| Are you ready
to audition for the next major production of a Shakespeare
play ?
Are his works still literature texts to you, instead of ready-to-play
dramatic works ?
Does the Bard’s language stand in the way of you understanding
the characters he writes?
Its time to learn to tackle the Bard. As more local theatre
companies explore the Bard’s works, and more overseas-trained
actors come to work here, it is important that Singaporean
actors and actors-to-be start to overcome their Shakespeare
uncertainties. Many actors long to perform Shakespeare, but
are prevented by the complexities of the text and alienated
by the style. There’s no need to be! Its not just about
language, its not all about literature – its simply
about understanding the drama in the scenes, the people in
the characters, and the stories in the plays.
STAGES presents a course that will introduce you to the world
of Shakespeare on stage, starting with the very basics. Taught
by actor/director Jonathan Lim, this stage one course introduces
you to Shakespeare’s texts as playscripts rather than
literary texts, as user-friendly acting blueprints rather
than a bunch of quotes. In this short beginner course, you
will learn to unearth the drama from the words – a vital
step to take before trying to perform Shakespeare.
Some of the areas covered in the course include :
- Mad About the Bard – uncovering Will’s mystique
- Meter Reading – handling Shakespeare’s sounds
- Receiving Text Messages – understanding the text
- Playing People – understanding characters, breaking
stereotypes
- On My Own – the art of the monologue
- Shakespeare Today – contemporary interpretations
- Singaporean Shakespeare – localizing the universal
Emphasis will be placed on strategies of extracting dramatic
options and choices embedded in the writing through close
reading of a range of texts, covering the tragedies, comedies
and histories. Participants will be shown how actors can approach
a Shakespearean text and find the clues that can help them
build a performance, and will work on delivering practice
texts for peer appraisal.
Remember, this is essentially a theatre-oriented workshop,
not a literature seminar, and is focused on helping performers
learn how they can start to bring Shakespeare to life for
themselves in performance.
NOTE : This course is designed to lead up on to a longer
stage two course to be launched end 2004/early 2005 to pick
up where this leaves off, dealing with the actual performance
of Shakespeare and ending in a performance showcase.
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