Playing Shakespeare: An Actor's Guide (Methuen Paperback)

I am currently in a Production of Henry V, or was depending on when this is read, and this book was a godsend. My friend Jesse let me borrow it and when I got to the last chapter I bought my own copy. It has been a tremendous help to read what so many of my favorite actors had to say about Shakespeare ( Well they were all in the RSC at that time). If you don't like Shakespeare, 'GASP', the analysis presented can be effective for most other acting. Plus it has McKellen, Dench, Stewart, Kingsley, and Suchet all giving their experiance. A MUST BUY!!!

As an actor who has just started work on Shakespeare plays, I am hungry for information about how to approach the acting work. I have heard for years from actor friends of various "rules" for playing the text, rules which they learned in university acting programs. I have always wanted to know more about these specifics. An experienced fellow actor highly recommended Barton's book.

Let me explain first what I was seeking. If you as an actor are not looking for this, you may think this book far more interesting than I did. In the first few Shakespeare plays I have done (plays where the directors were very hands-off), I have approached the text as a modern text, using a more-or-less American acting style. I knew that there was more in there. I knew that the meter mattered, I know that there was some mysterious thing called "scansion", etc. I wanted a crash course that would give me help on beginning an approach.

Unfortunately, I found the book lacking in this regard. The format is--as the author acknowledges--problematic: this is the text version of a series of television programs that aired on BBC. Each chapter represents an episode, in which the clearly knowledgeable and vastly experienced John Barton has conversations with well-known actors. During these exchanges, he will ask them to act a bit of text. We see the text reprinted, but we lose all of the acting. I found myself aching to see the original series, which I would bet is stunning and educational.

I found it unfortunately ironic that in the introduction, the author specifically expressed his hope that this would be a practical guide, a departure from other works which do not "tell an actor what to do or how to do it." His guide fails similarly, I think.

I imagine that the TV version would be very successful on this count, though. One confession made throughout by the author is that he is less-suited to the theoretical explanation of these things than he is to the practical application in the rehearsal room. This is clear. One can sense, from the text, the power of his direction. To see that in action would indeed be helpful, I think.

Much of what Barton explains can be boiled down to a few simple guidelines. I should also say that he does often say that there are no hard rules, and that the general lesson is one of being attentive to changes in meter, word choice, anything as possible signposts for actors. But too often, he talks of general directions (for example, to play the poetry more) without saying what that really means.

Overall okay, interesting, worth the read if you are curious, but not the book to buy if you are looking for a crash course in how to approach a bit of Shakespeare's text as an actor.

Though not an actor in the general sense of the word, as a teacher I often act a part in class to initiate attempts from my students. Hence, I am a frequent reader of the available works purporting to an understanding of Shakespeare's plays and the intents of the characters.

So it is with some experience that I award this book the five stars; it is simply the best unmasking of Shakespeare's characters and intentions that I've come across; and, because the reader must imagine adjustments players make to the author's suggestions as they work through the lines, it engages the reader actively in the interpretation of scenes from chosen works.

If you want to penetrate further into the work of this towering genius who somehow knew so much about the human condition, read this work. I cannot recommend it more entirely.

Barton's careful method and artful writing combine to create a powerful primer on the actor's responsibilities to the text, the character, and the play. This is a must-have-must-read for anyone preparing for the profession.

John Bardon, with the assistance of the players from the Royal Shakespeare Company, presents with great zest and humor not merely the mechanics of speaking the verse of Shakespeare, but the sense of the Style of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age. The actors demonstrate all of the means by which they have discovered the characters they portray and make their own, and their great fortune in the legacy of the RSC. They have absorbed with passion and insight the very beings of another time. I wish, when I was a young actor, that I had had John Bardon as a teacher of verse drama. It took me years to find anyone who could teach me the basic, uncomplicated approach to verse I found in this book. May I just add, I also saw the London Weekend Television production on which the book is based and it was magical. The book reinforces my memory of the living actors, most of whom are favorites of mine who I have seen in all types of productions. However, it is not necessary to have seen that program to appreciate and learn from the book. Highly, highly recommended.