Speaking the Speech

An Actor's Guide to Shakespeare

Giles Block

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780012254
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Drama

Why does Shakespeare write in the way he does? And how can actors and directors get the most out of his incomparable plays?

In Speaking the Speech, Giles Block – 'Master of the Words' at Shakespeare's Globe – sets out to answer these two simple questions. The result is the most authoritative, most comprehensive book yet written on speaking Shakespeare's words.

Throughout the book, the author subjects Shakespeare's language to rigorous examination, illuminating his extraordinary ability to bring his characters to life by a simple turn of phrase, a breath or even a pause. Block shows how we can only fully understand these characters, and the meaning of the plays, by speaking the words out loud.

Drawing on characters from across all of Shakespeare's plays – and looking in detail at Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing – Block covers everything the actor needs to know, including: the essential distinctions between prose, rhymed verse and unrhymed verse, and the different strategies to be used when speaking them; the difference between 'you' and 'thou'; Shakespeare's use of silence; and the vital importance of paying attention to Shakespeare's 'original' punctuation.

Speaking the Speech is a book for actors and directors who want to improve their understanding of Shakespeare's language in order to speak it better. It is also a fascinating read for anyone who wants to deepen their appreciation of Shakespeare's language and the way it comes to life when spoken aloud.

'We call Giles our 'Text Guru' at the Globe, partly in jest, and partly out of respect for the depth of his knowledge, the gentleness of his teaching, and the sudden illuminations he can throw across a play. If this book can afford even a small part of the pleasure and insight Giles can provide in person, then it will be a great asset.' Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director, Shakespeare's Globe

'Giles deepened my love for Shakespeare and for the way we all speak. I trust you will have a similar experience reading his book.' Mark Rylance, from his Foreword

One

Why Verse?

ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind.

JAQUES. Nay then God buy you, and you talk in blank verse.

As You Like It: Act 4, Scene 1

Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse, rhymed verse and prose. But the proportions of each of these in each of the plays are rarely even similar. A couple of plays have no prose at all, some others almost none; whereas a handful have more prose than verse. Some plays have virtually no rhymed verse, yet there are two plays in which nearly half of all the lines rhyme. But all of his plays have some blank verse in them, and most have more blank verse in them than anything else; so it’s with blank, or unrhymed, verse that we must begin.

But why does he write in verse at all? Wouldn’t his plays be more lifelike, more real, if his characters spoke in prose?

To begin to answer this I want to look at a part of a very brief scene from Act 5, Scene 4 of Julius Caesar.

It’s hard to be sure of any of the facts surrounding Shakespeare’s life, though it seems likely that he was writing Julius Caesar in 1599, when he was 35 years old – in the same year that the Globe Theatre was erected on the south bank of the Thames.¹ But we can say some things about him with greater certainty. I believe, for example, that as he wrote Act 5, Scene 4 of Julius Caesar, besides having his pen, ink and papers to hand, he also had a book open beside him, which he was glancing at from time to time. And I can say this with some confidence because it is clear that, not only was he reading this book, but he was also copying some of it straight into his scene. The book was a little background reading. It was Thomas North’s Translation of Plutarch’s Life of Brutus.

If we look at the way he was using this book – a book written in prose, as you might expect from the title – we’ll begin to understand why Shakespeare writes in verse. So let’s, as it were, look over his shoulder and watch him at work and hopefully begin to understand why he does what he does. And why this verse can be said to be ‘more real’ – more like our own normal speech patterns, than prose.

The situation in this short scene – it is only about thirty lines long – is that the war is going badly for Brutus’s forces, and they are at the point of final defeat at the hands of Antony and Octavius. To give Brutus a chance of outwitting his foes, Lucilius, one of his friends and fellow soldiers, tells the enemy that he is Brutus and allows himself to be captured. The incident comes straight out of North’s Plutarch. Here it is in North’s words:

Amongst them there was one of Brutus’ friends called Lucilius, who seeing a troupe of barbarous men… going all together right against Brutus, he determined to stay them with the hazard of his life, and… told them he was Brutus… These barbarous men… sent some before unto Antonius to tell him of their coming… Lucilius was brought to him who stoutly with a bold countenance said ‘Antonius, I dare assure thee, that no enemy have taken, nor shall take Marcus Brutus alive: and I beseech God keep him from that fortune. For wheresoever he be found, alive or dead, he will be found like himself.’

Now here is this same episode in Shakespeare’s play:

SOLDIER. Yield, or thou diest.

LUCILIUS. Only I yield to die:

There is so much, that thou wilt kill me straight:

Kill Brutus, and be honour’d in his death.²

SOLDIER. We must not: a noble prisoner.

Enter ANTONY.

2 SOLDIER. Room ho:* tell Antony, Brutus is tane.*

1 SOLDIER. I’ll tell thee news. Here comes the general,

Brutus is tane, Brutus is tane my lord.

ANTONY. Where is he?

LUCILIUS. Safe Antony, Brutus is safe enough:

I dare assure thee, that no enemy

Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus:

The gods defend him from so great a shame,

When you do find him, or alive, or dead,

He will be found like Brutus, like himself.

Julius Caesar: Act 5, Scene 4

It is this last six-line speech of Lucilius’s that I want to focus on.

Immediately you’ll see the great similarities between Shakespeare’s words and those of North’s. In particular the second of Shakespeare’s six lines follows North word for word,

I dare assure thee, that no enemy

and the final line differs only in that Shakespeare adds the words ‘like Brutus’ to North’s shorter phrase,

he will be found like himself.

So it’s pretty clear what Shakespeare is doing: he’s rewriting North’s prose into verse, but he doesn’t need to change some of it because, coincidentally, it already fits into the verse pattern that Shakespeare wants. And this coincidence should alert us to the fact that this simple rhythm that Shakespeare is after, is all around us – all the time. It is not so special. It is not solely the language of poets. It is the way we all speak and write on occasions.

I pick up a newspaper (I was working in Virginia at the time) and within less than a minute I find this headline:

A BIT OF EDEN IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD.

The Washington Post, 28 January 2010

Shakespeare would have been absolutely happy with the rhythm of these ten syllables: it’s basically the same rhythm as all the lines in the scene above. In fact it immediately reminds me of a line he actually wrote.

This other Eden, demi paradise,

Richard II: Act 2, Scene 1

Say these two lines out loud, the one from the newspaper and the one from Richard II, and then the ten syllables that Shakespeare didn’t need to change from North’s prose:

I dare assure thee, that no enemy

The simple rhythm that they all have in common is clear to see and hear. And only one of the three was actually written as ‘verse’.

All these lines have ten syllables with the stresses gently falling on the alternating syllables – that is on the second, fourth, sixth, eight and tenth syllables. And as you may well know, this particular rhythm of unstress/stress is called ‘iambic’.

With all the other lines from North, Shakespeare has reshaped North’s words (with one exception) to make them fall into this same iambic pattern.³ He has also, at the same time, made some of the phrases seem more direct and colloquial. But it is the rhythm that is his main concern.

Why is Shakespeare after this particular rhythm? Well, it’s useful to him in many ways.

Perhaps the first thing we should say about this rhythm is that it sounds quite natural – quite speech-like. But the rhythm also seems to be toppling us forward through to the end of the line. This gives the line a feeling of movement and urgency. The iambic rhythm has therefore something persuasive about it. It’s a rhythm that captures the sound of a voice that has something urgent or important to say. And in plays, having something important to say is almost always the case.

Of course this rhythm is also like the beating of our own hearts. So the very lines, with these heartbeats threaded through them, sound alive and vibrant. When we hear someone speaking in this rhythm, subliminally we are reminded of our common humanity. The lines sound human.

So, as actors, how does this work to our advantage in practice?

Well, it certainly won’t work to our advantage if we sound it out in any obvious or heavy-handed way. It would simply be a turn-off for our audiences. All must sound natural, and every moment should sound new.

I like to call it our ‘secret rhythm’, not one which the audience is really conscious of, but one which, beating in time with the audience’s own hearts, subliminally creates a sympathetic bond between audience and actor. We listen to the characters sympathetically because the rhythm of their words sounds familiar, purposeful and heart-felt. When someone speaks in this way, we hear the emotion that lies under whatever thought is being expressed.

If we want to describe our own heartbeat, we would probably say it was regular, consistent, reliable. Of course it can run faster and slower as it responds to different situations, but this doesn’t take away from its reliability. Our heartbeat is dependable. So another message that is carried subliminally to the audience by the iambic rhythm is a sense of dependability. We listen to such a speaker and we feel that they mean what they say.

Shakespeare’s blank verse is ‘the sound of sincerity’.

It is also a careful and considered way of speaking. The iambic rhythm is easy to listen to; the stressed syllables are evenly spaced. We listen to someone speaking in this rhythm, and even if we can’t hear the actual words they are using, the sound of the rhythm will convey to us an emotional need. With Shakespeare’s words added, it has the power to move us; those speaking it sound sincere, as if they are expressing things that are dear to them. All the more terrible then are those characters, like Iago in Othello, whose lines of verse sound so sincere, yet whose intentions are anything but.

The satirist, Joseph Hall, describing an actor performing Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, writes:⁴

He vaunts his voi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword by Mark Rylance
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• 1 Why Verse?
• 2 Thoughts and Thought-units
• 3 The Thought Breaks
• 4 The Merchant of Venice: The Creation of a New Verse Form
• 5 Hamlet: A Play of ‘Highways’ and ‘Pop-ups’
• 6 Forms of Address, Verse Irregularities – and What They Tell Us
• 7 Measure for Measure: A Duologue to Work On
• 8 Why Prose?
• 9 Sounding Prose: Reason and Madness
• 10 Much Ado About Nothing: The Play of Verse-shy Characters
• 11 Rhyming Verse
• 12 To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme
• 13 Trusting Rhyme: Twelfth Night and All’s Well that Ends Well
• 14 Folio Punctuation
• 15 Macbeth: Deepening and Reviewing Our Work
• 16 The Winter’s Tale: Refining Our Work
• 17 Sounding Shakespeare
• Appendix: My Comments on the Duologue in Chapter 7
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright Information