Playing Shakespeare
An Actor's Guide
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · August 21, 2001
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- Who it’s for
- A close look at how language, performance, and interpretation meet on Shakespeare’s stage.
- Themes
- Modern staging of Shakespeare, Shakespearean language and character, Irony and ambiguity in performance
- Genres
- Shakespeare, Acting, Shakespeare Studies
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
Continue reading
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.
Inside the Verse
A close look at how language, performance, and interpretation meet on Shakespeare’s stage.
Come here for
- The craft of verse, prose, speeches, and soliloquies
- Actors and director working through theatrical nuance
Expect
- Attention to irony, ambiguity, passion, and thought
- Practical perspectives on bringing Shakespeare to the modern stage
Where it sits
| Shakespeare Studies | 66% |
|---|---|
| Shakespeare | 58% |
| Acting | 57% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Shakespeare
- Acting
- Film Reference
- Authors
- John Barton
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- August 21, 2001
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Modern staging of Shakespeare · Shakespearean language and character · Irony and ambiguity in performance
- Reading lane
- Shakespeare