Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous!

Playing the Bard for Beginners

Herb Parker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780415790970
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351816441
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

Performing the work of William Shakespeare can be daunting to new actors. Author Herb Parker posits that his work is played easier if actors think of the plays as happening out of outrageous situations, and remember just how non-realistic and presentational Shakespeare's plays were meant to be performed. The plays are driven by language and the spoken word, and the themes and plots are absolutely out of the ordinary and fantastic - the very definition of outrageous. With exercises, improvisations, and coaching points, Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous! helps actors use the words Shakespeare wrote as a tool to perform him, and to create exciting and moving performances.

INDEX

acting/actors: boy players 23–4; cold reading 60–2, 93, 96–7, 110; cue acting 24–5; in Elizabethan time 21–3; pausing 119–20, 168; picking up one’s cues 120; picking up one’s cues and shared lines 125; thrust stage acting 16, 31–2, 158, 159; “voice” actors 178; warm-up 63–6; women’s roles played by boys/men 15–16, 23–4; see also doing Shakespeare; film work; lessons; practice speeches (men); practice speeches (women); Shakespeare’s poetry

African American Baptist church tradition 101–2

agape 7

alexandrines 129

All’s Well That Ends Well: Boccaccio’s The Decameron as source 57; practice speech (women) 198; “problem play” 34, 40; synopsis 40

amphibrachs 121

anapests 121, 128

antithesis: concept 94, 164–5; “play the antithesis” exercise 165–7; and “pretty” speeches 171

Antony and Cleopatra: Plutarch as source 56; synopsis 51

The Arden Shakespeare 180

As You Like It: Celia’s and Rosalind’s “Herein I see thou lov’st me not” scene 115–16; Duke Frederick’s and Oliver’s “Not see him since?” scene 113–14; Jaques’ and Touchtone’s use of prose 146; Jaques’ “seven ages of man” speech 171; Kenneth Branagh’s film 175; Oliver’s and Orlando’s “Now, sir! what make you here?” scene 111–13; Orlando’s “Hang there, my verse” speech 79, 83; Orlando’s “O good old man” speech 114; Phebe and Silvius (Act III, Scene 5) 116–17, 146, 205–6; philia in 7; plot twists and boy players 23; practice speeches (women) 204–6; Rosalind and Phebe (Act III, Scene 5) 113, 204–6; synopsis 38–9; use of poetry and prose 118

audience: in Elizabethan time 16, 19–21; speaking directly to 32

Bacon, Francis 14

Baptist church tradition 101–2

Barton, John, Playing Shakespeare 88

bear-baiting 20, 156

Beckett, Samuel, Waiting for Godot 33

“become the words” exercise 76–9

big and loud, “size is more than big and loud” 159–61

Blackfriars Theatre (London) 159

blank verse (verse without rhyme) 90, 118, 119–20, 145, 147; see also iambic pentameters; “verse” lesson

blood and guts, “pretty speeches are about blood and guts” 170–1

Boas, Frederick Samuel 34, 40

Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron 57

book overview ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: What You Most Affect
• Act One: Shaksper Your BFF
• Act Two: Holding Up Mirrors
• Act Three: Words, Words, Words!
• Act Four: Divers Schedules: A Few Items Picked Up Watching Actors Do Shakespeare
• Postscript
• Glossary: A Listing of Common Shakespearean Terminology
• Appendix: Practice Speeches for Men and Women
• Recommended Reading
• Index