1st Edition

Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous! Playing the Bard for Beginners

By Herb Parker Copyright 2017
    232 Pages
    by Routledge

    232 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    PROLOGUE: WHAT YOU MOST AFFECT

    Let the Earth O’erflow

    So What Do I Mean, Really, by ‘Outrageous’?

    And What Do I Mean ‘Caused by Love’?

    How ‘Outrageous’ Applies to Playing Shakespeare

    Two Suggestions

    ACT 1: SHAKSPER YOUR BFF

    Who He was, What he Did and What that Means for Us Actors

    Shakespeare’s Theatre

    The Elizabethan Stage

    Shakespeare’s Audience

    The Actor’s Task

    All Women’s Roles Played by Boys

    Scrolls, No Scripts!

    Shaksper’s "Outrageous" Plays

    Summary: What This Means for Your Acting

    ACT 2: HOLDING UP MIRRORS

    Shakespeare as a Cold Read

    Lessons Introduction

    Warmup

    Lesson 1: Doing

    Exercise 1: Howl

    Exercise 2: Sing

    Exercise 3: Don’t Think About It

    Exercise 4: Hop, Kneel Crawl and Hug!

    Exercise 5: Wrestle, Kick, Speak!

    Exercise 6: You Are Being Chased

    Exercise 7: Every Line is a New Discovery

    Exercise 8: Become the Words: The Queen Mab Speech

    Variation: Let the Class Choose What You Become

    Lesson 2: Verse

    Exercise 9: Write it in Prose

    Exercise 10: Tear the Words!

    Exercise 11: Hang Your Verse

    Exercise 12: Verb to Verb

    Lesson 3: Sound

    Exercise 13: Gobbledygook

    Exercise 14: Duh, Hell-o, F—K!

    Lesson 4: Emotion

    Exercise 15: In-Motion, Not E-Motion

    Exercise 16: My Cat is Dead

    Exercise 17: The Last Line 6 Times

    Exercise 18: Grow From the Ground Up

    Exercise 19: Roll on the Floor

    Exercise 20: Dueling Shakespeare

    Summary

    ACT 3: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS!

    Thou and You

    The Poetry That Doesn’t Rhyme

    The Joys of Iambic Pentameter

    Shared Lines

    A Feminine Ending

    More Tools from Shakespeare’s Arsenal

    Scansion in Action

    Rhymed Verse and Couplets: A Poet and Do Know It

    Sonnets

    Exercise 21: Write a Sonnet

    Prose: How We Talk

    Dag-nabbit! Shakespeare’s Made-Up Words

    Summary

    ACT 4: DIVERS SCHEDULES:

    A FEW ITEMS PICKED UP WATCHING ACTORS DO SHAKESPEARE

    Item 1: There is No Subtext in Shakespeare

    Item 2: There is Never a ‘Fourth Wall’

    Item 3: Size is About More than Being Big and Loud

    Item 4: Play What the Scene is DOING—Not Just What the Words Mean

    Item 5: Antithesis is Fighting for an Answer by Comparing Opposites

    Exercise 22: Play the Antithesis

    Item 6: Don’t Report, Make a Discovery!

    Item 7: Leave Your Hands ALONE

    Item 8: Speak a Soliloquy as if Your Life Depended upon it—Because it Does

    Item 9: Pretty Speeches are About Blood and Guts

    Item 10: Paint the Picture!

    Exercise 23: A Pig in Slop—with the Words

    Item 11: Shakespeare is Too Big for Film

    Item 12: All Shakespearean Characters are Philosophers, and Poets

    POSTSCRIPT:

    "A very ribbon in the cap of youth."

    GLOSSARY—A Listing of Common Shakespeare Terminology

    PRACTICE SPEECHES for Men and Women

    BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING

    Biography

    Herb Parker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Performance, Theatre and Dance, with East Tennessee State University. Directing credits at ETSU include Othello, Race, The Trojan Women, Six Characters in Search of an Author (KCACTF "Excellence in Directing" Meritorious Achievement Award), Caesar 2012 (his adaptation of Julius Caesar), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, As You Like It, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (KCACTF "Excellence in Directing" Meritorious Achievement Award) and Little Shop of Horrors (also a KCACTF "Excellence in Directing" Meritorious Achievement Award recipient). Professor Parker is a long-time member of the Actors Equity Association. He is the author of A Monologue is an Outrageous Situation! How to Survive the 60-Second Audition, published by Focal Press in 2016.

     

    "Parker’s attitude is not the stuffy, overly reverential kind, but a bubbling, child-like excitement that novices, usually intimidated and resentful of the Bard, need to engage in the richness of the material. The book is clearly aimed at students and teachers, but the exercises and perspectives are both fresh and fundamental enough that even Shakespeare veterans can use them to discover new dimensions in the plays." -- Bob Gonzalez, University of Tampa