Playing Shakespeare : an actor's guide
Barton, John, 1928-20182001
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The renowned British director teams up with such acclaimed actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company as Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellan, and Ben Kingsley to demonstrate how best to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage, analyzing the language of Shakespeare's poetry and prose, the nuances of Shakespearean drama, his characters, and Playing Shakespeare is the premier guide to understanding and appreciating the mastery of the world's greatest playwright. Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors-among them Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet-John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. The director 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. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students.
Main title:
Playing Shakespeare : an actor's guide / John Barton ; foreword by Trevor Nunn.
Author:
Edition:
1st Anchor books ed.
Imprint:
New York : Anchor Books, 2001.
Collation:
xvii, 265 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes:
Originally published: London : Methuen Drama, 1984.
ISBN:
9780385720854
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2668487
Electronic access: