paperback |
| Author | John Barton |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Anchor Books, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0385720858, 9780385720854 |
| Length | 265 pages |
| Subjects | › › Drama / Shakespeare Performing Arts / Theater / Stagecraft |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |