The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0752 Tuesday, 6 November 2007
[1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 01 Nov 2007 17:56:37 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[2] From: Imtiaz Habib <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 1 Nov 2007 18:09:08 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[3] From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 3 Nov 2007 06:24:57 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 01 Nov 2007 17:56:37 -0400
Subject: 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
>What do you all think about Henry V's prayer before the battle
>of Agincourt in 4.1.? Is any prayer a soliloquy, or does prayer >imply
an interlocutor?
Regardless of whether we ourselves believe it to be rational, the
pray-er believes that he or she is speaking to someone; so the prayer
does not qualify as a soliloquy.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Imtiaz Habib <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 1 Nov 2007 18:09:08 -0400
Subject: 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0742 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Re: thread on soliloquies
Has anyone considered Robert Langbaum's fine discussion of the general
perspective of a soliloquy so-called and the particular perspective of a
dramatic monologue and direct address of an aside (POETRY OF
EXPERIENCE)? Some of the examples cited here correspond to the latter
two types. Then there is the distinction between soliloquies so-called
that convey the genuine formlessness of thought before it has reached
decision or speech and which are rare, and those that only pretend to.
Imtiaz Habib
Professor of English
Old Dominion University
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 3 Nov 2007 06:24:57 -0700
Subject: 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
In Shakespeare's time plays were performed exclusively in daylight -- at
least at first -- i.e., in the same light as the audience, whom actors
could plainly see and address directly, and I believe that Shakespeare's
soliloquies were mostly written to be played directly to that audience,
not to oneself aloud with the audience allowed to overhear. Today we
sometimes see a monologue or aside delivered directly to the audience in
the theater, film or TV (mostly, I think, in film or TV comedy, like
the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle), with the actor turning away from the
world of the play to talk to us. It's a 20th century screen gimmick,
but I buy the idea that WS used that same technique, that his
soliloquizers should be talking right to the audience across the
footlights, that they are at the same time both in the play as well as
speaking directly to the paying customers who aren't.
I claim no scholarly discovery; I've just thought about this for some
time and experience has convinced me that soliloquies play better that
way, that directness really pays off with such monologues. Audiences
love it. Think of Richard making his opening Winter of our Discontent
speech, or even a fragment of it, directly to you. That has to make a
difference in your experience of the play, and that's a long speech with
plenty to share among a lot of playgoers.This technique pays especially
well if the speech is comic. Take the Porter's soliloquy, that amazing
little comedy wedged in between Duncan's murder and its discovery. It
plays way better if taken directly to the audience. It's much funnier
and weirder with the Porter sharing all his imaginings rather than just
muttering them to himself. I have even heard it said that when playing
Shakespeare the actor should look for any acting reason that can justify
taking any speech -- not just soliloquies -- right out to the audience.
I think this is especially true outdoors, where there are always
distractions even in the best settings, and where it's crucial to grab
and hold the audience's concentration as tightly as possible.
Looking at and speaking directly to the audience not only increases the
intimacy of the actor-audience connection, it also raises the bar for
the actor, and makes him/her much more vulnerable, and raising that bar
or those stakes almost always makes for better theater. (Think of the
actor in Noises Off who has to jump up those stairs every night with his
pants around his ankles: he only has to do it fast, up a lot of steps,
and perfectly. He either gets a big round of applause or a wheelchair
for life.) Looking someone right in the eye is an important ingredient
when it comes to assessing a speaker's credibility, in the world and in
the courthouse; the problem is the same for an actor -- and for the
character.
Let me give a pair of contrasting examples of this technique: in Kenneth
Branagh's Much Ado, when Benedick and Beatrice are in turn gulled about
how the other loves him/her, each then has a responsive monologue to
deliver. Branagh as Benedick mulls it over to himself, overheard by the
guys who are fooling him, but as I recall he doesn't acknowledge the
audience. By contrast, Emma Thompson's Beatrice looks and speaks
directly to the camera. He has the better monologue but she makes the
most of hers and he doesn't. She takes advantage of this techno
opportunity to look each and every member of her audience right in the
eye, all at once, as she reveals a side of her we haven't seen. I found
very touching the way she opens up -- to me.
When, at the end of the play Don Pedro twits Benedick, the well-known
anti-marriage bigmouth, about getting married, Benedick has a wonderful
little responsive speech. It's a delicious moment: what can he possibly
have to say for himself? I've seen a bunch of Much Ado productions, but
only one in which the actor made the most of the little gem in his
answer, which should be the button on the cap for Much Ado. Even though
the speech begins with him addressing the Prince, the actor, Timothy
Oman, then took a step or two downstage and took it right out to the
audience, looked right at us and shared his truth: Man, says Benedick,
is a giddy thing.
I don't think this way of doing soliloquies, that direct eye contact, is
the norm for Shakespeare today. I think most actors and directors just
assume it's an interior monologue heard aloud.
Of course, I have no way of proving that Shakespeare wanted his
soliloquies to be spoken directly to the audience rather than as
internal musings made audible, but I have been empirically convinced.
(Of course, I also can't point to any evidence that Leah is Shylock's
wife and Jessica's mother and that she is dead, but I'm convinced of
that too.) Anyway, here's the point I've been grinding down to: if
soliloquies are pretty much written to be shared directly to the
audience rather than solo musings, then any reason for assuming they are
ipso facto the truth flies out the window.
Sorry this is so long.
Best to all,
Bob Projansky
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