CHAPTER 32
Session Two
In this session: Applying first skills • Working hard lines
• Oxford English Dictionary • Punctuation
• Breathing • Breathing exercises
We’ve all assembled, except Marilyn is absent on family business. We’ve set up two white boards for later use.
Coach: Welcome all—our merry band, less one. Hope it has been a good week for you. (Lots of affirmations.) Today, we’re going to each read four to six lines from your speeches and see how you’ve applied the skills we learned last time. Dude, would you kindly write on one of these boards the skills we’ll be listening for today.
Dude writes these skills on the board: End of line support, scansion and stresses, caesuras, feminine endings, trochees, elision, antithesis.
Coach: After we do these readings, we can each write lines on the board for which we’d like a little help in determining the scansion. We’ll work out hard lines together. But now, each person stand and read a few lines from your speech, applying these skills. I want you to overdo the skills, so we can hear them. For example, use long caesuras and good strong punches on the last words. Overstress the stressed syllables. It will sound strange but will pay off later. We’ll all follow along. This is the first time we’ve heard each other’s speeches. Today, we just listen. Next time, when we read lines, I’ll assign everyone a specific skill to listen for, and to give notes on, after the speaker has finished.
The actors take turns, and each reads a few lines from their assigned speech. They overdo every skill, as requested. They do a pretty good job of applying the skills to their lines. It will be even better next time. Here are the first few lines from each of the speeches:
From As You Like It : II, i—Dude reading Duke Senior:
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam;
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind, (We stop here.)
From Romeo and Juliet : Prologue—Mike reading Chorus:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; (We stop here.)
From Henry V : IV, i—Zach reads Henry:
O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts;
Possess them not with fear! Take from them now
The sense of reck’ning, if th’ opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown! (We stop here.)
From Macbeth : I, v—Joan reads Lady Macbeth:
He brings great news.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direct cruelty. Make thick my blood; (We stop here.)
From Twelfth Night : II, ii—Dawn reads Viola:
I left no ring with her. What means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her.
She made good view of me; indeed, so much
That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger. (We stop here.)
From Othello : II, iii—Michael reads Iago:
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
As I do now. For whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes,
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body’s lust; (We stop here.)
From The Merchant of Venice : IV, i—Marilyn’s Portia speech (which we will hear next time)
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown. (We stop here.)
Coach: Good. I didn’t comment much today, that will be next time. I just wanted you to start being comfortable reading Shakespeare aloud and applying the skills. I know it sounds horrible, but once the skills are being comfortably used, we’ll pull back; by the final workshop, the lines will be natural and correctly read. Now, we have hard lines from most of the speeches. Just go to the boards, erase what’s there, and write the hard lines. Then we’ll work out the scansion.
(I talk while they write.) Everyone be sure to check out the OED at the library, the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is the bible for classical literature—all thirty volumes—every word ever printed in English through the date of the OED publication. The edition in our library is 1989. Here you will discover the origin of the word, when it was first used, which is often in a Shakespearean line, and who invented it—as Shakespeare did for at least 2,035 words. The book tells you what the word meant at the time of its creation. Of course, the audience won’t hear that, but for the actor, this information gives you a sense of confidence you don’t otherwise have. You know exactly what the character is saying. So sometime over the next few days, look up most of your words. Be careful with nouns and adverbs. They can mean exactly the opposite of what we think they mean. You can also find the OED online if you’re willing to pay a small fee for its use.
The actors have finished writing the hard lines on the boards. Joan has written a Lady Macbeth line: “Under my battlements. Come, you spirits” etc.
Coach: Last time I worked on this Lady M speech, the lovely actress, Bridè LaPlatney, was doing the speech and found interesting meaning for the word battlements. Do you know, Joan?
Joan: Where they put the guns and fighting pieces. All that stuff.
Coach: You’re close, but you’re saying it in general. Remember “in general?” What did Stanislavski say about “in general?”
Except for Dude, nobody knows, and most haven’t heard of Stanislavski, the great Russian actor, teacher, director, and cofounder of the Moscow Art Theatre. The group is so intelligent that I often forget they have not had any actor training. Most actors study and practice Stanislavski’s techniques in any realistic acting class. I’ve always assumed that any actor taking Shakespeare training already knows basic realistic acting skills. Not so in community theatre!
Coach: (I explain.) “In general” is the enemy of art. But what does that mean?
Dude: (Filling the void.) Your choices must be specific.
Coach: Right. You don’t want to generalize your line reading, but be specific in your meaning. You know what you’re saying, you’re not guessing or “sort of getting it.” Battlements—the arch in a castle wall, usually filled with a wooden door. Above the battlements are the places where the archers were positioned. Deadly spots. So Lady M is saying, this is a fatal entrance for King Duncan.
Lady M is presuming that King Duncan will spend the night here at their castle. She has already said that “The raven himself” is croaking the news that something nasty will happen here tonight. Your line has a pyrrhic and a spondee. “Under my battlements.” Trochee and pyrrhic—two soft syllables. “Under” is stress/soft. Then the trochee “Come” is the verb. “Spirits” can be a spondee—two stressed syllables. Have we put those terms on the board yet?
We haven’t, so Dude agrees to write them out when we finish with the hard lines that occupy both boards. Joan works out all the scansion, reads the line, all agree.
Coach: Always play the verbs—actors love and use verbs. They tell you the action.
Joan has another line: “Fill me from the crown to the toe,” etc. There is no comma after toe, but a caesura is required. “To the toe” becomes two syllables—elision. Joan has more lines from later in the speech, and we work those out together.
Coach: Everyone watch for enjambed lines, and the thought continuing into the next line. Young actors often use full stops at the end of a blank verse line, even if there is no period. But the end of the line is only printed that way because it’s ten syllables, and the thought often continues. Some thoughts in Shakespeare can run twenty or more lines before a full stop (period).
Michael: Like a Henry James line—“Patience, madam, the verb is coming.”
Dude: When I started working on lines in this manner, I wanted to skip it all and just get on my feet. Eventually, I figured out that the scansion breakdown is critical to reading the line correctly. If you auditioned with this speech, and read the lines wrong, we would know you didn’t scan them.
Michael has one and a half Iago lines on the board: “For whilst this honest fool / Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes,” etc.
Michael: “For whilst this honest fool plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes” can be a feminine ending, or we could elide Desdemona. (Everyone agrees the feminine ending is the better choice.)
Zach’s hard line is from Henry’s prayer before the Battle of Agincourt. I love the story and end up telling them about the Battle of Agincourt. Then we work on the line and work out the scansion. “Take from them now / The sense of reck’ning, which th’ opposed numbers,” etc.
Coach: Meaning logic, or evaluation of the enemy, lose their courage. The author has already elided for you. You should look up “steel” in the previous lines to know what it meant to Shakespeare, also “reck’ning”—what’s it mean? (Zach works out the scansion.)
Zach: Eliding “reck’ning,” which Shakespeare already did, the entire line has a feminine ending. (He reads the line correctly)
Coach: You need to say “oppos’ed,” as Shakespeare indicates. Good work. Who’s next?
Mike, doing the Chorus from Romeo and Juliet, has written this line on the board: “Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,” etc. But he was bogged down with the scansion. (Earlier we read the first six lines of this speech, but this is line seven.) I pause to tell them the story of a former acting student (Jennifer Fox) who had nailed this speech in a workshop just like ours. Later, at a “cold reading” audition in Florida, the auditioning actors were each handed a speech to “look over, then read.” They handed her this speech! I’m sure her audition reading was quite excellent, and she was cast.
Coach: If you elide “piteous”—take out the “e”—you’ll solve part of your problem. Let’s beat out the rhythm. (We do this, both right and wrong.) Later, you have “and the continuance”; elide “continuance”; beat it out, and you’ll find the scansion.
Dawn: I’m seeing the method to your madness—you’re an elision guy.
Coach: Honestly, I just picked good speeches and didn’t consider the scansion until we went to work on them. But I do like elision. (We work out the scansion for Mike’s entire speech.)
Dawn: Wait. Shouldn’t we push through “continuance” and get to “their parents’ rage.” I would.
Coach: So would I. Drive through the line to get to what’s most important. (Mike does that, and we all like it.)
Zach: Question. I have two short lines a little later in the speech. Do I use an action to complete the line?
Coach: Sure, if that feels right. Or just keep going with the four-foot lines; they will actually work okay. I’d want to drive to the end of the thought—Richard’s soul. I would tie all the ideas and good deeds together and get to the point of these deeds. In staging, probably kneel after “More will I do.” Okay. Dawn, your hard lines.
Dawn: Working backwards, I found my feminine endings. I’m okay. (She reads a few lines, finds her feminine endings, then realizes that Viola is confused, just like she is. We all enjoy the discovery.)
Coach: Good. That’s what your ear needs to do: hear it when you go off or find something. You just did that. You should all be starting to see why we don’t memorize first. Because when you work on the lines, develop the scansion, know the punctuation, know the meaning of the words, then you will memorize correctly. Actors usually don’t want to do that; they want to just speak immediately.
You’re the one who has to eventually make the final decision on each line because it’s you who has to make the speech work in performance, not me. I’m only guiding you to find the best way to discover what’s in the line. But you’ll be on the stage making it work. That’s what the director does for you—helps you find the best way. Mike, beat out the stresses on a few of your lines. Let your ear guide you.
Mike reads lines from Romeo and Juliet and beats out all the syllables. It’s very good; his ear picks up mistakes, and he corrects himself on the spot. We all hear his adjustments.
Coach: Don’t forget a small caesura after “grudge”—set up the word “break.”
Dude reads a few lines from As You Like It as a breeches part—a female playing a male role—reading the Duke. Then she’ll change the Duke to a Duchess. We talk about when women first appeared on the English stage and review some theatre history.
Coach: The casting couch goes way back. Some producers today, especially in film, are regretting ever using it. And so they should. What goes around comes around. Good thing. Break time, then breathing exercises.
After the break, Dude writes the first four lines of Sonnet 143 on a white board and four lines from a Macbeth speech on the other board. We’ll begin with these lines. (See this exercise in more detail on pages 38–39.)
Sonnet 143: Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,
Macbeth: To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus—
Our fears in Banquo stick deep,
And in his royalty of nature reigns that
Which would be feared. ‘Tis much he dares; (Mac, III, i)
Coach: Dude has placed eight lines on the boards. As you look at them, notice the punctuation—the periods, commas, dashes, colons, and semicolons. A good technique to learn is to breathe on the punctuation points. No other place. The director, Tyrone Guthrie, used to say that a good actor could read seven lines of blank verse without a breath and with plenty of strength left at the end. You could all do that, but you’d have to build up some stamina.
First, however, I want you to look at page 36 of your text. I’m inserting this now, before we begin the breathing exercises, because I don’t want to forget to show you. (They all have a copy of the second edition of Clues. In the third edition, see page 36 as well.) Here are two speeches of realistic dialogue. Let’s apply the skills we’ve learned to these lines—even though they are realism. With the exception of scansion, which is used for meter and these speeches are in prose, the other skills can be applied.
We take turns, and everyone reads each speech. The actors find it amazing that the Shakespeare skills apply to realism as well. The more people who read, the more skills we apply. We discuss how all language needs the endings supported, the antithesis played, elisions worked out, and breathing at the right places, plus correct phrasing, which we haven’t worked on yet. We also look over the two Shakespearean prose speeches on page 37 and notice that the same skills can be applied. We’ll get to those later.
Coach: Now, we’ll work on breathing, and you need to apply these breathing exercises to your speeches. Often, an audience can’t understand actors because they run out of breath. The breath is supported by the diaphragm muscle—located right here. Everyone standup. (I use Joan as a model.) Now, when you breathe in, the air goes down the back—it will feel cool—it goes around the bottom of the buckets, your lungs, then up the front of your body. All breathe in and feel it. (They do.) Learn to fill your lungs. This is similar to getting your second wind when jogging, etc. It also works as an exercise for going to sleep—you breathe in on a four count, fill the lungs, hold for a seven count, then release the air. Repeat four or five times. It will put you to sleep. Old yoga exercise.
When things are urgent, breathe through your mouth. It’s faster. Now make your hands into claws. Push them against your diaphragm. Just push against the muscle. Farting is okay during this exercise because you sometimes can’t help it. (All laugh.) Now, we’ll breathe in against the claws, then push the air out with the diaphragm—trumpet it out. Send out the air like a trumpet. There are your words—riding on that air that comes out like a trumpet.
Reading this language, you breathe at the punctuation points. Let’s speak, “The quality of mercy is not strained”—push the words out with the diaphragm—“It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath.” Push with one hand against the diaphragm. Get a full breath at each punctuation point, blow it out on the line, then breathe again. (We practice, everyone doing different lines around the room.) Now you’re thinking “I don’t need that many breaths.” But what if you had been in Shakespeare’s acting company? Anybody know why you’d need the breaths? Well, you’re outdoors, the audience might be three thousand people, there are vendors and birds squawking around, the audience talks back to you, it might be raining, all kinds of noises, groundlings who can touch you—and your voice has to reach the third balcony.
So, you would need the breathing points to have the voice to reach the top balcony. (I read some lines, reaching an imaginary top balcony, and using up all of my air on each phrase). Today, in most theatres, you wouldn’t need such a big breath in that first line.
Zach: Yes, you wouldn’t actually need that much punctuation to say only a few lines.
Coach: Right, but let’s do a few. Everybody read some lines and see how little air you can use up to complete the line—and how much you have left. Ration your breath. (All try reading a line and rationing breath.) Now, do it again, and instead of rationing your air, use all of it between each punctuation point. Sometimes you want to use all of your breath for only a few words, sometimes you have thirty or more words before you can breathe, and you will need to ration your breath. (They practice using up all of their breath on a few words.)
Everybody lie flat on your back on the floor. (They all lie on the floor.) Now, we’ll do the same claw/diaphragm/pushing-out air exercise. Breathe in, feel it go around, push it back out. Let me hear you blow it back out—then we’ll put words on it. So just blow out the line. On your back, breathe in, then blow out the line—see how much air you have left. How much more you could have used. (They work the lines.)
Now keep going: breathe in, blow out the words, keep going to another line, pause and breathe at all punctuation points. Fill your lungs when you breathe. Completely; take the time to fill the lungs completely.
Joan: Breathe on every punctuation point?
Coach: Yes, because this is a rehearsal exercise, and we’re concentrating on your breathing, not your tempo. Don’t take a half breath; when you come to a punctuation point, breathe in a full breath, fill the lungs, then speak until the next punctuation point. When you reach the punctuation point, blow out all remaining air, and breathe in a full lung’s capacity all over again. And repeat. (They work on this breathing exercise while lying on the floor,)
When you fill your lungs at each breathing point, which is a punctuation point, do you realize how much power you have for each phrase? You’ve filled your lungs for each phrase.
Joan: If we only need a quarter of our breath to say a line, then come to a punctuation point, why can’t we just refill that quarter, rather than emptying the lungs and taking a real deep breath?
Coach: You can, in performance. This is an exercise on learning about the power you have if you keep your lungs full, and force yourself to breathe completely at each breathing point. I want you to know how powerful you can be.
Zach: Okay, I would breathe more quickly in performance?
Coach: You’d have to, right. But notice the strength you have when your lungs are full. This is essential for good acting on stage. When actors breathe correctly, you might actually find yourself breathing with them. It’s such a good feeling. The good actor is always filling his lungs. The actor knows from rehearsal how much breath he needs to speak the next passage and makes certain he has more than that. If there are six lines, you need a great breath. Notice the sonnet lines.
The actors stand up, and we work through the sonnet lines, noting the punctuation. I have Dawn read the lines, breathing incorrectly. She breathes deeply at the end of every line, even when there is no punctuation, which destroys the meaning of the lines. Then Joan reads it with correct breathing. Everyone hears the difference. We work on final words, phrases, and correct breathing.
Coach: Now bring your speech, pair up, and give it to a partner; we’ll learn a new exercise. This is a breathing exercise that will drive you nuts. (Reactions.)
Earlier, we had set up three pairs of chairs around the room. Each pair of chairs is about four feet apart. As Marilyn is absent and Michael left early, we need only two pairs of chairs now. I demonstrate the chair exercise using “The quality of mercy” speech—walking between breaths and breathing in while walking. This walking between breaths forces me to take the time to breathe—while I walk between the chairs, breathing in, I also “breathe in” the next line. I do it like this: Standing behind a chair, I take a deep breath and speak the line, “The quality of mercy is not strained;”—and I come to my first punctuation point. Here, I blow out all remaining air in my lungs and start three steps to position myself behind the second chair. While walking, I inhale again and fill my lungs. I stand behind the second chair and speak the next lines: “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath.”—where I come to the next punctuation point. I blow out all remaining air and walk back to the first chair—three steps, inhaling while walking, so when I’m again behind the first chair, I have a full capacity of air. I speak the next line up to the punctuation point, and repeat the process.
While walking and inhaling, I also, so to speak, “breathe in” my next line; then when speaking, exhale the new line on the breath. The words ride out on the breath. There should be three steps between chairs. (This exercise is also explained in chapter 5.)
The four actors work in pairs and read their speeches, practicing the breathing exercise all the while. Dude helps one pair; I help the other. They read their lines, each with a full breath, exhale the leftover air, walk and inhale to the other chair, speak the next line while exhaling, blow out all extra air, walk and inhale back to the first chair, and repeat.
Coach: Your caesuras are not breathing points, just sense pauses; you don’t breathe or walk at a caesura.
Dawn: I want to skip the walking and just get to it.
Coach: Yeah, that’s what is frustrating, but this exercise makes you inhale completely, and you are forced to clearly separate phrases and know the breathing points. Later, we’ll do these speeches without the “hindering” exercises. (They continue with the breathing exercises, taking turns and helping each other. There are lots of laughs.)
Dude: Dawn, do you notice that when you separate ideas, how many are actually in the lines?
Dawn: I’m finding them, but there sure are a lot of breaths.
Dude: Later, you’ll get rid of some of them.
I work with Mike on interpretation of the Romeo and Juliet prologue, and with Zach on interpretation of the Henry V speech. Then they return to the breathing exercise.
Coach: Don’t rush this language. Trust the words. If you speak them well, the audience will listen and love it. And it’s syllable by syllable. There are no shortcuts.
Joan: And you need each word to get to the next word.
Dawn: If you miss a word, the line is thrown off.
Dude: And doing this exercise, you focus on what is coming next. The next phrase.
Dawn: I was telling Dude about doing Romeo and Juliet once, and how we were forced to handle the language—we had to use lots of arm motions—like in the first grade.
Joan: That’s just like my elementary music classes where we use a motion for each idea.
Zach: And in my elementary classroom. That must have been quite a production. (There are lots of laughs.)
Coach: Time’s up for today. Next time, we’ll continue with this exercise and also phrasing, then add another—one that calls on your ear to help your partner. Good session today. Thank you, everyone. See you next time.