About the craft of acting and the craft of Shakespeare
|
The book begins with two largely academic chapters. The first is on how Shakespeare's plays were or might have been performed in his own life-time. The next is about Shakespeare's language. It discusses, to give just two examples, how Shakespeare uses, modifies or abandons a particular metrical scheme, and how he uses assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration. Of course an acute awareness of these technical points will often point the actor towards the way he might speak the lines, though sometimes, as for example with punctuation, the guidance is less clear and the actor has to make his own decisions.
The meat of the book is in the next three chapters, on preparation, rehearsal and performance, which are full of valuable practical suggestions for actors. They are followed by two detailed case-studies, one of the Duke in Measure for Measure, the other of Viola in Twelfth Night. Of course Davies draws on his own great experience, but also on alternative ideas and methods used by other actors. Indeed the last thirty pages of the book are given over to his interviews with eight leading actors and actresses about how they think about acting in Shakespeare. Not being myself an actor and only ever part of the audience, I did sometimes wonder whether the audience always registers, even unconsciously, the finer points of interpretation or textual analysis to which actors or directors - or indeed Shakespeare himself - have given so much thought and which they are trying to put across. But then the same might be said of any art form: how many spectators, while being deeply moved, notice all the subtle ways in which a Rembrandt puts his concepts across? Craft remains craft, irrespective of the extent to which it is appreciated.
Great Shakespearean actors have to think deeply and read widely about the text, and to that extent, they have to be academics as well. Even if you are scarcely interested in the craft of acting at all, this book is worth reading for what you learn from it about the craft of Shakespeare, whose richness, when studied closely, never ceases to amaze.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada