Secrets of Acting Shakespeare

The Original Approach

Patrick Tucker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138678514
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317192930
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Secrets of Acting Shakespeare isn't a book that gently instructs. It is a passionate, yes-you-can guide designed to prove that anybody can act Shakespeare.

Patrick Tucker's classic manual encourages trained and amateur actors alike to look to the original practices of the Elizabethan theatre for inspiration. He explores the 'cue scripts' used by actors, who knew only their own lines, to demonstrate the extraordinary way that these plays work by ear.

This updated second edition includes:

• A section dedicated to the modes of address 'thee' and 'you'
• A brand new chapter on Original Practices and cue scripts
• An expanded genealogical chart, showing the interrelations of 92 different characters from the history plays
• A new discussion of Elizabethan acting spaces – balconies, gates, ramparts and even backstage areas

Secrets of Acting Shakespeare is a must-read for actors intrigued by the 'Original Approach' to acting Shakespeare, or for anyone curious about how the Elizabethan theater worked.

Chapter 1
The 30 secrets

Here are the Clues to guide you in your performance, your production, or your understanding of the play. The extended version of these Notes is found in Chapter 9: The secrets expanded and explained.

Note 1: Prose and verse

If every line begins with a capital letter, it is verse: “heightened” language. If the text runs on without initial capital letters for each line, it is prose: “conversational” language. Many characters speak both in prose and in verse, which is a big clue to make an acting gear change between the two:

Romeo and Juliet (III-1)
BENVOLIO:
I pray thee good Mercutio lets retire,	verse
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad:
And if we meet, we shal not scape a brawle, for now these hot dayes, is the mad blood stirring.	changes to prose

Note 2: Iambic pentameters: masculine and feminine endings (and Alexandrines)

A standard iambic pentameter line has ten bits (usually comprising 5 lots of di-dum) and leads you to choose the last syllable. This is known as a masculine ending:

Twelfe Night (I-1)
DUKE (ORSINO):
If Musicke be the food of Love, play on,	masculine

Richard III (I-2)
LADY ANNE:
For thou hast made the happy earth thy Hell:	masculine

A feminine line has 11 bits (ending with a di-dum-di), so you weaken the end syllable, with a consequent effect on your acting choices:

Hamlet (III-1)
HAMLET:
To be, or not to be, that is the Question:	feminine

Macbeth (II-1)
MACBETH:
Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,	feminine

If there are 12 bits in the line, it is an Alexandrine; the acting note is that you are trying to cram more thoughts into the line than it will hold – play it strained, or urgently:

Measure, For Measure (II-2)
ISABELLA:
Hee’s not prepar’d for death; even for our kitchins	Alexandrine
We kill the fowle of season: shall we serve heaven	Alexandrine

If there are 13 bits in the line, then it is an Alexandrine with a feminine ending:

Hamlet (I-3)
LAERTES:
Whereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loves you,	feminine Alexandrine

If there are more bits, you should probably start counting again – or it may be prose.

Note 3: ‘ED’ and ‘’D’

Words ending with ‘ed’ should have the last two letters spoken, but if inste...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface to the second edition
• Text
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: the question
• 1 The 30 secrets
• 2 The research
• 3 The evidence
• 4 The experiment
• 5 The performances
• 6 The First Folio
• 7 Original Practices
• 8 Understanding through acting
• 9 The secrets explained and expanded
• 10 The plays and the clues
• Epilogue
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index of Shakespeare’s plays and characters
• General index