Can the language become an event in your mouth, body and imagination?
Freeing Shakespeare's Voice, by Kristin Linklater.
What the book addresses
Linklater applies her voice work to speaking Shakespeare, exploring the relationship among sound, language, imagination and the actor's experience of the text.
How to read it
Read the words as physical and imaginative material while continuing to understand the sentence. Sound exploration can reveal associations and energy; grammatical structure can reveal the direction of a thought. You need room for both. Return from any isolated word to the relationship and argument in which the playwright places it.
An original rehearsal investigation
Choose a short passage and clarify its literal sense. Speak a few of its important words with curiosity about their sounds, without forcing an effect. Then restore the whole passage and address a specific listener. Note whether the sound work sharpened a thought, changed an image or distracted you from the scene.
Connections and distinctions
Freeing the Natural Voice supplies the broader progression. Speaking Shakespeare by Patsy Rodenburg and The Actor and the Text by Cicely Berry offer distinct routes into language. Compare what each asks you to attend to, then test a reading in the whole scene.
This is an original JBAS reading guide with an attributed overview and study questions. Read the complete book for the author's developed argument and exercise instructions.
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