Performing Shakespeare - Interview With Ben Crystal

Ben Crystal is the author of Shakespeare on Toast (published by Icon Books), a new book that dispels the myth that Shakespeare is difficult. Here, he shares his thoughts about performing Shakespeare and reveals his top tips for first-time actors. About.com: Is performing Shakespeare difficult? Ben Crystal: Well, yes ... and so it should be! These plays are over 400 years old. They contain cultural gags and references that are completely obscure to us. But they’re also hard to perform because Shakespeare was so darned good at tapping into the human heart – so, as an actor you can’t allow yourself to hold back. If you can’t go to the depths of your soul, explore the extremes of yourself, go to the bad place as Othello or Macbeth, then you shouldn’t be on the stage. You have to think about the big speeches in Shakespeare as the most important things the character has ever said; they need to be spoken with your chest cut open, your heart bare, and with tremendous passion. You need to tear the words from the sky. If you don’t feel like you’ve run a marathon when you’re done, you’re not doing it right. It takes courage to open yourself up to an audience like that, letting them see your insides without desperately trying to show them – it takes practice. About.com: What’s your advice to someone performing Shakespeare for the first time? Ben Crystal: Don’t treat it lightly, but don’t treat it too seriously either. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it’s similar to the notion of having to act truthfully in a big space, which many actors struggle with. It’s a tricky balance, and Shakespeare asks you to deal with these huge ideas and emotions which all too often lead you into â€Å"over-acting† – stay away from big gestures and over-the-top characterizations. A lot of what you need to know is on the page already. So it is tricky, and you have to work at it, but it’s also the best fun in the world. Enjoy it. Learn your lines so well you can go running or do the washing up while saying them. Only once they’re a deep part of you, can you start playing. A lot of people take Shakespeare’s plays far too seriously, and forget that important word: â€Å"play†. It’s a game, so enjoy it! You can’t â€Å"play† with your fellow actors if you’re trying to remember your lines. About.com: Has Shakespeare left clues to actors in the text? Ben Crystal: Yes, I think so. So does Peter Hall, Patrick Tucker, and a fair few others. Whether or not he actually did is always going to be up for debate. Going back to an original text like the First Folio will help. It’s the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, edited by two of his leading actors. They would have wanted to create a book on how to perform their colleague’s plays, not how to read them - 80% of Elizabethans couldn’t read! So the First Folio is as close to Shakespeare’s intended scripts as we can possibly get. When modern editors of the plays are making a new edition, they go back to the First Folio and remove capitalized letters, change spellings and switch speeches between characters because they’re looking at the plays from a literary point of view, not a dramatic one. Bearing in mind that Shakespeare’s company would perform a new play every day, they simply wouldn’t have had much time to rehearse. Therefore, the theory goes that much of the stage direction is written into the text. Indeed, it is possible to work out where to stand, how fast to speak, and what your character’s state of mind is, all from the text. About.com: How important is it to understand iambic pentameter before performing? Ben Crystal: That depends on how much you respect the writer you’re working with. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are written in that particular rhythmical style, so to ignore it would be foolish. Iambic pentameter is the rhythm of our English language and of our bodies – a line of that poetry has the same rhythm as our heartbeat. A line of iambic pentameter fills the human lung perfectly, so it’s the rhythm of speech. One could say that it’s a very human sounding rhythm and Shakespeare used it to explore what it is to be human. On a slightly less abstract note, iambic pentameter is a line of poetry with ten syllables, and all the even-numbered syllables have a slightly stronger stress. That’s a direction by itself – the stronger stresses usually fall on the important words. About.com: So what about lines with less than ten syllables? Ben Crystal: Well, either Shakespeare couldn’t count and was an idiot - or he was a genius and knew what he was doing. When there are less than ten syllables in a line, he’s giving the actor room to think. If the meter changes at any point, it’s a direction from Shakespeare to his actors about the character they’re playing. It sounds quite complicated, but actually, once you know what you’re looking for, it’s incredibly straightforward. Shakespeare knew that his actors would have had this rhythm flowing through their veins, and so would his audience. If he broke the rhythm, they’d feel it. To not understand iambic pentameter as an actor is to not understand 80% of the style Shakespeare wrote in, and the same amount again of what makes his writing so terrific. Shakespeare on Toast by Ben Crystal is published by Icon Books.

Hobbes And Rousseau s Theory Of Ownership - 1136 Words

Hobbes and Rousseau believe that ownership should be individual, whereas Marx wants ownership to be communal. This paper will first analyze using textual evidence how Hobbes understands the idea of ownership in his book â€Å"Leviathan†; what Rousseau interprets of ownership in â€Å"Discourse on the Origins of Inequality†; Marx’s views on the idea of ownership; and then answer whether or not a political society needs to protect the right to ownership. Thomas Hobbes was raised and trained to be a humanist. His approach to analyzing the body of politics was to define it as a composition of individuals and humans. In his book, â€Å"Leviathan† he considered human beings to be like machines where â€Å"the heart [is], but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body.† (Hobbes 1651). As machines, humans would carry out their duties without any emotions or reasoning, which is to survive. Hobbes believes that these individual human beings are naturally self- preserving and selfish creatures. This leads to his refurbished conclusion of the law that determines human nature being that: we can’t trust one another because one’s life matters more to him than that of someone else’s. One will kill or let another die if it ensures their own survival. Ownership for Hobbes is an idea that relates specifically to an individual, based on his personal actions and the value that he possesses as a result of those actions. As self-preservingShow MoreRelatedRousseau s Hypothetical State Of Nature1417 Words   |  6 PagesBy comparison, Rousseau’s hypothetical State of Nature, theory of human nature, and resulting sovereign was quite different. While Rousseau also considered humans to be savages existing without a state, to him they were essentially free to do what they would, content, equal, and living in peace, uncorrupted by the modern progress of civilization. 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The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden Early Northern Renaissance Free Essays

Rogier van der Weyden was one of the foremost artists from the Netherlands. During the Renaissance, religious themes were prevalent. Europe, was predominantly Catholic and the Church was a huge patron of the art that was produced. We will write a custom essay sample on The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden: Early Northern Renaissance or any similar topic only for you Order Now Northern Europe was different from Italy, the center of Renaissance art, in that it was more ornate the art produced in this area eventually was known as Baroque. The painting The Seven Sacraments by van der Weyden is typical of the art produced in the area. The subjects of the painting The Seven Sacraments, painted in fourteen forty-five, are baptism, confirmation, and penance on the left; the Eucharist in the center; and ordination, marriage, and extreme unction are on the right. The Catholic Church believes in the seven sacraments while the Protestants believe in only baptism and marriage. The religious subject is what makes this painting characteristic of the artistic period of the Renaissance. However, it is typically Northern in that the colors are bright and vivid and they painting is extremely realistic. An example would be that the dying man in the right of the painting is realistic in his body. During this time artist studied the human body at great lengths so that they could produce it realistically. They even studied cadavers so that they would be familiar with the inner and outer elements of the body. The setting for The Seven Sacraments is a large open cathedral. The Crucifixion is displayed in the center while there are angels on each side. Christ is hung above the other figures to symbolize his dominance in the lives of mankind. The angels represent the ever present being sent from heaven. The wedding on the left is not only a literal sacrament, but it also symbolizes the union of Christ and the Church on the day that Christ returns. The dying man on the right symbolizes the guarantee that life will end and man will have to face the unknown. The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden is a good example of the early Renaissance painting from Northern Europe. Weyden’s focus on emotion and grief made him the most famed painter of the time when he died. After his death, many artist went on to make the Renaissance the most popular period of art. How to cite The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden: Early Northern Renaissance, Papers