Acting With Shakespeare: The Comedies

164 Pages·2000·14.035 MB·English

by  Janet Suzman

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THE APPLAUSE ACTING SERIES
ACTING
WITH
SHAKESPEARE:
Three Comedies
Suzman
Janet
Other Titles From The Applause Acting Series:
THE ACTOR AND THE TEXT
Cicely Berry
TWO
SHAKESCENES: SHAKESPEARE FOR
John Russell Brown
SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS IN PERFORMANCE
John Russell Brown
ACTING IN FILM
&
(book videocassette)
Michael Caine
A PERFORMER PREPARES
David Craig
ON SINGING ONSTAGE
David Craig
THE END OF ACTING: A RADICAL VIEW
Richard Hornby
DIRECTING THE ACTION
Charles Marowitz
RECYCLING SHAKESPEARE
Charles Alarowitz
MICHAEL CHEKHOV: ON THEATRE AND THE ART OF ACTING
(audiotapes)
STANISLAVSKI REVEALED
Sonia Moore
THE MONOLOGUE WORKSHOP
Jack Poggi
THE CRAFTSMEN OF DIONYSUS
Jerome Rockwood
SPEAK WITH DISTINCTION
Edith Skinner
ONE ON ONE: THE BEST MONOLOGUES FOR THE NINETIES
Jack Temchin (ed.)
CREATING A CHARACTER
Aloni Yakim
VOICES OF COLOR
Woodie King, Jr. (ed.)
THE ACTOR’S EYE: SEEING AND BEING SEEN
David Downs
THE APPLAUSE ACTING SERIES
General Editor: Maria Aitken
A
CTING
WITH
SHAKESPEARE:
Three Comedies
Suzman
Janet
APPLAUSE
t? t?
NEW YORK LONDON
•
An
Applause Original
ACTING WITH SHAKESPEARE: THREE COMEDIES
By Janet Suzman
©
Copyright 1996 by Applause Theatre Book Publishers
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage system now known or to be
invented, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by
a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a
review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data
Suzman, Janet.
Acting with Shakespeare the comedies / byJanet Suzman,
:
cm.
p.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-55783-215-3
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Dramatic production.
2. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Comedies. 3. Comedy.
4. Acting. I. Title.
PR3091.S89 1996
822.3’3-dc20 95-34944
CIP
British Library Catalog in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is avaible from the British Library
Applause Books A&C Black
2 1 1 West 7 1St Street 35 Bedford Row
New York, NY 10023 London WC1R4JH
Phone [phone] Phone [phone]
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A&C
Distributed in the U.K. by Black
Printed in Canada
FOREWORD
Having been asked to write a book which was in its origi-
nal form a television master-class, several problems instantly
sprang to mind. The to-and-fro of repartee and off-the-cuff
remarks would obviously not transpose to the page with much
felicity; neither would the interplay between the actors, myself
interposing, be much good. But actors are indispensable to
acting exercises, and I certainly did not want them to be sacri-
ficed for the sake of clouds of theory. It was, after all, their per-
formances which provoked a closer examination of the prob-
lems that evolved, and which in turn encouraged the audience
to make enquiries. So you will find, in this book, that these
actors’ names crop up every now and then as the chief partic-
ipants in this workshop. There were six people who kindly
elected to be the guinea pigs: Ewen Cummins, Emma
Cunningham, Simon Heale, Anne-Marie Marriot, Veronica
Roberts, and Andrew Weale.
My thanks to them, and to my publisher who was endless-
my
ly forbearing about colloquialisms, and equally under-
my
standing about attempts at describing the heat of the
moment.
Goode
Gordon
by
Photo
‘a
The Comedy o/£n*or.r Janet Suzman as Luciana and
Diana Rigg as Adriana (Stratford, 1963)
This is the exact opposite of what a book on acting should
be, if indeed there should ever be such a thing. I suspect there
should not.
Just for starters, acting means getting up off your behind
and breathing life into the printed page. This book does just
the reverse. Plucked out of the air, ripped from the mouths of
gallant actors, squeezed back through the hoary old channels
of analysis, and slapped back down onto a page, the words now
lie gasping at the loss of their new-found freedom.
I have, therefore, to disabuse you. Although the genesis of
this book lies in a so-called master class, acting is not, in fact,
master class-able.
Music You need yourself and you need an instrument.
is.
The instrument you play your means of communication;
is it
serves as both your shield and your conduit. After a punishing
training period lasting years and years and never quite fin-
ished, you are either able, technically speaking, to play the
piece, or you are not. Whether you can then muster a magis-
terial interpretation is a matter of balancing the composer’s
intentions with your particular genius. You can learn by pre-
2 Acting With Shakespeare
cept. Interpretation is a matter for negotiation and may be
demonstrated to you without hurting your feelings too much,
because your ego is marginally less at stake than your options.
Acting, however, like pain, is more a matter of opinion. You
are your own instrument. There are really no technical
absolutes for you to conquer. You require a text and yourself,
When
but a self bared of defenses. your acting is being dissect-
ed the criticism can appear to be aimed at you personally, when,
in fact, it is directed at your interpretation. It is all too easy to
lose sight of that distinction when your self-confidence wavers.
No
wonder, then, that the actor’s ego can be a fragile thing,
seeing itself as a mere matter for dispassionate discussion. Still,
when all’s said and done, it is your choice to put yourself on the
line by being an actor, so you have no one but yourself to
answer to for such unwelcome incursions into your privacy.
At worst, then, the process can be hurtful; at best, it can be
pure joy, because that very personality of yours is illuminating
a fictional one and making it sing. Music is not fictional;
—
abstract, yes, but not fictional it does not require an imagina-
tive construct. Opera singers have the uplifting support of the
music. Actors have only silence; no protection there.
Acting reaches into the inaccessible recesses of human
behaviour, and requires you, while keeping your sanity, to be
as mad as a hatter. There is no “open sesame” for these recess-
es; there are no special exercises analogous to playing scales;
there are merely ways to approach it, aspects to be conscious
of, techniques to absorb. The development of that awareness
can take years of training, years of practise, but let’s face it, the
bottom line is that neither music nor acting can be taught
unless you have an ear for
it.