Freeing Shakespeare's Voice: The Actor's Guide to Talking the Text

In one of the most eloquent handbooks
I've ever had the pleasure to peruse,
Kristin Linklater guides you through a rich
and expertly constructed path designed
to help you give your voice to Shakespeare's text.
For her, the body and the voice are one:
an instrument that needs each part to work.
To speak the speech, you start with how it sounds -
the open vowels and clear consonants
each bring a unique bodily sensation.
Then you progress to what it actually means -
the content, the "emotional", the life -
and later bring this to poetic form.

Ms.L insists you also understand
Th' Elizabethans and their take on life -
her explanations always held me rapt.
Her methods are direct; each chapter builds
upon the one that came before. However,
this shouldn't mean the structure is rigid:
there's lots of room for your experiments.

This book is one of my best purchases.

This book has some good ideas but it is somewhat too cumbersome in it's technical language. It took several read overs to really understand what Kristin was trying invoke. This book is not a good source for new actors but may be more appropriate for those in upper college theater/drama class or master classes.

The master teacher Kristin Linklater has written a user-friendly, brilliant book on her approach to Shakespeare's language. Anyone interested in reading or performing Shakespeare shouldn't be without it.