This is a very funny play by Shakespeare. It's very complicated, but the plot is sound. In the play, a shipwrecked woman pretends to be a man and falls in love with the Duke, for whom she is working. Her name is Viola. The Duke is madly in love with Count Olivia. He sends Viola to try to woo her in his name. Instead, Olivia falls in love with Viola, thinking she is a man. The plot thickens when Sebastion, Viola's twin brother, steps in. It is hilarious and has a fantastic ending, not to mention the Clown and other minor characters.

This book provides the reader/actor with a combination that unlocks the Bard's English. It focuses on how the Elizabethan schoolboy was trained in the subject of "loudspeaking," and thus, how theatrical speech was understood in Renaissance England. By revealing the underlying rhetorical structure to Shakespeare's schoolboy training, it leads the actor down the corridors of figures of speech, the powers of persuasion, and the passion and rhythm inherant in the language. It draws clear connections between Shakepeare's lines and rhetoric primers of the 1560's. ACTING SHAKEPEARE provides chapters on specific forms of figures of speech, tropes and figures of sentence, speaking the "score" of the poetry, and bringing it into the body. The book is a clever tool to help the American actor pass from the unknown to the familiar simply, easily and logically. It is not the only such tool, but it is perhaps one of the very best. I have found it especially useful for actors just beginning their work on verse plays. Because it teaches skills learned by Elizabethan primary-school-aged youth, I have felt comfortable using it for actors as young as 7th grade, and no less effectively with experienced adult actors. The process has been remarkably rewarding and successful.

Author is good at explaining visuals in Shakespeare and their connection to language.
Book contents have extensive reference notes and index, but no illustrations or diagrams.
Ch1: Visual Interpretation: Text and Context
Ch2: The Language of Costume and Hand Properties
Ch3: The Language of Gesture and Expression
Ch4: The Language of Theatrical Space
Ch5: The Language of Ceremony
Ch6: "Maimed Rites": Violated Ceremony in Hamlet
Ch7: Epilogue

I think it was a great book. It really brings the real Shakespeare to life. It is one of the few books I can read again and again.

My 6th grade theater class was completely mesmerized by this book. It brought to life all of the questions they had about some of the origins of theater. Thank you so much!

This book is a great over view of shakespeares work. The book has colorful pictures, and the book is writen in colligraphy. The colligraphy adds a touch of the olden days.

I thought that this book was excellent resource for a number of different reasons. First, Mr. Dunmore, a director himself, provides a list of monologues which are far too frequently used (I found this list invaluable). It not only has some of the monologues you would expect to see on a list of this type (Hamlet, Hal/Henry V, Iago etc.), but also some other characters you wouldn't think would be used that frequently: Clarence, Aaron, Launcelot Gobbo and others. Also, I think that Dunmore provides a nice introduction for actors who are new to Shakespeare with a resource guide in the beginning of the book discussing some of the inricacies of speaking Shakespeare. Lastly, I thought all of the monologues (which I thought might have been edited a little more precisely; I didn't like some of the punctuation) were well laid out and gave a nice (but brief) insight into the characters and some of them give suggested age ranges (though I would have loved to have seen this throughout the book). A terrific resource, nonetheless, for any aspiring classical actor who doesn't want to be the hundredth actor to do Puck at an audition.

in this thoughtful work, the author (the former dean of the graduate faculty of the new school for social research & a political philosophy professor) examines the work of each of these seemingly unconnected men and their attempts to understand and present the human condition. this work transcends specialization and is an important piece in the study of the moderns break with the ancients. dr. white was the first ph.d.student of leo strauss in the usa. he is, as well, indebted to the thoughts of kurt riezler, with whom he also studied.

Many decades ago, there was an excellent and elegant reading of the complete text of on Decca/London labels with Richard Johnson and Mary Morris in the title roles. Then came the better-paced Shakespeare Recording Society with Anthony Quayle and Pamela Brown, recently reissued on cassettes by Harper Audio. And now we have the liveliest of them all as part of the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare Series, issued by Penguin Books this side of the Atlantic.

With the older set long out of print, the Arkangel certainly has the most appeal to modern listeners, giving as it does less a reading than the sounds of an actual production. The Antony of Ciaran Hinds does not quite come up to the poetical reading that is Quayle's, while Estelle Kohler's Queen of the Nile is a bit juicier than the more dryly delivered one of Brown. But both partners are really fabulous on their own terms and both performances are well worth having side by side in your collection.

The Arkangel set does make some strange use of regional accents. Perhaps they are strange only to American ears (viz., mine), but it continues to be a bit jarring to hear Scottish accents on Roman soldiers. On the other hand, the use of Cockney for the lower classes has become an accepted tradition on British recordings, so perhaps we can grow accustomed to anything, given enough time and understanding.

Teachers should take note, however, that classes will probably respond better to this new, more dramatized version despite a little loss in the grand old style of poetic declamation.

I certainly do not rate this item five stars for its stunning value. I rate this five stars because I think that if I had to pay the amount listed for any complete edition of Hamlet, I would. It is simply that good. If you have not read it, do so.