Shakespeare and the Contextual Jigsaw

Shakespeare wrote plays to be performed, and their meanings cannot be revealed in all their subtlety and drama unless they are explored on a stage by actors and directors who wish above all, to hold the mirror up to nature.It is no good looking to academics for the meaning of the text or analysis of characters. The plays do not respond to mere study in a study, no matter how erudite and donnish the reader. To successfully stage a Shakespeare play, a director and actors must engage in putting together a contextual jigsaw. The text demands an interplay between textual analysis, strong and accurate characterisation, and actors in the rehearsal room really speaking the lines to each other as they would in real life. These elements continually inform each other in creating a scene that is authentic to the script. Like a jigsaw, the pieces don’t all go in at once. You understand how they fit together gradually, sometimes by seeing what other pieces have created when joined together. However much an actor or director sieves the script for clues to character and subtextual meaning, some things will only become apparent in rehearsal. When one or more of the above elements goes awry, so does the play. How often have I seen a Shakespeare play that I know well and have struggled to follow a single line that the actors are saying? Too often for the comfort of my behind.

Characterisation.

Accuracy in the portrayal of Shakespearean characters is essential to get at what is really going on, and present the drama and theatricality of his work. Get it wrong and the other characters in the play will be diminished or won’t work either. Fail to bring out Costard’s cunning and chicanery in Love’s Labour’s Lost for instance, and the letter scenes will become inexplicable and the play will seem a bewildering mess.

In some part the work an actor does in building a character is sieving the script for clues as to whom and what they are to portray. There are obvious difficulties in this with a Shakespearean play – the archaic language and vast changes in social mores over the course of four-hundred years can render certain characters difficult to grasp. Some roles are burdened with the weight of history. Characters such as Juliet or Hamlet have been performed so many times in a certain way, it can be hard to see them any differently. For me, it’s clear that Juliet is feisty, not soppy. Hamlet is clearly wrestling with cowardice, not madness.

But more of a problem, I think, is that Shakespeare’s characters are big. They demand a courageous approach and many actors are reluctant to meet this challenge because they dislike changing themselves to the extent required. You’d think changing oneself would be a first base for those entering the acting profession. Actors are, after all, rarely going to play themselves. A young woman who doesn’t like sounding gruff, frowning and strutting assertively about, isn’t going to make much of a fist of Rosalind from As You Like It. Because Rosalind loves the cross dressing. But most Rosalind's seem to duck a serious attempt at masculinity. If the actress can’t easily go there, and if the actor playing Orlando doesn’t on some level believe she’s a bloke, much of the subtext will remain hidden. There will be far less meaning to play with. The stronger and more accurate the characterisation, the more the subtext will be laid bare.

But perhaps the strongest reason that there is such a fumbling in Shakespearean characterisation is that many of the clues as to who and what the character are, are buried deep in-between the lines. In the interplay between the dramatis personae that only becomes apparent when acted out. In As You Like It, for instance, the character of Touchstone is actually formed from what Rosalind and Celia say and do as much as by what the clown himself says. This is hard to pick up from a mere reading. Almost impossible in fact. It is only in trying to make the lines and characters add up as a whole that Touchstone’s complicated and very touchy status problems and the relationship with his employers and court, become clear, thereby setting up his trajectory through the play and the comedy he is to act out in the forest of Arden – where he lives out his dream of being a Lord and Gentleman. This is what makes him funny. This is why he is a clown. The ability of the actors playing Celia and Rosalind to get an accurate handle on their roles is therefore essential for the actor playing Touchstone to achieve an understanding of who the clown is and what he is about.

Hamlet’s terrified dithering over stabbing Claudius between the shoulder blades as the King kneels in prayer is not overtly apparent in the script at that point. The reasons he lists for not killing Claudius are nearly always played straight. But they are nothing of the sort. The real reason Hamlet dare not kill Claudius is he is too scared of him. He knows he should do it, but doesn’t want to admit the real reason for not doing it: that he is a young man, not given to violence, attempting to kill the large psychotic warrior hulk of his Uncle. If Claudius hears him approach in that bloody game of Grandmother’s footsteps, with a sword drawn, then Hamlet’s question of To be or not to be will be answered quite likely with a very painful NOT. All the clues for this are laid much earlier in the script, and are most likely to be uncovered by a good actor really believing in the ghost and the likely reactions of a young man in Hamlet’s predicament.

Meaning what you say,

In modern plays, a director might get away with actors offering technical performances – ie: which are repeated, but not re-lived. Purely technical actors are often marvellous at performing and re-performing an exact replica of a show. It means that whilst the first time they enacted a certain motivation, it worked, because they meant it, in re-creating a copy of this night after night, they stop meaning it very quickly and are left with a shell that feels stagey, acted and unreal. This holds up the mirror to the unnatural, but an audience may not notice, as an actor can appear natural alot more easily when they are speaking in a modern idiom. Discoveries about the text will be harder to come by once the actor has set their performance in this thespianic quick-drying cement, but few modern plays have the subtectual complexity of Hamlet or King Lear, so perhaps not so much will be lost. Shakespeare however, sorts the players from those who are merely playing. What do I mean by meaning what you say? I would tell an actor: simply, deliver lines as you would say them in real life, given the character and context of the scene. You’re not going to say: Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George in conversational English. The actor has to believe they really are a medieval King besieging a castle in France, and stirring troops to storm the walls. Then shout the words just as they would in the real situation and really mean them. Believe the situation, mean what you say. And always mean it. Don’t copy what you did on the performance of the previous evening, because it worked then. The motivation: that you are trying to stir troops to attack a breach in a wall, will always be the same, but the way that comes out will, if you mean it, be different every time. For instance, I enter the door of my house just about every day. My motivation as I take out the key is often, christ, let’s get inside and sit down with a cup of tea! Yet I bet I have never entered my door the same way twice. To always mean what you say, an actor must continually throw away the manner in which they have previously said something. If they don’t, they will stop meaning what they say. They’ll probably do different actions as well. This throwing away of previous performances is an act of courage, and demands that the actors knows the lines very well.

Meaning what you say, is a cornerstone of the actor’s craft. I used to call this truth. But truth is more ambiguous than the phrase: mean what you say. The actor must, in the moment of delivery (the NOW), absolutely believe in what is happening to find a real motivation for the line so that it will come out with authenticity and meaning.

Playing opposite another person it is important, when trying to build a character and fathom the subtext of a scene, that an actor really speaks to the other characters from inside their own. Really mean it, and the other actor is more likely to authentically respond. How this is received will, in turn, shape the meaning of the reply. Follow this process through and it will inform the characters, each scene (and ultimately the entire play). Meaning what you say unravels meaning and character in an exciting and fluid exploration that brings the text to life in a way that is compelling to the audience.

It is vital in this process that actors take their time. In Shakespeare especially, an actor needs time to motivate; for to mean what you say, you must first find a genuine motivation to say it. Say a line before you have the motivation and you might just as well have not said it. Your mouth has whizzed off on a motor bike but left the sidecar of meaning behind.

This notion may seem to go against the modern orthodoxy of Pace! Pace! Pace! But audiences are usually transfixed when an actor means every utterance. When there is authenticity to an actor’s performance, pace becomes an irrelevance. Moreover, an audience cannot be with and experience what is happening onstage if the actor is rattling through scenes like an express train through a tunnel. When actors don’t have time to motivate what they are saying, their performances become gobbledegook. Attempting to build up false intensity by Pace! Pace! Pace! is the sign that the director and performers have not taken the time to uncover a real intensity inherent in the script.

For the same reason, I would dispense with blocking when performing Shakespeare, except perhaps in a large group scene. Actors must be free to move and do what they would do in the given situation to assist the director and fellow actors in working out what the text means. How can an actor live and explore the text if they are being pushed around like chess pieces and told ‘pick up the flagon of ale on this line,’ or ‘stand over there and frown when the King enters.’ A director filling the stage with pretty pictures, will be creating an unnatural scene, often set before the meaning of what is going on has been worked through. If an actor is really living the role and wanting to share what they are doing with the audience, they will adopt the spatial awareness we all use in life, and fill the stage with a natural fluidity.

Adding up the subtext and context

The directors and actors in exploring the text and building characters through action and interaction, will be constantly looking at the lines and asking why does my character say this? Even more pertinently, they will ask: given what the character seems to be like, what would they do in this situation? What would their response be to a line said in this way, or another character behaving like this to them. It is sometimes helpful to wonder what you yourself would do in a given situation, if you can be honest about it.

As the characters emerge, and actors try things out and interact truthfully, the director must be continually asking themselves, does this add up as a scene and as a whole. It’s a jigsaw, is it making a coherent picture? Even the smallest piece might have a great bearing on the whole. Let us take, for instance, the character of Starveling in A Midsummer night’s Dream – one of mechanicals (artisans) who wish to stage a play to celebrate Theseus’ nuptials, Starveling doesn’t have a lot to do. It’s a small role in which, ironically, we see Starveling cast in a small role for the play-within-a-play: Pyramus and Thisbe in the first scene that he appears.

ACT ONE SCENE TWO

QUINCE

Robin Starveling, the tailor.

STARVELING

Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE

Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.

So, we discover Starveling’s a tailor and probably a thin one by his name, and he’s playing Thisbe’s mother. Not a young role, one suspects. Nor a glamorous one. In fact, Thisbe’s Mother never appears. The remaining scenes are similarly thrifty when it comes to padding out Starveling’s character. In Act Three, his next two lines appear.

ACT THREE SCENE ONE

BOTTOM

Peter Quince,--

QUINCE

What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT

By'r lakin, a parlous fear.

STARVELING

I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

SNOUT

Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STARVELING

I fear it, I promise you.

From these exchanges we might draw that Starveling is the sidekick of Snout the Tinker. He backs up Snout’s fears about the play they hope to present to Theseus. Neither of the two men would appear to be devil-may-care. They are exaggeratedly cautious. It might be tempting to play Starveling as a hand-wringing pusillanimous nitwit, were it not for the final scene in which he appears as Moonshine in the play within a play.

THESEUS .......let us listen to the moon.

STARVELING as Moonshine

This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;

DEMETRIUS

He should have worn the horns on his head.

THESEUS

He is no crescent, and his horns are
invisible within the circumference.

STARVELING as Moonshine

This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.

THESEUS

This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man
should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the
man i' the moon?

DEMETRIUS

He dares not come there for the candle; for, you
see, it is already in snuff.

HIPPOLYTA

I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!

THESEUS

It appears, by his small light of discretion, that
he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all
reason, we must stay the time.

LYSANDER

Proceed, Moon.

STARVELING as Moonshine

All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this
thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

DEMETRIUS

Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all
these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.

Starveling, aggrieved at all the mocking interruptions, and having perhaps seen Snout ridiculed before him, loses his rag. Demetrius’ line alludes to Starveling’s temper fraying.

He dares not come there for the candle; for, you
see, it is already in snuff.

Starveling’s repetition of his lines, could be uttered as a yokel simpleton.

All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this
thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

But this would not make sense of the ensuing exchanges, in which Theseus’ party are a little chastened by the Tailor’s outburst.

DEMETRIUS

Well roared, Lion.

THESEUS

Well run, Thisbe.

HIPPOLYTA

Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a
good grace.

They realise they have overstepped the mark, and don’t want a sour note to intrude upon the wedding celebrations. Crucially, Starveling’s hissy fit wins over Hippolyta, who up until that point had been graceless in consenting to watch a play by simple workmen. It is part of the context of her role. The softening of Hippolyta along with the rest of the party leads to a sweetness in a conclusion of the play-within-a-play and its aftermath. Miss that Starveling has flipped, and the contrition of the wedding party won't work, and the play within a play will fizzle out and dampen the upbeat ending of the dream itself.

That Starveling has it in him to boil over at a VERY important event, says something about his personality. An actor playing him, would have to go back to the earlier scenes and incorporate this into their characterisation. The tailor might seem a bit conservative but he has a short fuse. This will enrich the earlier scenes and give them added context for other characters to work off. For instance, do the other mechanicals know Starveling has a temper? It might lead Quince to cast him in a small role on purpose and perhaps a little nervously.

This flexibility in building characters, examining subtext and context and speaking truthfully, demands a creative collaboration between the actors and director. Actors, if they are really living through the text, are often good at picking up where something doesn’t feel quite right and turning a piece round until it fits. This approach, where everything gradually informs everything else, is perhaps scary for some, because nothing is tied down except a character’s motivations, and in rehearsals and performance a good deal of elasticity and emotional honesty is required. The box lid to check this contextual jigsaw against is whether the play makes sense as a whole. Always, the bigger picture. It makes for living theatre, holds the mirror up to nature, and delivers Shakespeare’s plays to the audience in a manner that is accessible and true to the text.