Playing Shakespeare
By: John Barton ; with a foreword by Trevor Nunn.
Contributors: Royal Shakespeare Company.; London Weekend Television, ltd.
Publisher: Methuen in association with Channel Four Television Co.
Published: 1984
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 211
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Dramatic production
Description: Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors including Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet, director John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. Barton begins by explicating Shakespeare's verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare's most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice.
Notes: Based on the record of 9 workshop programmes made in 1982 by the Royal Shakespeare Company for London Weekend Television and shown on Channel Four in 1984.