By the text acts you, most people mean that Shakespeare’s text is so rich in meaning and tells the story so clearly that it’s unnecessary to work to hard at showing the audience how you feel or telling the story. In other words, don’t color the picture that’s already colored-in.

If the text acts you, how come some actors sound great speaking the text and others give abysmal performances? It’s good advice to talented actors who tend to try too hard and over-act; it’s clearly an over-simplification that’s not meant for everyone. So when you hear it: Caveat Actor.

The text isn’t going to do the work for you. Not just yet, anyway. Let’s not have the idea that acting Shakespeare doesn’t require lots of hard work. First use the imagery, antithesis, punctuation, and all the other text analysis tools you know and love to discover the text. Once you’ve discovered, explore! Find all the different meanings the lines can have with different stresses, tempos, phrasing, and rhythms. Delve into the images, the sounds, the onomatopoeia. Really KNOW the text intimately. When you speak it, you should be able to do anything with it.

It should be a few weeks into rehearsal (for a play or even just a monologue) when you get to this point. Now that the text lives in you, now that it’s bouncing around inside waiting to be released with immense energy; now it’s ready to act you. Once you’ve done all the work, it doesn’t take a lot of work.

So Shakespeare’s text can act you, just not right away. It’s the final stage in creating a performance. It’s what happens when you’ve mastered your speeches to such a degree that the words seem to be spontaneously created in the moment and flow easily from you, trippingly on the tongue.

It’s a great feeling to have text act you, but don’t think that means it’s easy. Helpful? Very. Easy? Of course not. Would it really be worth doing if it were that easy?

I mentioned before I was working on a production of Richard III. The running time at the moment is a little over 3 hours — not including intermission — and it’s cut down a bit. Sure, Richard is a long play but that’s not why it’s running so long. It has to do with the speed of the speech. I’ll not rant about the production in general; the audiences seem to like the show, just not the length. Slow Shakespeare is a peeve of mine. Stop acting between the lines!

Shakespeare’s text is supposed to be spoken trippingly on the tongue, not languidly on the lips. I’ve harped on this string before, but “Harp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.” Because, of course, I don’t want to see or be a part of “bad Shakespeare” if I can help it.

I had the pleasure of meeting David Oyelowo at a screening of Kenneth Branagh’s As You Like It, he played Orlando in the film. In a sort of talk-back session he gave some excellently-phrased advice: “Know what you’re saying and talk as fast as you can.” Simple, isn’t it? Yes. Easy? No. Actors these days are all about making the words sound natural. There’s nothing natural about poetry! Nothing natural about theatre, either. We should always strive to be believable, not natural. Don’t be responsible for sound and fury that signifies nothing.

The speed of the text has a lot to do with that. Shakespeare’s plays (and most other classical works) are not natural everyday speech, it’s thought and action. When people criticize Shakespeare saying “nobody talks like that!” smack them. I mean, say, “That’s the point!” People think a lot faster than they speak, and if the verse is thought, then the words need to move a lot faster than natural speech.

The challenge is to know exactly what you’re saying, why you’re saying it, hit the right words, understand the rhetoric, and make the text clear at a fast pace. But when all that comes together you’ve got a heck of a performance. Why do you think Branagh is so good? He’s not a star for his good looks, I’ll tell you that much.

It’s worth noting at this point that verse needn’t always be spoken quickly. There are moments that can be slowed, there are even occasions for pauses (which Shakespeare may have written in — more on this another day). But in general, the text should be continuous stream of text. The rate may quicken, slow, and pause briefly, but it must flow.

On the page the characters seem loquacious, but on the stage they must be vivacious.

This is a concept that I’ve been a fan of for some time but never had a word for it. Thanks, Roy.

In one of my very first posts on this blog I advised that it is necessary to love language in order to effectively speak Shakespeare’s language. As time goes on I believe it more and more. It’s not enough to understand the words, to know what you want, know who you are, know the relationships. You need to enjoy the SOUND of the words. That’s where sonicky comes it.

Everything in Shakespeare is sonicky.

Today we’re concerned with meaning. Look up definitions of the words or check No Fear Shakespeare for a translation. Okay, now it’s act-able. Well, yes… but that’s not all there is to it. There’s a whole world of work to do, but I’ll try not to get carried away. We’re still talking about the sound of words.

Back in the day the actors, authors, and audiences cared much more than we do about the SOUND of words. Audiences went to HEAR a play. Not only did they want a good story, it had to sound good too. This a huge aspect of the word choices that Shakespeare makes in his plays.

When Richard of Gloucester (soon to be Richard III) speaks “Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths” there’s a lot of meaning contained in just the sound of his words. Look at the first five words. They all have huge, open, similar-sounding vowels. They’re followed soon after by “victorious,” whose change in sound is like that of trumpets welcoming the victorious champion.

How about the line “Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front.” Say “grim-visaged” with a sweet and smiling face. Now try it while scrunching up your face. The image it conjures lends itself to how to say it, and vice-versa. Next — “smoothed” — which is a rather smooth word. “Wrinkled” falls into the same category as “grim-visaged.”

Are you starting to see (or hear) what I’m getting at here?

These words have a particular sound, they conjure a particular image, they serve a particular purpose. The specifics are for you to decide but the point is to be specific in the choices you make. The sound of each word carries much of its emotional content as well as meaning. The sonicky-ness of a character’s words is both his/her head and heart speaking together. Yet another reason why Shakespeare’s works are magical to me.

I’d love to dissect more speeches and concentrate on their sonicky properties, but I’ll let you get to work on that first before you hear any more sound and fury from me on this subject.

Let’s hear it for the Bard!

There’s no end to the advice that can be given on acting Shakespeare, but everything you really need to know is in this text. The rest is just mastering it… which of course takes years and years.

Visit the speech every now and then. You may connect to certain parts better over time. Actually, I can almost guarantee that you will. You’ll see a performance either good or bad, come back to the speech and you’ll discover, “Oh, I see what that means!” or, “That’s why he sucked,” etc. You might even recognize things you’re doing in a performance. Maybe get in the habit of speaking this speech every time before you start a new production.

And now to sum up your actor’s checklist that Hamlet so eloquently spoke in this speech:

• Speak you lines fluently
• Don’t do odd, extraneous movements
• Find the emotional balance between too tame and too wild
• Be honest
• Don’t be “real,” Be believable.
• Don’t add your own lines
• Tell the story

That list is in my words, not Hamlets. I feel those are some of the most important points in the speech. If I were to pick one most important one, it would be the last one on that list. Because you must do all the rest in order to tell the story well.

You’re work is cut out for you. I’m still working on it and I’m plan to always do so. Play. Have fun, make discoveries. Use the wonderful words you are given and your performance will shine. So what are you waiting for?

Go make you ready.

< -- O Reform it Altogether

Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others.

Overdoing moments might make a few people laugh, but everyone else may be rather disgusted. Think of everyone else before you ham up a moment for a cheap laugh. Remember again holding up the mirror to nature – an honesty is required. Once you lose that you lose your audience.

O, there be players that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellow’d that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. O, reform it altogether.

This should sound familiar to you. How many times have you seen a movie with a famous actor who just, well, sucks? There are plenty of actors out there who are “big” whose abilities to believably play another person are rather small.

Notice that I did not say “realistically.” When you hold a mirror up to nature, nature is not in the mirror. It just looks like it. When acting it is not necessary to be “real.” It’s impossibly to be real, you’re pretending. So we, as an audience, must not think that what is happening is real, but we have to believe it.

And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them,

This is no small matter. And it doesn’t just go for clowns. It’s not uncommon for you to want to insert your own words and sounds here and there, and that’s not always a bad thing. What is bad is to deny the text you have been given. If you say a line with no effort into telling the joke, story, etc. but then make a huge funny gesture you have denied what the author so graciously gives you. I have played clown characters, and it can be tempting to add certain words in reaction to a scene for comic effect. Use what’s been given to you. For anything else, ask the director.

for there be of them that will themselves laugh to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be consider’d. That’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

Don’t laugh at your own joke. Have you ever had someone try to tell you a joke but they can’t stop laughing at the thought of it? Then they finally get the joke out and it’s not funny anymore. Or they will laugh while delivering the punch-line. That’s equally unfunny.

And through all that laughing somewhere along the way the audience has missed some important words that might help them enjoy the rest of the play. That doesn’t make you, the actor, look very good. I don’t know if I’ve stressed this enough times yet: Tell the story.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.

You must find a delicate balance between the energy you give to the speech and the naturalism. Too much energy and you’re bombastic, too little and the audience falls asleep. Experiment until you find what feels right.

This is harder than it sounds. Acting Shakespeare’s text is entirely about finding a balance between making yourself understood and letting the words come out, having lots of energy and being relaxed, using the poetry and sounding natural.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action,

This is another part of that balance you must find. Rather than explain this part (it sort of explains itself) I think it’s best that go in a different direction.

What you need to do here is match your intention/objective/motivation to the text. You have a NEED to speak these words in order to get what you want. If you let yourself be taken by the text — don’t force it — to the emotional level that it requires and you are all the while aware of your objective while speaking it, any actions you take will be suited to the words and the words to the action.

with this special observance: that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

Good drama is based in truth. Truth doesn’t necessarily mean realism, but an honest sort of acting. Mean what you say so that what you say has meaning. If you ham it up too much we stop believing you, stop caring, and stop listening.

After all, theatre is all about expressing something about the world we live in, no matter how different the setting may seem from our ordinary lives. That’s why Shakespeare’s works are still produced today. His stories are about the human condition, there are always parts we can relate to. So make your acting something that people can relate to! If you yell and gesture madly the whole time the audience will not want to find anything to relate with. Hold the mirror up to nature, the audience, yourself in performance. Do you like what you see in that mirror?

Find that balance and then the person in that mirror will earn the applause they deserve.
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Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently;

I think you know what this is about. Have you ever seen an actor (or someone in your life) who repeatedly uses the same gesture? It gets old pretty fast. We all have this problem to some degree, but it may be harder to notice in some. Video tape yourself acting a piece and watch it in fast forward. If you see the same gesture over and over: stop doing that! Actors sometimes feel the need for one super strong gesture but it can get pretty annoying. Find actions that match what you’re saying. A downward chopping motion into your other hand means nothing.

for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

I’ve seen an actor onstage who was trying to be mad who just walked back and forth and did the same hand gesture over and over and over. Don’t be him.

Think about the words and what you’re saying. Tell the story, that will create the smoothness. Hamlet is telling us not to get caught up in our passions and splash in our puddle of emotion. Share your words with us. Don’t blast us with noise…

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipt for o’erdoing Termagant, it out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it.

Termagent and Herod were popular roles back in the day and were famous for being over dramatic. Hamlet doesn’t like to see that. It’s not interesting to an audience to see an actor wallowing in their sorrow or anger. A huge spectacle of yelling and screaming doesn’t impress us.

Once you have put in the work to speak the speech trippingly on the tongue, you don’t need to worry so much about tearing “a passion to tatters, to very rags…” because you will let the words just flow out from you. Telling the story is what it’s all about.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue.

With a couple couples of alliteration Hamlet speaks volumes. “Speak the speech … trippingly on the tongue.” Chapters of acting books and entire books have been written on being able to speak a speech trippingly on the tongue. Well what exactly does that mean?

Trippingly means light and quick, with a sense of ease, fluently. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Basically this means that when you speak, it generally shouldn’t sound like you’re proclaiming your lines “Full of Sound and Fury” (Macbeth), but rather let them come out.

Easier said than done. You need a detailed understanding of everything you’re saying, the important words needed to tell the story, awareness of the literary devices that make the verse and prose come alive, memorization of the piece so good that you could recite it in your sleep, and a very well exercised set of articulators (mouth, tongue , lips) for excellent diction. It’s a lot, but who ever said acting was easy?

Having a detailed understanding of everything you say is the end product of a tedious process. There are plenty of arcane words and references in the text to confuse you. Remember though that there are resources out there that will make it easier for you. The internet won’t cut it most of the time. certain books will have nearly everything you need. Remember to check your pronunciation of everything. There are unfamiliar words here and there and everywhere. A few looks similar to words you may be familiar with but they could have a different emPHASis on another syllABle. It may also mean something other than the word it looks like. For example, the word “revenue” may be pronounced (depending on your director/text coach) re-VEN-yoo. Who knew?

Important words in any text aren’t hard to find but less experience actors like to avoid the right ones for some reason. Emphasis must be placed on the words that tell the story. Use those verbs. They are the action words, and are usually your best friends when telling the story. Hit those nouns as well. We need to know what you’re talking about. Hamlet should probably say, “I have of late LOST all my MIRTH.” The rest of the words are just links between the stronger ideas and images — don’t dwell on those links.

Alliteration, assonance, metaphor, allusion, antithesis, imagery. Know what these things are, find them in your text. Let them have significance, play with the poetic language be it prose or verse. Let the punctuation guide you as well. It will help you make sense of the text to yourself and the audience.

Memorize your lines as if your life depended on being word perfect. What’s great about memorizing Shakespeare is that the plays are available at every bookstore and all over the internet! You don’t need to wait for your director to hand you a script or even order a copy. Go online and find them and start memorizing before you start working on the play. The longer you work with the lines, the deeper they will be ingrained into your memory. There is no such thing as speaking fluently when you mind has to work to recall the words. “Take pain, be perfect.” (Midsummer)

Make sure that you over-enunciate every line when you’re practicing. The more you do that the easier good diction will be in performance. The words can be hard enough to understand already. Give your audience the give of clear diction.

But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.

If you just exclaim all your lines, as some do, might as well have a newscaster do it.

In just a couple sentences Hamlet gives us novels of advice. Let the words come out easily! It’s a lot of work to get there but the payoff will be great. Imagine you are in the audience watching yourself. Work hard enough so that you are an actor you love to see onstage, not a weak link in the cast.

Hamlet’s a pretty critical fellow. He’s seen a lot of theatre and knows what he likes to see and what he really doesn’t like. Most audiences know what they like too. Be that — just follow Hamlet’s advice.

There are a lot of wonderful resources out there that can help; I’ve blogged about a few that may help. But when looking for a real concise, simple (though not easy) resource why look any further than the works of The Bard himself?

Shakespeare’s own melancholy Dane has a speech in which he instructs the tragedians how best to play.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipt for o’erdoing Termagant, it out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance: that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellow’d that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be consider’d. That’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

Over the next few posts I will be dissecting the speech and discussing individual parts of it so that I can cover some specifics of the advice about acting. In the mean time: look it over, familiarize yourself with it. It’s a good one to know.

There’s something incredibly humbling yet superbly inspiring in seeing a performance by a seasoned actor… one whose YEARS of training and experience have given them a great deal of wisdom and huge sense of ease in performance. Younger (and I don’t just mean kids, teens, or college) actors have a tendency to show an audience how hard they’re working and expel so much energy that we may lose track of the story being told. Emphasis is placed all over the place and it become a show “full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

“O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags…” A WISE actor knows that their lines should seem to just fall out of their mouths. To just talk to the other characters and the audience. Text that is ingrained into an actor’s soul because it has been there for years, as well as the wisdom of how to effectively tell a story to (not AT) an audience create a truly spellbinding performance.

Actors: aspire to this kind of performance wisdom. I sure do — I’m trying to figure out how to be like someone who has had more years experience than I have existed — I’ll let you know if I ever figure that one out. Everyone else: be aware of it this quality in people in performance. If movies are all you have access to, that’s fine. But there’s a different sort of magic when you’re right there in front of such a powerful actor.

Next time you see a play by Shakespeare (or not), recognize if the actor is proclaiming their lines or if they’re just talking. Are you seeing “a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more,” or “A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor”?