By: Ben Lawrence / The Daily Telegraph
Translation: Telegrafi.com
It's been a big week for Shakespeare: three major plays premiered in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Last night, Nicholas Hytner staged the star of the series Bridgerton [Bridgerton], Jonathan Bailey, in Richard II [at the Bridge Theatre], while Rupert Goold presented of Hamlet with Luke Thallon - often hailed as one of the theatre's future stars [at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre]. Tonight [at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane], director Jamie Lloyd's company concludes its West End season with a production of Much ado about nothing, with a star-studded cast, with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell starring as Benedick and Beatrice.
So far, I have only seen Richard II, and I loved the energy, pace, and clarity of Hytner's performance, not to mention Bob Crowley's clever set design which allows Richard's deathbed and the Duke and Duchess of York's kitchen table to emerge from the depths of the stage.
Read also:
– Four of the great living Lyres talk about the role of life– The master actor talks about life and its dark side: King Lear from the perspective of Anthony Hopkins– To learn or not to learn Shakespeare?
However, something, in my opinion, was wrong with British theatre. The recitation of lines, which is essential to this work - one of Shakespeare's few written entirely in verse - often left much to be desired. Some lines were misunderstood; the stress was placed in the wrong place. Iambic pentameter - the poetic line with five stressed and five unstressed syllables, used in the Renaissance (and later) to explain meaning and signal importance - was often mutilated.
Interpreting verse is essential to any approach to Shakespeare, but my frustration is that this skill is dying out. I completely understand the great director Peter Hall [one of the founders of the Royal Shakespeare Company - RSC], who once called himself an “iambic fundamentalist”. It is said that he would not look up from the text when directing a Shakespeare play, because he was so immersed in his language. His advice on verse rhythm, in his 2003 book, Shakespeare's advice to actors [Shakespeare's Advice to the Players] are extremely instructive: he essentially tells us to follow the meter, to trust Shakespeare's guiding hand. Hall shows us how the Bard understood the importance of juxtaposing regular and irregular rhythms, of using elision when necessary, and of using an irregular pattern to reveal, for example, psychological trauma. For example, Hall cites the strange rhythms and excess of syllables in some of Leontius's monologues in A winter's tale, as a sign of his sick passion for Hermione.
Read also:
- No, computers cannot prove what Shakespeare actually wrote– Forget Shakespeare's lies: Macbeth was the good king who united Scotland– Lady Macbeth: The most misunderstood woman in world dramaturgy!?
Iambic pentameter, when properly understood, sounds both poetic and deeply human. It underscores the importance of what is being said. A great actor can manipulate it, make it sound natural, and reveal something new. Simon Russell Beale – like Hall and the RSC’s co-founder John Barton, a former Cambridge English student – is one of the greatest Shakespearean actors alive today: someone who can subvert our usual perceptions of a work simply by changing the rhythms or the emphasis of a monologue. (He has described acting as “three-dimensional literary criticism.”) Thus, his Iago at the National Theatre in 1997 brought a new layer of meaning, as the lines were often delivered at breakneck speed. What initially seemed like a sign of simple competence became increasingly chilling, as his devastating jealousy of Othello was emphasized by the speed of his declamation.
Like Beale, Judi Dench understands that the line is far more important than the specific word. I remember being captivated by her performance as the Countess of Russion in All's well that ends well., a play for which I have no great appreciation. It was her poetic technique, perfected over half a century, that gave humanity and grace to a profoundly strange work about consensus and power.
Dench knows how to deeply touch an audience: remember her appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2023, when she recited Sonnet 29 from memory. While it is true that her voice always has a special warmth, in both cases it was her ability to subdue a line that captivated the audience.
Read also:
– Richard III: The Truth Behind Shakespeare's Macabre Drama- Why Shakespeare's Richard III became controversial?
What has gone wrong? Shakespeare is performed less than it used to be, and actors no longer have the same opportunity to develop their craft by spending many years on stage. A very good actor like Jonathan Bailey, who did not attend acting school, has had very few opportunities to play Shakespeare. As acting schools and colleges continue to downplay the importance of Shakespeare, you can imagine that this will soon become the norm. The lack of vocal training is also very evident: just look at how often microphones are used in British theatres today. The inability of young actors to project their voices is directly related to their inability to recite lines properly.
However, I wonder if the biggest factor in this decline is inverted snobbery; the idea that reciting verse is “elitist” and that, to make Shakespeare more understandable and “modern,” you have to tell it in prose. The Globe has moved away from original performance practices—and in some productions I’ve seen, the actors speak slowly and clearly, creating an effect that often seems overly literal and emotionless. I’ve heard that directors today are reluctant to lead actors line by line through Shakespeare, perhaps for fear of appearing authoritarian or, in some cases, for fear of being perceived as an elitist approach to the classics. I wonder if Hytner, so intelligent and capable of a rigorous academic approach, was hesitant about telling his younger actors how to interpret the text.
A few years ago, Gregory Doran, then artistic director of the RSC, set up a “Shakespeare gym” in Stratford to help actors strengthen their textual skills. I would suggest that all talented young actors need some kind of “Shakespeare school” to perfect their craft – and should attend it from the very beginning of their training. /Telegraph/
