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Acting from Shakespeare's First Folio
By Don Weingust
Routledge
£17.99
Dateline: 19th October, 2006
It is almost sixty years since Richard Flatter, an Austrian translator
of Shakespeare into German, published his groundbreaking book Shakespeare's
Producing Hand. The author, who had studied with Max Reinhardt in
Vienna, was convinced that the First Folio provides actors with valuable
clues about how to handle asides, broken-off verse, irregular stresses
and other aspects of Shakespearean performance - even capitalised and
italicised words are there for a reason. Don Weingust's book is a fascinating
account of how Flatter's ideas have influenced both scholars and theatre
practitioners.
With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see why Flatter's book,
despite a supportive introduction by Nevill Coghill, was greeted with
ridicule and condescension when it was published in 1948. For two centuries
editors had been seeking "to know the mind of Shakespeare"
by stripping F1 of what they perceived to be mistakes introduced by
actors, scribes and compositors, a process Flatter claimed had regularised
Shakespeare's text at the expense of many subtleties of meaning. Flatter
was even criticised for not using "good quartos" instead of
F1, a text "contaminated by theatrical use", which of course
was precisely the reason he chose to work with it. Even at this early
stage it became clear that critics with acting and/or directing experience
were far more receptive to Flatter's ideas than those without.
One of the most frequent objections made by critics was the rather
obvious one that Shakespeare did not set his own type or correct proofs.
How true is F1 to Shakespeare's original intentions? Flatter was well
aware of the fact that F1 undoubtedly contains misprinted words and
incorrect punctuation introduced by other hands than Shakespeare's,
but pointed out - not unreasonably - that contemporary scribes and compositors
had a better ear for the rhythms of early modern speech than any twentieth
century scholar.
As the chasm between academics and theatre practitioners narrowed towards
the end of that century it was almost inevitable that someone would
make an attempt to put Flatter's theories - and he never claimed they
were anything more - into practice. Almost half of Acting From Shakespeare's
First Folio is devoted to the work of Neil Freeman, a professional
actor and teacher, and Patrick Tucker, founder of the Original Shakespeare
Company and also a teacher. As well as following Flatter's guidelines
Freeman and Tucker do something even more revolutionary - they attempt
to reproduce, as closely as possible, the rehearsal conditions of Shakespeare's
day.
Weingust's account of the OSC's experimental performances at the new
Globe is both funny and revealing. In 1997 the OSC performed the F1
As You Like It, rather cheekily described as being "written
and directed by William Shakespeare". In fact the OSC attempted
to create a situation in which there was no director in the modern sense
of the word, very little rehearsal time, no final run-through and the
bare minimum of blocking. Actors worked from a "cue script"
containing only their own part and brief cues and were discouraged from
looking at full-length modern editions of the play.
Before the beginning of each performance Tucker explained the company's
rehearsal style to the audience, who responded warmly to the relatively
unpolished "semi-improvised" feel of the production. The OSC
returned to the Globe in 1998 and 1999, but in 2000 relations between
the company and the Globe's director, Mark Rylance, took a turn for
the worse. Rylance asked Tucker to drop his pre-performance talk, Tucker
refused and Rylance sent a letter informing him that "I'm afraid
if audiences were not aware of the controls you put upon the way your
actors rehearse…they would find the performance extremely amateur".
This comment, as well as being illogical, strikes at the heart of why
many people feel that the new Globe is not so much a theatre as a tourist
trap. Building materials, costumes and music may well be as authentic
as possible, yet in the Globe's early years most plays were based on
modern editions of Shakespeare and performed as though on a proscenium
stage. Acting From Shakespeare's First Folio is essential reading
for anyone interested in the transmission of his plays from the 17th
to the 21st century and the problem of staging "authentic"
performances.
J D Atkinson
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