The more you study your character by mining the text for clues and studying others’ performances, the clearer a picture you will gain of how your character walks, stands, speaks, sits, and moves on the stage. If a movement or stage direction feels odd to you, try something different. Develop a physical vocabulary that is economical and expressive. You do not need to move on every word or phrase, but you do need to decide how to physically illustrate your words.
TRY IT ANOTHER WAY
Somewhere in the rehearsal process you will find an interpretation of your character and speech that works for you, and you will be performance-ready. Until that time, feel free to experiment. Try the speech softly, then loudly. If you have recited the words with great tragic emotion, then try the monologue as a comedy just to shake things up. Vary your word emphases, beats, word colorings, and movements. There are always alternate interpretations of any speech. Allow yourself at least one different way to play a speech, sentence, phrase, or word before arriving at your definitive version. You won’t know what interpretation works best for you until you have tried a number of possibilities.
BRING YOURSELF INTO IT
How do you make a Shakespeare monologue or character your own? You have read the text carefully, studied film or stage versions, and experimented with delivering the speech in different ways. The wonderful thing about your role as an actor is that there is only one of you. Nobody can perform Shakespeare like you can.
Does anything about the speech make you feel something emotionally? We hope that it does, but if it is leaving you unmoved, use your imagination. If you had lost a brother and missed him terribly, how would you feel? We all feel love, jealousy, confusion, excitement, joy, anger, and sadness. We have all lost something (or someone) and missed them. If you are lucky enough never to have experienced the same tragedy as your character, try to sympathize with her plight and identify a time when you felt a similar emotion.
If you don’t feel anything, then simply let the text do the talking for you. These monologues are full of beautiful, expressive phrases. Give them their due. Shakespeare’s words possess a magic of their own that touches people’s hearts and awakens their imaginations. Trust the words. Express them with as much care and artistry as you can. The work you put into preparing to perform a Shakespeare play will reap its rewards. Shakespeare has a tale to tell, and you are the one to tell it.
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
The following is a list of characters that appear in this scene of As You Like It.
SET AND PROP LIST
SET PIECES:
Tall stool with burlap or paper covering to look like short tree Short stool with burlap or paper covering to look like tree stump
PROPS:
Leaves
Rock for Duke Senior
Packs for forest dwellers
Bread and fruit to put in packs
Sword for Orlando
The Forest of Arden.
SOUND OPERATOR plays Sound Cue #1 (“Forest music”).
Enter NARRATOR from stage rear, coming downstage left.
As NARRATOR introduces the roles, players enter from designated sides of the stage, cross in character, and exit the opposite side of the stage.
NARRATOR
In the Forest of Arden, Duke Senior and his exiled lords make the best of their life in the woods, where they meet Orlando, who himself has been cast out by his older brother Oliver.
Exit NARRATOR stage left.
SOUND OPERATOR plays Sound Cue #2 (“Forest music”).
Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three LORDS, like foresters.
DUKE SENIOR
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
“This is no flattery. These are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
AMIENS (admiringly)
Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
They sit down to eat, pulling out fruit and bread from their packs.
Enter JAQUES from stage left.
DUKE SENIOR
Why, how now, Monsieur Jaques! (surprised at JAQUES’S happy demeanor)
What, you look merrily!
JAQUES
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool; (begins to prance about merrily, then stops sadly) a miserable world!
(drops to his knees) O that I were a fool!
(kneels and faces AMIENS, desperate to make his point)
I must have liberty as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have; (blows on AMIENS, who holds his nose and recoils)
But who comes here? (stands and backs up a few paces to observe)
Enter ORLANDO from stage left, in a slight panic, sword drawn.
ORLANDO
Forbear, and eat no more.