And now the advice to the players is coming to an end…

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.

Hamlet’s Advice to the Players continues! There’s a lot he has to say about acting. After all, he wants the lines he wrote in The Mousetrap acted well.

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.

Who knew? It’s so much fun to see a kids show and be entertained by humor also geared towards educated adults. One of the great perks of being a Bard-a-holic is all the jokes and puns you will actually understand in daily life.

Hamlet’s advice to the players continued…

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.

And now the first in the series of posts expounding Hamlet’s Advice to the Players. Let’s begin at the beginning.

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?

In the endless mess of schools, classes, books, websites, and video learning how to act/speak well (especially with Shakespeare’s text) can be daunting, confusing, and just downright hard. How does Ian McKellen do what he does best? What makes Patrick Stewart so easy to listen to? Or Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi?

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.

On monday night I saw a solo performance night (followed by a tribute to) a wonderful local actor who is a genius actor. Especially when it comes to acting Shakespeare. He has half a century of experience acting and teaching Shakespeare and there’s really no one better.

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”?

Since a few of you seemed to like Animaniac’s take on Midsummer, I’ll share with you their excerpt of Hamlet.

I really like Animaniacs. It’s one of those smart entertaining, yet educational show fun for kids as well as their parents. That show has songs that are responsible for many students being able to learn state capitals and all the U.S. Presidents.