The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1026  Saturday, 31 May 2003

[1]     From:   Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 23 May 2003 13:44:21 -0400
        Subj:   Actors vs Scholars

[2]     From:   Mary Rosenberg <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 23 May 2003 17:18:35 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars

[3]     From:   Whitt Brantley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 25 May 2003 09:26:10 EDT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars

[4]     From:   Sam Small <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 30 May 2003 14:57:59 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 23 May 2003 13:44:21 -0400
Subject:        Actors vs Scholars

Brian Willis writes:

"I agree that the very best actors all have a certain level of
intelligence."

Without doubt. But what I don't understand is: How can an actor play the
part of a character who is MORE intelligent than the actor him- or
herself?  Actors do it: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and Hamlet
have all been played by actors who, while intelligent, probably were not
as intelligent as the characters they portrayed.

Are there techniques for playing someone super-smart? I understand
playing a character who is dumber than the actor, but one who is
smarter? How is it done?

--Ed Taft

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mary Rosenberg <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 23 May 2003 17:18:35 -0700
Subject: 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars

May 23, 2003

About the discussion concerning actors and scholars: when I started
teaching, half a lifetime ago (at the University of Lancaster, England),
my great ideal was Harley Granville Barker: who seemed, in his "Prefaces
to Shakespeare," to combine the attributes and insights of a scholar and
a man of theatre. I was myself trained in the purely academic tradition:
but I already recognized that Shakespeare's plays demanded to be
interpreted on the stage as well as the page (not as common a point of
view then as it is now!) and an element of reading aloud and stage
performance was a required part of my courses. Then I met Marvin
Rosenberg - and the rest, as they say, is history!

I should also add - in light of your current discussion of the best
editions for students - that I (like several of your correspondents)
favored the Signet paperback editions of individual plays. These volumes
seemed to me to carry enough notes to make the text clear for reading,
and I especially admired their selected essays at the end of each
edition (I think particularly of Maynard Mack's "The World of Hamlet",
which I wished I had written myself!). Then, too, the books were cheap
enough not to strain student resources unduly. (For more scholarly notes
and insights I recommended the New Arden.)

But when it came to a recommended Complete Shakespeare, I was less
decided: and there are many more editions available now than there were
then!. Any ideas on the best - most useful - edition of Shakespeare's
Complete Works would be most welcome. Thanks.

Mary Rosenberg

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Whitt Brantley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 25 May 2003 09:26:10 EDT
Subject: 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars

Good thread.   Baconians, Oxordians. Stratfordians, Marlovians, and the
other Ian's aside...I say to you an actor wrote these plays.  How do I
know?  Because I am an actor. How do you know Jesus is real?  Because
you're a Baptist. Some lawyers think Shakespeare was a lawyer.  Some
scholars think Shakespeare was a scholar.  Some gardeners think
Shakespeare was a gardener.  Some French think Shakespeare was French.
It's all perspective.  John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier will serve
nicely...one thought with his head, the other with his heart.  This is
the difference between scholars and actors.  One must ultimately rule
with either respectively.  Gielgud most likely struggled to give order
to chaos.  Olivier embraced chaos.  Shakespeare embraced chaos.  Now,
going to Church did not change Darwin, and I'm pretty sure that taking
an acting class will not change a scholar when it comes to his approach
to the text.

Whitt Brantley
KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW
A Cinematic Outdoor Drama
July 24-August 16  2003
cityofcumming.net (to find out more)

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sam Small <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 30 May 2003 14:57:59 +0100
Subject: 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.1015 Re: Actors v Scholars

I think Brian Willis and others are still square dancing around this
problem.  Academics choose to be academics - actors choose acting.  The
lifestyles are so totally opposed that there must be a deeper reason for
this radical difference with regard to the relationship with
Shakespeare.  But to further compound the problem it is almost
impossible to stereotype a typical professor or player.  Perhaps the
best we can do is ask players why they are players and not professors -
and vise versa.

SAM SMALL
http://www.passioninpieces.co.uk

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

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