The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1234 Friday, 4 December 1998.
[1] From: Harry Hill <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 03 Dec 1998 09:00:12 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
[2] From: Frank Whigham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 03 Dec 1998 08:00:20 -0600
Subj: Re: SHK 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
[3] From: Ros King <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 3 Dec 1998 18:06:26
Subj: Re: SHK 9.1222 Rhetoric
[4] From: Anatole Fourmantchouk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 03 Dec 1998 12:43:56 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dale Lyles is correct when he writes that actors [indeed, any reader of
any carefully wrought play, whether by Shakespeare, Racine, Jonson,
Williams, O'Neill, Pinter, Albee or Mamet] need to recognise the shapes
of rhetorical figures more vitally than the Greek names for them. Actors
are in the business of putting shapes to figures.
Harry Hill
Montreal
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Frank Whigham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 03 Dec 1998 08:00:20 -0600
Subject: 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
Comment: Re: SHK 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
For a richly historicized account of how rhetoric in Shakespeare's time
played out, and got played into the political world and the theater, see
my colleague Wayne Rebhorn's fine book The Emperor of Men's Minds:
Literature and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric. Cornell, 1995.
Frank Whigham
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ros King <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 3 Dec 1998 18:06:26 +0000
Subject: 9.1222 Rhetoric
Comment: Re: SHK 9.1222 Rhetoric
I believe strongly that developing an understanding of, and a practical
feeling for, the rhetorical patterns in Shakespearean language ought to
be an essential element in actor training and an ongoing part of every
rehearsal process - although this doesn't mean that I think we need to
be drilling people in the application of rhetorical terms.
In my experience of working with actors, the better their grasp of
linguistic patterning, the more convincing their intonation - whatever
accent they're speaking in. Ironically, it's actually an aid to
appearing to be natural.
Controversially perhaps, I think we would see a huge improvement in
Shakespearean performance if we jettisoned the more new-agey aspects of
current voice-work practice and started fostering a delight in the
playfulness of pattern instead.
Yours
Ros
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anatole Fourmantchouk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 03 Dec 1998 12:43:56 -0500
Subject: 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
Comment: Re: SHK 9.1226 Re: Rhetoric
I completely agree - rhetoric as a background, sort of warming up. This
is a gap in actors training. Because , practicing on Sh. won't do any
good, but drying out live vibration of action. We do have to exercise
the way the Greeks did - and always distinguish the difference between
Epos, Melos and Drama. Actors should be accustomed to, so to speak, not
natural way of speaking which convey, as a result, natural feeling,
taking into account that conflict cannot be resolved only by
exchanging speeches. There is something else and there are two different
approaches - from creator and from spectator. There are a plenty
exercises ( I teach a similar course at Michael Howard's), it takes
time and time and time - but I can't even describe the result . I did R
&J in England (two hours, full text, 100% resonance) but preparation
was... Oh!
Please, keep me posting.
Good Luck.
Anatole Fourmantchouk,
Art. Dir. The New York Art Theatre.
Prof. Circle In The Square Theatre School, Michael Howard Studios.