Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard (27 page)

Winning dialogue

The director and writer Michael Winner said in February 2008 that Shakespeare writes some ‘awful’ dialogue, and that he defies any actor to speak a certain line of Macduff’s in
Macbeth
(Act 4, Scene 3, lines 216–18) and make it believable. Told that Macbeth has had his wife and children slaughtered, Macduff asks over and over again if his wife, his children have all been killed:

All my pretty ones? Did you say all?

O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens

And their dam, at one fell swoop?

Winner argued that the ‘all my pretty chickens’ line is impossible to act without causing laughter, and indeed it isn’t the easiest of lines to get right. But it isn’t awful dialogue. It’s
heartbreaking
. The repetition of
all
, the broken lines of metre: spoken with truth, with the right emotion and passion, these lines aren’t troublesome, they’re a gift. Macduff’s whole life has been swept away from him, and Shakespeare brings this tough warrior to his knees, to face a terrible, terrible loss.

Scene 10

Checklist

W
hat I’ve done with one scene of
Macbeth
you can do with any other scene or play. Not all the scenes of Shakespeare might have so much in them – some may have a lot more – but the methods I’ve used and the things I’ve looked for are the keys to unlocking anything that may stand in your way.

Here’s a checklist of things to look for:

That last point is worth picking up on. There are scenes in Shakespeare’s plays where characters are mentioned as entering, in the stage directions, yet they say nothing – the infamous spear-carriers. For example, in Act 1, Scene 4 of
King Lear
, the stage direction says
Enter Lear and Attendants
(the Penguin edition says
Enter Lear and Knights
). The Knights don’t have much to say, and most, if not all, get sent off to run errands and fetch people. But their presence is a demonstration of Lear’s ruling power, as king.

By Act 3, Scene 1, Kent meets a Gentleman on the moor. Lear is howling at the storm, and the Gentleman asks who follows the king. Kent’s reply is ‘None but the Fool’. A king without followers is no longer king, merely a madman shouting at the wind.

Thank goodness for the spear-carriers.

Epilogue

T
his book is by no means a complete guide. If it tried to be complete, it would be many times the size, and defeat the whole point. These are some of the basic things you should look for, to crack your way into Shakespeare. The clues will help you break up what may seem like an incomprehensible speech or scene, and give it a clear, dramatic direction. As Cicely Berry, the granddam of voice and Shakespeare once said, there are no rules about how to do Shakespeare, just clues.

There are some who think that ‘to follow the metre’ too closely can make Shakespeare too cerebral a process, that in so doing you miss the beauty of the words, the dramatic intentions. Others think that everything comes from the metre, that it’s the foundation on which to build a character, to let the poetry sing. There are directors who bury their heads in the text, others who barely look at it; actors who base their entire interpretation of a character on the metre, others who see it as a hindrance to their work.

Despite the fact that he was as human, flawed and fallible as the rest of us, the one rule that has always guided me straight and true with Shakespeare is this:

There is always a reason for it
.

No matter how complicated, no matter how ostensibly random, how annoying, boring or just plain bad a scene or a line seems to be, there is
always
a reason for it being there.

You just have to find out what it is.

And I promise: the search is always worth it.

Props

Herein ye shall find a chronology of Shakespeare’s works, and a list of poetical terms. Be warned, though: the list of poetical terms features some concepts that I didn’t discuss in the book, and some are a little tricky.

A chronology of Shakespeare’s works

A list of useful concepts for describing Shakespeare’s verse (from
The Shakespeare Miscellany
)

English rhythm

In the English language, the basis of rhythm is an alternating contrast between syllables which are perceived to be strong and syllables which are perceived to be weak.

Metre
or
Meter

The rhythmical organisation of lines of poetry, defined with reference to the number of rhythmical units allowed in a line and by the combinations of strong and weak syllables allowed within those units.

Verse

Any text written in lines which have a metrical structure. The term contrasts with
prose
, where the lines have no predictable rhythmical length or structure, simply reflecting the rhythm of everyday speech.

Prose

Writing that reflects the rhythm of everyday English speech – it doesn’t have the issue of rhythmical units and there aren’t structured rules for the number of syllables per line.

Blank verse

Verse which has a metrical structure but does not rhyme.

Foot

A unit of rhythm within a metrical line. Lines can consist of any number of feet, but rarely more than six:

In Shakespeare’s works, most lines are pentameters.

Types of foot

There are only so many ways in which strong and weak syllables can be combined to make a foot. Five types are most widely recognised in English verse, but it is not always easy to identify these units in a Shakespearian line, because of the many rhythmical variations found there.

Feminine ending

Extra unaccented syllables at the end of an iambic or anapaestic line of poetry, often used in blank verse:

My lord, as I was sewing in my clos
et
,

Caesura

A rhythmical break in a line of verse, often in the middle of a line:

To be, or not to be – that is the question

Love? His affections do not that way tend

End-stopped line

A line of verse in which there is a natural pause, suggested
by the meaning, at the end of a line, usually indicated by punctuation: