The modern actor and performing Shakespeare
The theatre in the 19th century underwent a revolution and plays written previous to that had a totally different approach to theatricality and characterisation.
In Shakespeare and classical theatre in general, the context is created by the characters, whereas the naturalistic theatre that emerges in the 19th century creates characters who are subservient to the context. That is to say that the context is created first and the characters then developed to give life to the context.
This creates 2 particular differences which are fundamental when acting in the two disciplines.
Firstly – one has to examine the working practices that were in place and for which the plays were written up until the 19th century notion of “rehearsal” came into being. As everything was written by hand, no one would bother to write out the entire play for each character. It follows then that the actor playing Romeo (for example) would have only his cue-script and not be aware of the rest of the action in the play.
This means that everything that the actor needs to play Romeo must, perforce, be contained within his lines. The preparation process was also determined by the working practices of the time. It is known that no play was ever performed two days running. Henslowe’s diary shows that 150 plays were performed in a single season. Any notion of rehearsal as we understand it would have been impossible – there simply would not have been the time available.
So preparation for performance would consequently have been an individual process; any collective time being consecrated to the fights and dances. And the writing reflects this. Shakespeare’s particular genius is the way he manipulates what happens to the characters by manipulating what happens to the actors. At the end of Measure for Measure, for example, Isabella finds herself being married off to the Duke – and yet she has no response! Imagine you are playing Isabella and do not know the story – all you know from your cue script is that you are on stage with nothing to say – and you are watching and listening to the dialogue. What the actor will feel is what the character feels. Modern acting techniques are all about preparing the actor to react in the situation with a prior knowledge of the situation – Shakespeare is about reacting to the situation as it evolves.
The second difference concerns sub-text or the psychology of acting. In Shakespeare there is no sub-text. Again there cannot be, because of the actor’s ignorance of the context in which his/her character finds themselves. An exception may be moments like Iago’s manipulation of Othello – but he is lying. He knows he is lying, the audience knows he is lying. This is not the same as developing subtext as is taught in modern theatre. In naturalistic theatre acting, what is not said is often more important than what is said. This is not the case with Shakespeare. What a character says is what they feel.
So applying modern acting techniques to Shakespeare is inappropriate because the text already contains everything necessary for the character to live. Entering into deep psychological motivations and trying to layer the character with external (to the lines) ideas will diminish the power and intensity of the characters as created by the playwright.
With Shakespeare the actor needs to be guided by the text first & foremost and allow the vocalisation of the lines determine what he or she FEELS when saying those lines.
To misquote Hamlet "there is nothing so destructive to Shakespeare but thinking make it so".
I have done an enormous amount of research into the working practices and the original staging and have come to the conclusions that I have based on my experiences as an actor & director. My research has been with the aim of returning Shakespearean performance to its most theatrical. By its most theatrical I mean the direct contact between the actor and the audience. The texts were written in a specific way for specific actors working under specific conditions. As were/are plays today. One could not use the practices of Shakespearean players to approach a play as intellectually profound as Hedda Gabler, for example. The result would be a total disaster. (At least, I imagine it would; it might be a very interesting acting exercise to experiment with but I would not feel one had the right to inflict the result on a paying audience!)
The subtext issue is, I feel, fundamental. Without subtext work by the actor, modern theatre and acting is shallow, two dimensional and often simply unbelievable in the sense of "willing suspension of disbelief". Actors are taught to consider the words spoken as the tip of the iceberg as to what is happening to the character.
Trying to apply this technique to Shakespeare creates many problems. Firstly where do you go for the subtext? Into your own lines? How can you create a subtext out of your lines if you don't know what the other character is going to say? What possible subtext can there be for "wherefore art thou Romeo?"?
Secondly his characters rarely "think" before they speak and or act. If Romeo stopped for a moment and thought about what he was doing and saying ... well there would be no story. His actions and reactions are totally spontaneous and actually pretty stupid if you take a step backwards and reflect. It is that sense of immediacy, of non intellectualism, that makes Shakespeare so exciting to perform and to watch. Which is why I consider the original practices so important when approaching the performing of Shakespeare. Not as an academic or scholastic museum piece; but when you understand that the author was putting words into the mouths of actors who had no idea what was happening in the rest of the play - you have to trust the author totally and just say what you have to say.
How does one define "subtext"?. Modern acting techniques teach the actor to ask the question "what is the character really thinking?" - which is rarely what he actually says. There is a wonderful Youtube video of the balcony scene in Annie Hall between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton with the subtext as subtitles. It is really funny and so true and what gives a richness to that scene; which has a written dialogue of the utmost banality.
Whilst one could say that "subtext is the inner life of the character", the danger of doing the sort of exercise that you can / should / must do when playing an Ibsen or a Chekhov with Shakespeare is that you risk letting your intellect get in the way of your feelings. Meisner's exercise of saying the text neutrally becomes impossible with Shakespeare because his manipulation of the verse and the verbal conceits will take over the emotions of the actor if you let it.
Another term could be "pursuing the objective". That is totally coherent with Shakespearean acting and indeed is likely to enliven the performances even more. Again, as the player is working in isolation, when the players come together they might find themselves pursuing different and often opposing or antipathetic objectives. This produces a conflict and therefore drama. If I am steadfastly pursuing my objective and don't know what yours is, while you are steadfastly pursuing yours ... well that must be riveting to watch, from an audience's point of view!
Taking into account the working practices as I described earlier, any consistency of characterisation must be found exclusively in the character's words. Again what makes Shakespeare exciting is that the player has at best the vaguest knowledge of the rest of the action. By applying modern acting techniques we are circumventing the very gifts that are inherent in the way the texts have been "wrought" for the players.
For modern actors approaching Shakespearean performance, there is the fact that the texts are largely known and familiar to many of us. But few have a complete and thorough knowledge of the plays and I would suggest that, as far as possible, the first contact with the texts and the situations is with as little knowledge as possible; in order to allow the actors to be surprised when things happen. Rehearsal is a preparation progress and part of the actor's skill set is to retain what s/he discovers during the process for the rest of the run or rehearsal period. So whilst the purity and total surprise element can never be completely preserved, I feel that an actor should be able to keep in their sense memory the feelings that they underwent in the rehearsal process.
Concerning audiences and their expectations, there is a quote from Andrew Gurr's book "staging in Shakespeare's Theatres" ...
“Unless we can bring to the words a fairly distinct idea of what they (the audiences) and their authors expected, we lose much that was inherent in the scripts”
It was recorded that most of Shakespeare’s plays lasted around 2 hours at the time. This means either the texts as we know them now were hugely cut or that there was a speed of delivery that would astonish audiences today. I would question why such speed is impossible today. I would also suggest that the contemplation and intellectualism that one sees so often in modern Shakespearean productions does the work a disservice by diminishing the passion and the "roller coaster" feeling that - to my mind - makes Shakespeare so exciting.
Another point to take into account is the best theatre writing is always when the audience has information that the characters don't. It can be used to create comic situations or incredibly poignant ones such as in Cymbeline when Pisanio takes Imogen to Milford Haven and she thinks it's to protect her whereas he is under instructions to kill her. To refer back to the question "how do you keep this alive after you know?" I think IF one had managed to keep the actor in ignorance, when she discovered the "truth" she should be able to use sufficient emotional recall when subsequently rehearsing and performing.
Given the pressure the players were under, the lack of time for rehearsal as we would understand it and the general working practices, I see the way the characters interact and are placed in conflicting situations as being Shakespeare manipulating the players to undergo the same emotions as the characters they were portraying. Imagine Dogberry's frustration at not being able to get his information about Don John's scheming across to Hero's father before the wedding. And Hero's father's irritation with this annoying man. The audience knows but the players don't.
The theatre in the 19th century underwent a revolution and plays written previous to that had a totally different approach to theatricality and characterisation.
In Shakespeare and classical theatre in general, the context is created by the characters, whereas the naturalistic theatre that emerges in the 19th century creates characters who are subservient to the context. That is to say that the context is created first and the characters then developed to give life to the context.
This creates 2 particular differences which are fundamental when acting in the two disciplines.
Firstly – one has to examine the working practices that were in place and for which the plays were written up until the 19th century notion of “rehearsal” came into being. As everything was written by hand, no one would bother to write out the entire play for each character. It follows then that the actor playing Romeo (for example) would have only his cue-script and not be aware of the rest of the action in the play.
This means that everything that the actor needs to play Romeo must, perforce, be contained within his lines. The preparation process was also determined by the working practices of the time. It is known that no play was ever performed two days running. Henslowe’s diary shows that 150 plays were performed in a single season. Any notion of rehearsal as we understand it would have been impossible – there simply would not have been the time available.
So preparation for performance would consequently have been an individual process; any collective time being consecrated to the fights and dances. And the writing reflects this. Shakespeare’s particular genius is the way he manipulates what happens to the characters by manipulating what happens to the actors. At the end of Measure for Measure, for example, Isabella finds herself being married off to the Duke – and yet she has no response! Imagine you are playing Isabella and do not know the story – all you know from your cue script is that you are on stage with nothing to say – and you are watching and listening to the dialogue. What the actor will feel is what the character feels. Modern acting techniques are all about preparing the actor to react in the situation with a prior knowledge of the situation – Shakespeare is about reacting to the situation as it evolves.
The second difference concerns sub-text or the psychology of acting. In Shakespeare there is no sub-text. Again there cannot be, because of the actor’s ignorance of the context in which his/her character finds themselves. An exception may be moments like Iago’s manipulation of Othello – but he is lying. He knows he is lying, the audience knows he is lying. This is not the same as developing subtext as is taught in modern theatre. In naturalistic theatre acting, what is not said is often more important than what is said. This is not the case with Shakespeare. What a character says is what they feel.
So applying modern acting techniques to Shakespeare is inappropriate because the text already contains everything necessary for the character to live. Entering into deep psychological motivations and trying to layer the character with external (to the lines) ideas will diminish the power and intensity of the characters as created by the playwright.
With Shakespeare the actor needs to be guided by the text first & foremost and allow the vocalisation of the lines determine what he or she FEELS when saying those lines.
To misquote Hamlet "there is nothing so destructive to Shakespeare but thinking make it so".
I have done an enormous amount of research into the working practices and the original staging and have come to the conclusions that I have based on my experiences as an actor & director. My research has been with the aim of returning Shakespearean performance to its most theatrical. By its most theatrical I mean the direct contact between the actor and the audience. The texts were written in a specific way for specific actors working under specific conditions. As were/are plays today. One could not use the practices of Shakespearean players to approach a play as intellectually profound as Hedda Gabler, for example. The result would be a total disaster. (At least, I imagine it would; it might be a very interesting acting exercise to experiment with but I would not feel one had the right to inflict the result on a paying audience!)
The subtext issue is, I feel, fundamental. Without subtext work by the actor, modern theatre and acting is shallow, two dimensional and often simply unbelievable in the sense of "willing suspension of disbelief". Actors are taught to consider the words spoken as the tip of the iceberg as to what is happening to the character.
Trying to apply this technique to Shakespeare creates many problems. Firstly where do you go for the subtext? Into your own lines? How can you create a subtext out of your lines if you don't know what the other character is going to say? What possible subtext can there be for "wherefore art thou Romeo?"?
Secondly his characters rarely "think" before they speak and or act. If Romeo stopped for a moment and thought about what he was doing and saying ... well there would be no story. His actions and reactions are totally spontaneous and actually pretty stupid if you take a step backwards and reflect. It is that sense of immediacy, of non intellectualism, that makes Shakespeare so exciting to perform and to watch. Which is why I consider the original practices so important when approaching the performing of Shakespeare. Not as an academic or scholastic museum piece; but when you understand that the author was putting words into the mouths of actors who had no idea what was happening in the rest of the play - you have to trust the author totally and just say what you have to say.
How does one define "subtext"?. Modern acting techniques teach the actor to ask the question "what is the character really thinking?" - which is rarely what he actually says. There is a wonderful Youtube video of the balcony scene in Annie Hall between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton with the subtext as subtitles. It is really funny and so true and what gives a richness to that scene; which has a written dialogue of the utmost banality.
Whilst one could say that "subtext is the inner life of the character", the danger of doing the sort of exercise that you can / should / must do when playing an Ibsen or a Chekhov with Shakespeare is that you risk letting your intellect get in the way of your feelings. Meisner's exercise of saying the text neutrally becomes impossible with Shakespeare because his manipulation of the verse and the verbal conceits will take over the emotions of the actor if you let it.
Another term could be "pursuing the objective". That is totally coherent with Shakespearean acting and indeed is likely to enliven the performances even more. Again, as the player is working in isolation, when the players come together they might find themselves pursuing different and often opposing or antipathetic objectives. This produces a conflict and therefore drama. If I am steadfastly pursuing my objective and don't know what yours is, while you are steadfastly pursuing yours ... well that must be riveting to watch, from an audience's point of view!
Taking into account the working practices as I described earlier, any consistency of characterisation must be found exclusively in the character's words. Again what makes Shakespeare exciting is that the player has at best the vaguest knowledge of the rest of the action. By applying modern acting techniques we are circumventing the very gifts that are inherent in the way the texts have been "wrought" for the players.
For modern actors approaching Shakespearean performance, there is the fact that the texts are largely known and familiar to many of us. But few have a complete and thorough knowledge of the plays and I would suggest that, as far as possible, the first contact with the texts and the situations is with as little knowledge as possible; in order to allow the actors to be surprised when things happen. Rehearsal is a preparation progress and part of the actor's skill set is to retain what s/he discovers during the process for the rest of the run or rehearsal period. So whilst the purity and total surprise element can never be completely preserved, I feel that an actor should be able to keep in their sense memory the feelings that they underwent in the rehearsal process.
Concerning audiences and their expectations, there is a quote from Andrew Gurr's book "staging in Shakespeare's Theatres" ...
“Unless we can bring to the words a fairly distinct idea of what they (the audiences) and their authors expected, we lose much that was inherent in the scripts”
It was recorded that most of Shakespeare’s plays lasted around 2 hours at the time. This means either the texts as we know them now were hugely cut or that there was a speed of delivery that would astonish audiences today. I would question why such speed is impossible today. I would also suggest that the contemplation and intellectualism that one sees so often in modern Shakespearean productions does the work a disservice by diminishing the passion and the "roller coaster" feeling that - to my mind - makes Shakespeare so exciting.
Another point to take into account is the best theatre writing is always when the audience has information that the characters don't. It can be used to create comic situations or incredibly poignant ones such as in Cymbeline when Pisanio takes Imogen to Milford Haven and she thinks it's to protect her whereas he is under instructions to kill her. To refer back to the question "how do you keep this alive after you know?" I think IF one had managed to keep the actor in ignorance, when she discovered the "truth" she should be able to use sufficient emotional recall when subsequently rehearsing and performing.
Given the pressure the players were under, the lack of time for rehearsal as we would understand it and the general working practices, I see the way the characters interact and are placed in conflicting situations as being Shakespeare manipulating the players to undergo the same emotions as the characters they were portraying. Imagine Dogberry's frustration at not being able to get his information about Don John's scheming across to Hero's father before the wedding. And Hero's father's irritation with this annoying man. The audience knows but the players don't.
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