The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0014 Tuesday, 8 January 2008
[1] From: Jeremy Forbing <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 7 Jan 2008 17:11:44 -0800
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
[2] From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 07 Jan 2008 21:39:36 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
[3] From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 7 Jan 2008 21:48:07 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
[4] From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 8 Jan 2008 10:01:49 -0800
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
[5] From: Mike Shapiro <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 8 Jan 2008 23:38:00 -0800
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jeremy Forbing <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 7 Jan 2008 17:11:44 -0800
Subject: 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
>"Obviously this solution is not ideal, particularly from the point of
>view of narrative continuity, but it seems to meet two requirements-the
>actors' passion for endless novelty and the audiences' pathetic hope of
>hearing a little poetry from time to time."
>
>I wonder if any performers or audience members on this list can relate
>to that observation.
>
>Alan Horn
As an actor who has been lucky enough appeared in over half the canon in
my few years in the theatre, I can tell you the problem is not any
performer's "passion for endless novelty," but the fact that most
audiences simply won't take the big speeches at our hands.
It's tough, because a speech like "Once more unto the breach" is a key
moment for the character you're playing, so you don't want to "throw it
away" as Nichol Williamson is said to have done here (which I'm not sure
I believe), but on the other hand, with the old standbys, audiences tend
to stop receiving the story and start watching your "performance."
Having performed the deadly "To be or not to be" when I was much
younger, I found myself so self-conscious that I was observing the
audience as they listened to the speech. I became aware of at least two
persons actually mouthing the words, one of whom may have actually been
whispering loud enough to be heard. A lot of program flipping took place
as well, and I'm not sure if that was boredom or a desire to attach a
name to me, since this was the moment of the show when everyone was
obviously most conscious of the fact that they were watching an actor
perform Hamlet rather Hamlet himself.
I like to think I would be able to keep my head in the game better now,
but I can't say that with 100% certainty. On a certain level, you know
the best thing you can do is try to let the words affect you as freshly
as they can, but in this type of situation that is easier said than done.
For the Greeks, theatre was ritual, and so the audiences knowing what
was about to happen was a good thing, but clearly that was not
Shakespeare's intention, nor is it what we seek to do in today's theatre.
In the end, the choices always seem to come down to either finding some
new take on it or just sort of opening your mouth and letting it happen.
Thankfully, the verse is there to help, and Shakespeare makes it pretty
clear what choices won't work, but that doesn't always lead to the
choices that will. Certainly imitation is the worst option; it's a safe
bet someone will come to the show who has seen whoever you're imitating,
and popping a chunk of someone else's characterization into your own is
not going to end well.
(This situation reminds of that comment that was made somewhere: that it
seems likely that since Richard Burbage, every actor who has played
Hamlet has previously seen another actor play it, and those no one can
come to the role without some pre-conceived notion of how it is done.)
I wish I had more insight into dealing with this issue, but whenever I
have encountered it has almost always been a problem. Every single day,
some stage actor somewhere wrestles with it. Some people will claim to
have an easy solution, but such solutions tend to be idealized or merely
pithy rather than actually answering the question.
Any new perspectives from that the more academically oriented types on
this list would be eagerly received.
It goes without saying, but clearly, transplanting soliloquies from one
play to the other is not a real option. And Harold Bloom's idea of
Shakespeare as closet drama, best enjoyed alone rather than in
performance, isn't helpful either.
--Jeremy Forbing
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[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 07 Jan 2008 21:39:36 -0500
Subject: 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
I'm only an amateur, and have done only one Shakespearean role twice --
Gloucester in "Lear" -- so perhaps my bias isn't the same as a
professional's, but I'm afraid I don't see these actors' problem. I
always get enough variety in my own deeper and deeper knowledge of the
lines -- yes, even when it comes to audition bits I've used for years.
And, for what it's worth, if I'm still alive and in shape, I mean to do
Gloucester again in ten or so years.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 7 Jan 2008 21:48:07 -0500
Subject: 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Surely Mr. Waugh was being snarky. I cannot imagine how such a odd
choice would improve anything in the least. The whole "actors' passion
for endless novelty" is a rather suspect statement, as is any reference
to an audience's pathetic hopes.
Dale Lyles
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 8 Jan 2008 10:01:49 -0800
Subject: 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
My diagnosis, Mr. Waugh, is Nicol Williamson poisoning. An awful actor,
e.g., his unwatchable Hamlet (I literally could not wait for Laertes to
kill him). Hard to understand why anyone not being blackmailed would
cast him as Macbeth -- or as any character not bound and gagged
offstage. And he's apparently just as much fun to work with; see Paul
Rudnick's recent New Yorker piece about Williamson and his infamous
misbehavior in Rudnick's play "I Hate Hamlet".
But to the purpose. Famous speeches shouldn't be a problem, much less an
"embarrassment", even though it/their familiarity raises the stakes for
the actor. (Raising those stakes is always a good thing; if you don't
like adventure, risk, and challenge, don't go onstage.) Like playing
anything else in Shakespeare, the actor has to know what s/he is
saying, figure out why, figure out why in these particular words,
analyze the verse, decide how to say those words and what to do onstage
(following WS's clues and instructions), then go onstage and make the
words his/her own as if they've never been said before. Some of this is
thinking and some is feeling and imagining, i.e., art. No famous speech
should ever be thrown away or treated as unimportant. If it weren't
important it wouldn't be famous.
Shuffling speeches from play to play? There are directors out there who
believe even such idiotic novelty is appropriate -- maybe necessary --
to staging Shakespeare today. I saw a Hamlet last summer that was cut
and pasted to be mostly flashback, staged as Horatio obeying Hamlet's
demand that he Tell my Storie. This ugly Frankenhamlet monster had lots
of new-text ligatures to hold the bleeding chunks of WS's own Hamlet
together as it lumbered around the stage. Unintelligible to anyone not
familiar with the real thing, this was, of course, presented to the
world as -- Hamlet [sigh], the functional equivalent of calling that
mess in the pub parking lot a Hamburger and Five Beers. The only good
thing about the play was that Nicol Williamson was not in it.
Would that WS could control what's done to his work the way the estate
of Samuel Beckett does; see "Guided by Beckett From the Grave", by
Jason Zinoman, NY Times, 1/2/08, re a Brooklyn Academy of Music
production of "Happy Days":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/theater/02shaw.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Happy new year to all, even to those brethren and cistern who want to
wrastle some more about Presentism.
Bob Projansky
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike Shapiro <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 8 Jan 2008 23:38:00 -0800
Subject: 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0008 Performing Familiar Speeches
One of the most delicious and gratifying tasks of the actor is living
with such challenges on a day-to-day basis while preparing for
performance. The problem is that after being cast, most productions are
provided 6 weeks or less of rehearsal.
Upon hearing Michael Hoffman discussing his film direction of A
Midsummer Night's Dream (I was disappointed the production ended up such
a waste) I asked how much rehearsal time he had. His head bowed and
exasperated he said budgetary constraints resulted in less than 6 days
rehearsal. Some of the best directors feel that even six weeks is too
short a time for living with a character, for material to sink into the
unconscious, for allowing "Magic if" conjuring. I never played the role
but when addressing the problem of stereotype and cliche regarding the
legendary "To be or not to be," it took me a lot more than six weeks to
feel I could inject life into those lines. I fantasized a discovery
moment of Hamlet's when he comes upon the question, "To be..." as if
whispering a crossword puzzle to himself. Realizing he has finally
uncovered the core issue as being existential, exclaims, "That is the
question." Although I cannot defend the fact pattern, it's said that
even god's creative process took more than 6 days.
Mike Shapiro
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