The central idea is that understanding and conveying the sense and complex layers of Shakespeare's text, rather than just its rhythm or musicality, is paramount for an actor's performance. True artistry lies in embodying the playwright's intricate meaning through a holistic integration of intellect, emotion, and physicality.
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If this workshop's done anything, I I
hope it's it's scotched the u in my view
wrong belief that
Shakespeare's verses music and all you
have to find out is the tune and
everything will be all right. Rather, I
believe that if you look after the
sense, the sounds will look after
themselves. I saw Maritzio Pellini play
a late Beethoven sonata recently and I
had a a strange feeling for about five
miraculous seconds that I didn't know
whether he was putting the music into
the piano
uh or whether he was taking it out of
the piano
and acting at its best. Shakespeare I
think is
of that nature that the actor is the
playwright and the character simultaneously.
simultaneously.
Uh this can only be achieved by the
actor having total awareness of all the complexities
complexities
uh uh of Shakespeare.
So if we take a speech like McBth's last
saliloquate uh tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow which uh to crudely summarize
is is a is a description of total
blackness, total despair uh that life is
finite. Uh it isn't enough just to say
that and put that quality of despair
into the voice and just hope it and and
just follow the rhythms. You've got to
do many more things as well. You have to
think and have analyzed in rehearsal uh
totally so that your imagination uh
being fed by the concrete metaphors
concrete images pictures uh can then
feed through into the body into gesture
into uh tambber of voice into eyelids
into every part of the actor's makeup.
So that it does seem as just said that
he is making it up as he goes along
although the actor of course knows that
he isn't. But to start at the top with
the first line and I'll try as far as
possible to relate this to blank verse
but it will be impossible for me not to
mention uh imagery and also all sorts of
other uh literary devices which we
haven't been talking about generally today.
today.
Um Satan says to McBth the queen my lord
is dead.
And McBth replies she should have died
hereafter which is a short line. she
should have died hereafter
indicating that there should be a pause
I think and during that pause in
performance uh with the audience rather
around me as you are now I used to take
that advant uh advantage of that pause
uh to catch the audience's eye uh and
begin the siloquy which is uh mcbth me
the actor to talking directly sharing my
thoughts with you the audience hereafter
is introduces one element of time the
future future.
Let me get a regular blank verse line.
There would have been a time for such a word.
word.
There would have been a time stressed
time. This speech is about time for such
a word. Word is the last line. Uh what
word? Uh is it she the queen? Is it
hereafter? Is it time? There's something
about that line which trips in Hamlet's
words. Tick tocks like a clock. There
would have been a time for such a word.
It's leading on to the next line. And
here comes the word which is important. Tomorrow
Tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow. There only
two words uh in that uh uh line an
irregular line
given weight by its uh repetition three
times and the tripping of there would
have been a time for such a word slows
down on tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow. The rhythm is important.
It's also a non nonsense word if you say
it three times or if you say it 20 times
like a kid skipping tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
tomorrow. What does that word mean
tomorrow? It's beginning to have
the lack of meaning I think that McBTH
detects in his own life at this point
creeps in this petty pace from day to
day. And here comes the first metaphor,
the first image.
And uh the rhythm is beginning to creep,
is beginning to plot like someone
plotting along uh plotting along a
country lane. Its footsteps now, not the
tick-tock of a clock creeps in this
petty pace from day to day.
Well, we've had tomorrow. We've now got
today at the end of the line from day to
day. But it leads on to the next line to
not day but the last syllable of
recorded time. And it slows up even more
ending up with a very important word
time at the end of the sentence.
Sy bell. I wonder if bell isn't the bell
of a clock which records time. And we
get a regular line. And all our
yesterdays have lighted fools. Yesterday
we've had tomorrow. We've had today.
We've now got yesterday. We've got the
whole complex of time. McBth is not just
talking about himself. He's talking
about eternity and going to say
something about it.
All our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusted death. And that's
where the sentence ends in the middle of
the next line.
But one has to carry on uh and speak it
as a line and a half. All our yesterdays
have lighted fools the way to dust to
death. What is the image there that I
must have clearly in my mind so that I
can get the right emotion of despair?
It's what? It's a fool walking along a
dusty path, plotting, creeping with
petty pace. A fool is what? A village idiot
idiot
wandering along a country lane with
what? A guttering candle. I don't know,
a lantern. Uh fool is a pun. Of course
uh fools uh like Leah's fool festy uh in
12th night are professional entertainers
that will be relevant in a moment and I
have to contain in my mind as I say the
word fool that it is a pun see two sorts
of fools
that line is completed with the shock of
the harsh rhythm of out
brief candle
the fool's
candle has caught uh a gust of wind and
is blown out and he collapses into a
dusty death in the unmade road of
Elizabeth and England. The last candle
or light we saw in the play is Lady
McBth's candle which she was carrying in
her sleepwalking scene and she is dead.
It's Lady McBth's death which is being
talked about in the speech. It is the
fool's death,
village idiot's death. It's going to be
McBth's death. It's going to be
everybody's death.
Uh it's at this time about this time
that Shakespeare wrote McBth that
candles will be used in indoor theaters.
Uh and that may be relevant too when we
get on to the next line which is life's
Walking gentleman is a phrase we still
use in the theater meaning someone who
is available in any company to walk on
and play a meager part. He's the
lowliest member of a company. But life
is not even a walking gentleman. is a
walking shadow less than even the
meanest player.
And the line is completed uh by a poor
player. Life's but a walking shadow, a
poor player that struts and frets his
eye upon the stage. And although
although McBth is talking about time
about life, Shakespeare is bringing that
those vast uh um uh vast concepts very
concrete, very particular,
not just to McBTH himself, but to the
actor who is playing McBth. Because
we're now talking about players and the
audience who know they are an audience
know that Mckllen playing McBth is an
actor. They are beginning to be drawn
into McBth's uh dilemma as McBth relates
it uh to a player to an actor.
That's a regular line that struts and
frets his out upon the stage. And we're
reminded perhaps of the King Kambises
and Marloian regular verse and people
who do stamp out the rhythm as they uh parade
parade
that Strats and Frets is our
concept of time upon the stage and then
is heard no more.
End of sentence, end of thought. middle
of the line. However,
it is a tale
told by an idiot.
Idiot um reaches back into the fool who
was walking along the country lane with
a candle that went out
full of sound and fury. End of line. And
And the beats of the rest of that
pentameter are not there because at the
end of the speech is total silence,
total oblivion, total emptiness.
So much one could say about it. But just
let me run through the last lines of the
last words of each line and you'll see
that they add up to what the speech is
all about. Hereafter
word tomorrow
today time fools
nothing
I must have all that in my mind as I'm
going through it not so that you the
audience can understand those
complexities because I'm not giving a
lecture I think the poetry and the
rhythm them and all those devices that
Shakespeare uses are not for the
audience's benefit. They are for the
actors so that having absorbed them into
his heart and his mind he can then
express them with all the other things
at his command which are his body his
facial expression and if the production
is working well the way the uh
production is blocked is arranged the
way the scenery is painted and the way
the lights are lit
the queen
my lord
There would have been a time for such a word.
word. Tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to
day to the last syllable of recorded time.
time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
fools
the way to dusty death
A poor player that struts and frets his
hour up on the stage.
and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot,
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