An Introduction to Playing Shakespeare
DRMA S-002
Considered by most to be the greatest writer in English, Shakespeare is studied, read, discussed, and analyzed. But how do we turn our analysis of Shakespeare’s work into a performance? How do we take his words and images off of the page, and make them flesh? An Introduction to Playing Shakespeare opens the door to the process of reading, speaking, and acting heightened text, and the process of making the Elizabethan world, language, and its iconic characters relevant to us today. Using the unparalleled facilities of Yale University, this course explores, through Text, Voice and Speech, Stage Combat, Physical Comedy, and Acting Technique how these tools are essential to the actor playing heightened text, and also useful to every kind of acting. Generally, taking the Summer Conservatory for Actors, or Theatre Studies 110-111 is required for admittance. Candidates who have not taken these courses will be considered, and admitted based on equivalent experience.
The basic structure for the course follows that of the current Summer Conservatory for Actors. The course works like this:
The Acting Sections include a technique portion, which expands to include separate scene study section. These classes introduce actors to a core technique for mapping the text: skills introduced include finding the meaning of each word, scanning the meter in the verse, locating the operative words and images in the verse and prose, and examining the punctuation and overall structure of the text on the page. While the Acting section does require a great deal of private study time, the class functions primarily as a laboratory, reinforcing skills while the actor is working on her feet. Through an experiential study of the language, a character's action and the relevant acting choices an actor must make in a given scene are revealed. The Acting Technique section will focus on sonnets, monologues and group exercises. Acting Technique meets four times a week. Scene Study will meet twice a week, and include scenes with more than one character.
The Text Section will approach the documents that we think of as Shakespeare’s plays and examine the texts through both structure and history. This reinforces the core mapping techniques explained above, and expands on it through an examination of different published versions of the plays as well as researching Shakespeare’s period, his characters and their worlds. This includes an examination of the filters of Elizabethan Society and the resulting anachronism in the plays. Text meets four times a week.
The Physical Comedy Section will help students to connect with their bodies in the process of exploring the plays and their characters. Shakespeare’s language requires a dynamic, pre-Freudian, approach to physicality in order to alight the text. This includes tumbling, mask work and commedia dell’arte techniques, which focus on building physical dexterity and confidence; using the whole body as a means of expression in concert with the voice; developing comic lazzi (or bits); and the exploring of commedia’s binary status relationships of class, sex, wealth, age, and intelligence through exercises, improvised scenarios and scene work. Physical Comedy meets four times a week.
The Stage Combat Section is a lab in which students will explore the context of physical conflict in the plays. All of the plays have numerous references to weapons and fighting. Beyond teaching the students how to safely engage in swordplay for the stage, this course provides an invaluable opportunity for an actor to experience the physical given circumstances of a play unique to combat and weaponry of the 16th and 17th century. Stage Combat meets twice a week.
The Voice and Speech Section combines the core mapping technique and textual imagery with breathing, musicality of the voice and articulation. This section aims to help the actor find and release her own voice with Shakespeare's text. Physical and vocal exercises intermingle, allowing the actor to fully explore the images and poetic structure uncovered in the text mapping. The actor gains tools and techniques leading to a voice that is focused, intelligible, truthful and connected, rather than declamatory or stilted. Voice and Speech meets four times a week.
There will be a final project in each of these sections at the end of the period. This class is to be offered in the B portion of the summer and will incorporate some of the introductory techniques learned in Summer Acting Conservatory for the first week and then branch into the specialized study of Shakespeare.
Five of Shakespeare’s texts that will be required: one tragedy, one comedy, one history, and one romance. There will be additional texts assigned for each section as well.
