Approaching Shakespeare can be a daunting and challenging task for any actor. But it’s an important skill to have. There are a lot of Shakespeare productions put on every year and, if you’re applying to drama school, chances are you will have to perform one for your audition. There are a few things that can help you to demystify the text, and I’m here to help you with that. So, with no further ado, here is how to work on Shakespeare for actors.
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Know What You’re Talking About
The first thing you need to do is know what you’re character is talking about. You can’t work on your monologue at all until you’ve done this. It can be hard to understand at first, due to the poetic nature of the text. So, a good thing to do is to translate it into modern English. How would you say these things today? Make sure to make a note of any specific words you don’t understand and look them up.
If you’re really stuck, check out No Fear Shakespeare, where you can read full translations of many plays. Don’t worry, you’re not cheating! It’s simply research and using the tools you need in order to do your job.
This is something that gets easier with practice, and the first step to how to work on Shakespeare for actors.
Verse or Prose?
The next step is in how to work on Shakespeare for actors is to figure out if your character speaks in verse or prose. This can give you clues on how to deliver your speech, as well as what kind of character you’re playing. For the most part, upper-class characters, as well as tragic and romantic leads use verse. Lower-class or comedic characters often use prose. Often, drama schools will request Shakespeare monologues in verse, so this is something to keep in mind if that’s what you’re working on.
Verse
This monologue by Juliet is in verse:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot
Nor arm nor face nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
How can we tell?
- It is structured like a poem, with sentences running onto other lines.
- It is in iambic pentameter – there are usually 10 syllables in a line.
- It is specifically in blank verse – the ends of the lines do not rhyme. If you find a monologue where they do, this is called rhyming verse.
Prose
This monologue by Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is in prose:
When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Heigh-ho! Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? God’s my life, stol’n hence, and left me asleep? I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream” because it hath no bottom. And I will sing it in the latter end of a play before the duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
How can we tell?
- It looks more like text you would see in a novel rather than structured like a poem.
- It does not follow iambic pentameter.
What Does It Mean?
So what does this tell us about these characters? Juliet using verse tells us she is a high-status character. Maybe she is of a higher class, or she is meant to be taken more seriously by the audience. Maybe both. Bottom using prose tells us he is a lower-class character. Characters such as servants or soldiers often use prose. It also tells us he may be comedic and not to be taken as seriously by the audience. These are some quick clues that can really help us when figuring out how to work on Shakespeare for actors.
Break Down The Punctuation
Breaking down our punctuation can tell us a lot about the character’s personality and mindset when working out how to work on Shakespeare for actors. Shakespeare cleverly communicated all these things to his actors in the way he wrote. Here is an exercise to help you explore the punctuation in your text:
- Make sure you have space to move and start walking.
- Take one step for each word in your monologue.
- For each comma, do a 90-degree turn
- For each full stop, exclamation mark or question mark, turn 180 degrees and (gently!) slap your leg.
This exercise will help you to become aware of the rhythm of the piece. Are the sentences short and snappy? Do they run on and on for ages? Are they gentle and melodic? This may help you to get an insight into the character and how they’re feeling in that moment. Are they stressed? Happy? Relaxed? Maybe it tells us what kind of character they are. Are they a dreamer? A serious and practical person? Consider all these things as you walk through your punctuation.
Iambic Pentameter.
Iambic Pentameter is the overall poetic rhythm of the piece when the text is in verse. Think of this like the heartbeat of your text. It can give you insights into your character’s feelings, they way they conduct themselves and the tone of the scene.
- Read your text allowed, emphasising every second word. It should sound like a heartbeat Ba-Dum, Ba-dum, Ba-dum.
- There should be ten “Ba-Dum”s (or iambs) in a line. If not, there is usually a reason the character does this. Think about why your character’s speech may not easily fit into this neat and rhythmic structure. Does it reflect the way they feel at the moment
- Notice which words are emphasised when you do this exercise. This can help you notice which words in the line are the important ones.
- This exercise can also give you clues about how a word is pronounced, depending on where the emphasis falls. It’s not foolproof, however, so make sure to double-check this one!
What Kind Of Words Do They Use?
Make a note of the kind of words the character uses as this can tell you a lot about their personality. Maybe you can keep a list of the words they use that you think best reflect their character. Lets take Romeo as an example:
Romeo
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
The words that jump out to me are: love, grief, smoke, fume, sighs, fire, sparkling, lovers, choking, and sweet. These words are all quite poetic, and they are full of imagery – he is painting a picture here. There are also a lot of strong vowel sounds such as grIEf, fUme, sIgh, and swEEt. These melodic vowel sounds often indicate emotion in Shakespeare’s characters. So, from this, I can assume that Romeo is a romantic and poetic character, full of emotion and potentially quite dramatic in the way he likes to express this. All that, and just from eight lines!
Brutus
Now let’s look at Brutus from Julius Caesar:
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
The words that jump out to me are: kill, boldly, wrathfully, carve, gods, carcuss, masters, rage, envious, purgers, and murderers. Firstly, these deal with much darker subjects than Romeo’s monologue does. Many are to do with power and violence. There are also a lot of harsh consonant sounds – Kill, Care, GoDs, maSTers, enViouS. These indicate more of an intellectual or practical attitude, rather than the emotions associated with long and melodic vowel sounds. So, from these eight lines, I can assume that Brutus is a harsher character, less emotional but more practical. He is a planner, schemer and thinker. He is concerned with power and violence in this monologue and these things are part of his world.
Top Tip: If your character uses a lot of S sounds, it may sound like whispering or a snake hissing. This may indicate the character you’re playing is sneaky!
Think On The Line
In my post on Script Analysis, I spoke about subtext. I even have a whole post on inner monologue. Both of these things are used in contemporary theatre. They tell us about what a character really means when they say something, or what they are thinking about but don’t actually say. In contemporary theatre, you think of something and then speak once you’ve had the thought. In Shakespeare, you think on the line.
This can be a little confusing at first when figuring out how to work on Shakespeare for actors, but you will get used to it. First of all, this doesn’t mean that your character always tells the truth, of course, they are capable of lying. Only that they think as they speak and, especially in monologues and soliloquies, they say what they think out loud rather than dwelling upon it and then speaking.
For instance in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be, that is the question?” he is not taking time to think through his options, deciding on something and then asking the question. He is speaking as he thinks. His thoughts and his speech happen simultaneously and are one. He speaks as he has the thought, and must react to the thought whilst he speaks, rather than before.
Building The Character
Once you have picked your text apart, it is time to build your character. Essentially, this is now the same process as any other character you play. You may give them a backstory, a physicality, and a voice in order to portray them as a full and complex individual.
Check out my post on building a character here to find out some techniques for doing that.
By this point, you should have gone through your text and used all of the techniques in this post in order to discover the clues Shakespeare has given you in order to communicate your character. You can now base your character creation on the information you’ve discovered in the text and build a unique and interesting interpretation based on what this amazing playwright has given you to work with.
Conclusion
There is your guide on how to work on Shakespeare for actors. I hope you’ve found the techniques in this post useful, and they help you to demystify the process. Shakespeare can feel difficult to grasp when you first start out, but these tools should help you on your way. The more you do it, the easier it will get. My best advice over all is to have fun. Approach the text with the curiosity and playfulness you approach any text and you are sure to develop a creative and interesting performance.
Thank you so much for reading, I hope it’s helped, and if you have any questions just feel free to shoot me a message.
