Speaking Shakespeare - Softcover

Rodenburg, Patsy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1403965404 ISBN 13: 9781403965400

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004

Synopsis

In Speaking Shakespeare, Patsy Rodenburg tackles one of the most difficult acting jobs: speaking Shakespeare's words both as they were meant to be spoken and in an understandable and dramatic way. Rodenburg calls this "a simple manual to start the journey into the heart of Shakespeare," and that is what she gives us. With the same insight she displayed in The Actor Speaks, Rodenburg tackles the playing of all Shakespeare's characters. She uses dramatic resonance, breathing, and placement to show how an actor can bring Hamlet, Rosalind, Puck and other characters to life. This is one book every working actor must have.

About this title

About the Author

Patsy Rodenburg, OBE, has been the Director of Voice at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London for 26 years and until recently at the Royal National Theatre. She trained in Voice Studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama and is recognized as one of the world's leading voice teachers and coaches, and also as a renowned authority on Shakespeare. Patsy has worked regularly with the best-known actors of the British theatre, including Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, and Daniel Day-Lewis, to name a few, as well as many of the biggest stars of film and television such as Nicole Kidman, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Jackman, and Natalie Portman. She was previously in residence with the Royal Shakespeare Company for 9 years and has worked with The Royal Court Theatre, Donmar and Almeida Theatre in London. She has also worked extensively with many of the great world theaters such as the Moscow Art Theatre and Comédie-Francaise. Patsy's home in America is at the renowned Michael Howard Studios in New York City where she teaches workshops for the professional actor. Under the Michael Howard Studios banner. She travels around the world teaching and speaking, from Los Angeles to Canada to Portugal to Australia, and in November 2012, will bring her expertise to India. Patsy is also a best-selling author whose notable publications include Speaking Shakespeare, The Right to Speak, The Need For Words, The Actor Speaks, The Second Circle, and Power Presentation.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Speaking Shakespeare

By Patsy Rodenburg

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2002 Patsy Rodenburg
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4039-6540-0

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
Acknowledgements, 
Preface, 
Part 1: Foundation Craft, 
Foundation Craft, 
The Body, 
The State of Readiness, 
Breath, 
Support, 
Freeing the Voice, 
Placing the Free Voice, 
Consolidation, 
Deepening the Work, 
Range and Resonance, 
Clear Speech, 
Listening, 
Hamlet's Advice, 
Part 2: Structure, 
The Givens, 
The Word, 
Alliteration, Assonance, Onomatopoeia, 
Rhythm, 
Pauses and Irregularities of Rhythm, 
The Line, 
The Thought and the Structuring of Thoughts, 
The Structure of Scenes, 
Antithesis, 
Rhyme, 
Prose, 
Irony, 
Puns, 
Language games, 
Repetition, 
The Story, 
Location, 
Stage Directions, Props, Entrances and Exits, 
Soliloquy, 
Part 3: The Imaginative, 
The Imaginative Exploration of the Text, 
Anchoring the Text, 
Focus and Energy, 
Summary, 
Part 4: The Speeches, 
Richard III, 
Julius Caesar, 
Measure for Measure, 
King Lear, 
King Lear, 
As You Like It, 
Much Ado About Nothing, 
The Merchant of Venice, 
Othello, 
Henry V, 
The Winter's Tale, 
Macbeth, 
Twelfth Night, 
A Midsummer Night's Dream, 
Antony and Cleopatra, 
Coriolanus, 
Cymbeline, 
King John, 
Part 5: Checklists, 
Preparing the Body, Breath, Voice and Speech, 
The Givens, 
The Imaginative, 
About the Author, 
Also by Patsy Rodenburg, 
Praise for Patsy Rodenburg, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

Foundation Craft

At the Guildhall School of Music and Drama I don't teach my students Shakespeare until their second year. The reason is pragmatic: until the body, breath, support, voice and speech muscles are thoroughly worked and tuned it is extremely hard to realise and release such physical and sensual texts.

First year work on language sensitises the students to structure, rhythm, imagery and poetry. Language must be important to them – a powerful tool. This means they have to explore how they use language and how language affects them. Many of them have to rediscover the potential of language to make concrete and transform inner and outer worlds. Within a year of language-based exercises they begin to understand how powerful and poetic their own language can be. They realise what an armoury they have at their disposal.

In the first year they learn to memorise accurately and effortlessly so that the momentum and precision of great texts is honoured. There is no substitute for learning texts fully and completely. My students learn passages from complex texts every week. They learn mediaeval, Elizabethan, Metaphysical, eighteenth-century and Romantic texts: they touch base with Chaucer, Spencer, Donne, Milton and Pope. The important part of this training is to learn accurately and to practise regularly. I want them to feel the language – the words, thought structures and images – flowing in their bloodstreams, a familiar part of them rather than something baffling, strange or difficult.

This grounding in language is particularly important for Shakespeare. The passionate exchange of ideas and feeling through words has always been the blood and oxygen of English-speaking theatre, a theatre built on heightened poetic text. In this Shakespeare is the master. His plays are highly struct

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1403965404
• ISBN 13: 9781403965400
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356