Customer Reviews

Thinking Shakespeare: A How-to Guide for Student Actors, Directors, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Feel More Comfortable With the Bard

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This well-written, insightful book will be of interest not only to actors and directors, but anyone who wants to spend some time with the Bard. If I were teaching an English Lit course I would include this along with the plays. If you like Shakespeare and you enjoy thinking, you will love this book!

I confess at the start that I am absolutely enthralled by, utterly delighting in, completely entranced with this book right now. It is specifically intended for actors and directors, but in learning how actors and directors are to get to the heart of the text, it very much enlightens one's reading of Shakespeare and enjoyment in every way. And it is quite fun to read. Even if Edelstein is trapped among the Stratford camp, this I will forgive, for his insights and systematic approach to line-by-line analysis are sure to inform my reading (and hearing) of Shakespeare evermore. I simply can't put it down. It really is an absolute delight.

At the heart of the work is the premise that the words in Shakespeare are, line by line, the characters THINKING -- and that the question we should be asking continually as we read Shakespeare is: "Why is this character using THESE words NOW?" Because with Shakespeare -- and here is the crux of his genius -- with Shakespeare there is always a reason. If you know how to look (or listen) for those hints, it is as if a veil has been lifted and the characters and scenes come to life.

What is most exciting to me is seeing how much hidden direction (or clear opportunities for variations within the direction) is right there in the text if only your eye and ear were trained to spot it. This depth of reading brings a far, far richer reward, enabling you to see the play enacted in your mind as if it were really happening before you, hear the lines afresh with all their vital energy and nuance, and draw in the emotion investing the characters.

It is to raise the play off the page and breathe life back into it, and through that inspiration see the characters come alive in all the depth and color Shakespeare meant for them to carry.

The book opens with some groundwork to prepare you for understanding the elements of his approach at getting to the heart of the text. Here we explore the all-important question, "Why THESE words NOW?" We are also introduced to some fundamentals of acting, looking at how thought leads to emotion, and how characters are driven forward by their objectives, the obstacles blocking them, and the actions (and their words, which ARE actions) they take to confront and overcome those obstacles. This leads into our understanding of how much dramatic progress relies upon argument, the clear and purposeful stating of one's case.

And it is here we turn to HOW a character states his case, the tools of language Shakespeare employs in shaping those thoughts and arguments. This content is given out over the course of the book, and not the least of its rewards is in helping us learn how Shakespeare is best read and delivered. But the real reward is a derivative of this: in learning HOW Shakespeare achieves his poetic effects, we are able to see with far greater clarity how his characters think and speak, what they are thinking and feeling, and how an actor should (or in some cases the multiple ways one could) deliver a particular word, phrase, line, speech.

And the tools of Shakespeare's craft are many.

Scansion, meter, stress, -ed endings, elision, feminine endings, quirks of pronunciation, rhythm and pace, cues of punctuation, antithesis, repetition, beats, builds and lists and repeats, monosyllables, stresses, height, end-stops and enjambed lines, breath, line endings, abutted consonants, bifurcated iambic pentameter, caesuras ...

All these wonderful tools, each with its own implications and insights, accompanies us as we learn that any key speech, passage, or scene should, if it is to be fully understood (fully heard, fully envisioned), be put through a deliberate analysis meant to get to the heart of it -- so that we can in the end answer the question of each character: "Why THESE words NOW?" and so come to the meaning, to what Shakespeare intended ... and often entertain all the varied and exciting alternatives he offers us, even in the shortest of passages.

The depth and breadth this kind of approach can bring to any reading of Shakespeare cannot be overstated were I to spend ten more pages trying to describe it.

I do not count it exaggeration to say that an understanding of these tools and this kind of approach to reading Shakespeare could bring one an endless -- and endlessly fascinating -- source of joy and delight, were one to do nothing but read and re-read Shakespeare for the rest of one's life.

But this isn't to say it's a difficult book. It is perfectly accessible. In fact, it is quite fun to read. Edelstein writes in an easy-going, funny, conversational style throughout. You can't put it down.

(I'm itching to get back to it myself, so I'll wrap this up.)

The approach he takes really boils down to no more than this:

First, identify the backdrop and the general argument (what's going on and what led up to it).

Second, make a paraphrase. You might begin with a near line-by-line translation, but you will then refine that further, preserving the most important ideas at work. You are after the thoughts behind the language; you are working to get to the heart of the THOUGHTS driving the words the character is using.

Third, you turn to the lines themselves, examining and driving through them line by line (which in Shakespeare is truly thought by thought), looking at the clues Shakespeare has provided us in its meter, the height of its language, the alliteration or use of elision or antitheses or pace or any of the other tools outlined above. In learning to spot these clues, we at last come to explore not only how the lines (how the thoughts) are best and most clearly delivered, but also why the character is using THESE words NOW -- and what that means for how we are to speak them or see them played and how we are at last to take in the emotions Shakespeare is conjuring for us on the page or on the stage.

All of this might sound like a lot of work, but it's really only a matter of some practice. A shift of perspective and a bit of thought. A heightened focus. Your eye and ear become attuned to the instruments Shakespeare continually employs. And then you really come to appreciate the genius at work. Because the infinite versatility (and consummate ease) with which Shakespeare builds these symphonies of structure, these jazz riffs of poetry -- it truly is beyond comprehension. In the end you can only wonder at it. And, when your heart and stomach aren't wrung with the drama of it, perhaps sit there with a goofy smile on your face, shaking your head. Amazed.