VIDEO - The Top 5 Most SHOCKING Moments in Shakespeare

Shakespeare is ANYTHING but boring!

There are some moments in his plays that make your jaw drop, and I've made a countdown of what I think are The Top 5 Most SHOCKING Moments in Shakespeare - check it out!

Did you agree with my choices, or do you have your own picks? Let me know in the comments!

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VIDEO - The Shakespeare Shows You Need to Know!

Shakespeare wrote dozens of plays, but some are more popular than others!

Do you know which plays are the most popular, and which are strictly for scholars?

Are you familiar with the most popular works of the Bard?

Once you know where the holes are in your knowledge, you can start to fill them in! I'll even help you prioritize in this quick video! Check it out:

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Breaking Down the Bard - Dactyls

A dactyl is not a dinosaur - but "dinosaur" is a dactyl!

A dactyl is a metric foot in poetry that is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. You could also think of this like a musical triplet. 

 

 

 

Some words that are dactylic all by themselves are:

Endlessly

Cabbages

Murmuring

President

Mockingbird

Hamilton

... and...

You guessed it: Dinosaur.

Take a look at these dactylic lines of verse, where I've shown the line first as it would appear in a script, followed by how I would scan it:

Julia (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain

TRAMP-ling con-TEMP-tous-ly ON thy dis DAIN

 

*Pronounce "contemptuously" con - TEMP - chuss - lee to keep it four syllables.

Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

I am a spirit of no common rate

I am a SPI-rit of NO com-mon RATE

Claudius (Hamlet)

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

 

MAD-ness in GREAT ones must NOT un-watch'd GO.

There is usually more than one way to scan a line of verse. A lot of people would make Titania's line perfect iambic pentameter:

i AM a SPI-rit OF no COM-mon RATE

And while that is completely acceptable, I really like the choice of dactyls for this line. Midsummer is a play that is largely in perfect iambic pentameter, so looking for opportunities to utilize other rhythms and shake it up is a good idea. This is especially powerful here, where Titania might be showing her magical abilities to impress Bottom, who is trying to escape the woods while she is willing him to stay.

Making Julia's line dactylic can help to emphasize the physical action of her stomping all over the torn pieces of the letter she has received. Also, attempting to make this line perfect iambic pentameter sounds really strange:

tramp-LING con-TEMP-tous-LY on THY dis-DAIN

Nope. It's weird. So is Claudius' line:

mad-NESS in GREAT ones MUST not UN-watch'd GO.

Dactyls are pretty frequent in Shakespeare's verse, so when you see a line that can't be perfect iambic pentameter, check to see if it could be dactylic instead!

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Breaking Down the Bard - Doubt

I'm sure you're aware that Shakespeare's English and our modern English have a lot of differences; "thee", "thou", "wherefore", etc. There are plenty of words that Shakespeare used that we don't use anymore, but there are others that have lasted 400 years, and have evolved over that time... kind of like how "literally" can also now mean "figuratively". No matter how you feel about it, languages change and evolve over time.

Today, we're going to look at one such word: doubt. To us, this word commonly means "to hesitate to believe". Back in Shakespeare's day, doubt had another meaning: "to fear, or be apprehensive about, suspect", as well as the meaning that has endured to modern day.

Take this line from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2:

My father's spirit - in arms! All is not well,

I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!

Till then, sit still my soul. Foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.

When Hamlet says "I doubt some foul play", we need to think critically about which definition of doubt he means. I think an easy way to do this is to replace the word "doubt" with the word "fear", and see if it makes sense:

My father's spirit - in arms! All is not well,

I fear some foul play. Would the night were come!

Then try the same line with "don't believe" in place of "doubt":

My father's spirit - in arms! All is not well,

I don't believe some foul play. Would the night were come!

The "fear" version makes sense, where as "don't believe" doesn't, so now we know that Hamlet is worried that something bad is going on, and can't wait to see for himself what's going on and if the ghost will come back tonight.

Next time you see "doubt" in your lines, you can quickly determine which definition is intended, and you'll be sure to impress!

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How Your Musical Theatre Skills Will Make You A Kick-@$$ Shakespearean Actor

If you can "kick your face" and "belt for Jesus", I'll bet you already have a lot of skills that you could use as a Shakespearean actor! Did you know that musical theatre has a lot in common with Shakespeare? I'm not just talking about the adaptations of Romeo & Juliet into West Side Story or The Taming of the Shrew into Kiss Me, Kate. There are skills that cross over between the two art forms that you might not have realized!

Christian Borle as Shakespeare in Something Rotten!

Photo: Joan Marcus

Both Shakespeare and musical theatre contain scenes that have performance elements that elevate the production beyond what the audience experiences in daily life. If someone is singing at you in real life, you'd probably think they were crazy, and that guy spitting rhymes on the subway is probably not the next Kanye, BUT when an audience sees a show, they buy into the world of the play where these situations are normal! These activities would seem ridiculous if they weren't being done onstage, but skilled actors can pull it off. These actors can jump back and forth between normal, everyday speech (aka prose) and singing or speaking in verse at the drop of a hat, and when it's good, it is so good, amiright?

Another skill that artists in both types of theatre need is a facility with rhythm and meter. An actor who can tell a story through a song, where the speed and rhythm of the lyrics are predetermined, while still making it seem as though they are uttering these words aloud spontaneously is probably giving a memorable performance! This isn't much different from Shakespeare's verse, where the structure of the rhythm is given to a performer and it is their job to bring the words to life while maintaining the poetry in the text - it might actually be easier, since the actor may not have to belt a G simultaneously!

Not to be overlooked is the fact that there is often music and dancing in Shakespeare's plays. Performers with a background in musical theatre are at a distinct advantage here, as they are accustomed to telling stories through dance and song! There have been countless productions of The Tempest with Ariel played by a dancer, and although no one says that Ophelia is the best singer in Denmark, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a trained singer playing her when she goes mad!

So whether it's Othello or Oklahoma!, Hamlet or Hamilton, actors with these skills are some of the most versatile (and kick-@$$) around!

Wanna step up your Shakespeare game? 

Email shakespearecoach@gmail.com to schedule a lesson!
Click here to get my FREE cheat sheet of the Top 5 Mistakes Actors Make in Shakespeare Auditions!