ePlay

INTRODUCTION

THEIR CORE FUNCTION

The core function of ePlays is to serve as an in-depth, performance-centred resource for the actor, director or teacher.  Through annotation and notation they highlight as many performance clues as can be reasonably accommodated in one document.  Those clues represent the distillation of knowledge about performing Shakespeare to be found in books, articles, lectures, DVDs and videos by famous actors, scholars, teachers and directors listed in our bibliography.

THE FORGE AND WORKING-HOUSE OF VERSEBUSTER THOUGHT

ePlays also form the basis for our theatre scripts and audio speeches.  Accordingly, they represent the forge and working-house of Versebuster thought.  If we go wrong in the audio or theatre script, we always go back to the ePlay to see where we went astray or missed something.  Thus, bit by bit, our product will evolve and improve over time.  Your feedback is always welcome.  

IDEAL FOR PERSONAL OR GROUP STUDY

ePlays can enjoyed on any electronic device.  With a projector the landscape format is particularly useful for workshops and rehearsals.  We’ve road-tested it in various workshops around the world.  It’s popular with teachers because students are looking up and not in their books; and it’s popular with students because the graphics make the key performance clues instantly clear.

Everything you read on this page and on the Editorial Policy page is illustrated in the ePlay DEMO.  

PRODUCING OUR ePLAYS - HOW WE ACHIEVE OUR GOALS

RADICAL DEPARTURE (1) - Versebuster annotations

ENTIRELY PERFORMANCE-ORIENTED NOTES

The annotations of most editions have a strong literary bias because they are designed principally for schools and college rather than for stage performance.  In contrast, Versebuster is focused solely on performance.  Accordingly, our annotations and notations are entirely performance-oriented.  

Over four hundred years literary scholarship has made an invaluable contribution to the understanding of intellectual sense (matter), but has fallen short on textual evidence related to mood, attitude and sincerity (manner).  These are the clues that help actors realise a far more layered and nuanced performance; a performance closer to the Shakespeare's subtler intentions and what seasoned audiences pay to see.  Let's consider this issue in more depth.

A search on Google reveals 132 million hits for 'Shakespeare'.  Of this, less than 0.0001% is actually about how to lift the words, especially his verse, off the page.  A similar pattern can be found in print.  Lots of brilliantly clever people have written about Shakespeare, but only a handful have focused on how to bring to life a heavily stylised art form that has its origins in classical Roman and Greek rhetoric.

Thus Shakespeare plays are treated principally as a literary exercise, not a performance one.  Here is an example taken from Henry IV Pt 1.  The prose line is:

A well-known edition gives the following footnote:

Camomile: a herb of the aster family

Given the context, knowing Camomile is a herb from the genus aster is a redundant piece of acting information.  What the edition should point out, but fails to, is that Falstaff's line is classic Shakespearean antithesis:

As any experienced Shakespearean performer knows, it is the contrast of opposites - camomile v. youth, grows v. wears - and the balancing halves of the sentence that must be pointed up in the delivery, otherwise the audience loses the thread of the argument (and possibly interest in the actor).  In this example what neither actor nor audience need is a lesson in botany.

Multiplying the effect through 3,000 to 4,000 lines one can see why actors and directors are often left scavenging for performance titbits amid reams of notes chiefly of interest to academics.  We hope our detailed line-by-line performance notes offer a very welcome alternative.

ANNOTATIONS ALONG SIDE TEXT - SCROLLING NEUTRALISED

Our annotations run along side the text; that way the eye can read and scan much faster.  It dispenses with the need to scroll endlessly up and down to find a definition or explanation – a common flaw with other attempts at e-annotation.  Please see the ePlay DEMO.

A SIMPLE COLOUR-CODE

Versebuster annotations are colour-coded.  Definitions are black, editorial performance points blue, pronunciation points pink.  Where we need to distinguish between First Folio and modern, First Folio is green and modern magenta.  Quarto is light blue.  We found it took people about two minutes to get the idea as the content of the annotations evidently reinforce the colour-code and vice-versa.  Please see the ePlay DEMO.

RADICAL DEPARTURE (2) - Acting clues in scansion

Scansion reveals acting clues, but accurate scansion can be tricky and time-consuming.  Few actors in our experience have the time, inclination or patience; but yet it must be done to get the placement of stress in passages of verse broadly how Shakespeare wished it.  Monosyllabic lines present a particular challenge in this regard.  Accordingly, we scan every line of verse to give actors, directors and teachers a useful head start.

Our scansion is based on the principles expounded by the American scholar George T. Wright in his classic work The Art of Scansion.  There are other valid approaches, but this is one of the best.

It should be noted that scansion is not a perfect science and some lines remain unresolvable.  Moreover, some metrical feet are open to different interpretations.  Where this is more than one possibility this is made clear in the notation.  We discuss the issues in greater depth in our slideshow The Challenge of Scansion.

SYLLABLE COUNT

Our scansion determines the syllable count for each line verse line.  This makes it possible to spot the feminine endings, Alexandrines and other irregular verse lines at a glance.

Where a line is indeterminately verse or prose the count will be in parenthesis.

PRONUNCIATION

A strong iambic reading often leads to unusual pronunciations of familiar words.  These are duly noted and illustrated in our recordings of the speeches.  We always emphasise the actor is not obliged to follow these in performance; he or she should merely understand the principle.  

ELISION & EXPANSION

Scansion also leads to interesting elision (contraction) and expansion.  However, as with pronunciation, when the contraction is difficult to verbally execute, or it would not be understood by the audience, we suggest the next best alternative / compromise.

PACE & SPEED

Shakespeare choreographs the pace by varying the speed of lines.  Scansion allows us to determine which lines are (relatively) slow and which are (relatively) quick.  Some verse lines are quick in the first half contrasting with slow in the second, or vice-versa.  In the ePlays we focus on lines full of monosyllabic words.  These lines generally represent more of a speed / pace challenge than their polysyllabic counterparts.  Please see our dedicated slide show The Difference between Pace and Speed in Shakespeare.

RADICAL DEPARTURE (3) - Acting clues in typography

EXPLODED TEXT

We explode the text to make it easier to identify the shape of the speeches and where the gear changes might come.

SHARED LINES

Shared lines are indented.  However, where there is scholarly dispute the lines in question are not indented.  Instead, we use an (a), (b), (c) system to suggest they could be treated so.

UNDERLINING OF END OF SENTENCES

In verse we underline the last few words before the end of the sentence.  These words often contain the thrust of the argument.  (For more on this, please see Introduction to theatre scripts or view the theatre script DEMOs).

VERSE LINE-ENDINGS

We identify every verse line with incomplete sense that may benefit from a breath or lift at the end to before tumbling into the next line.

RADICAL DEPARTURE (4) - Acting clues in text

STATUS GAMES

We highlight interesting switches between ‘you’ and ‘thou’.   For other forms of address like titles and epithets we note unexpected, sarcastic and impolite uses that may not be apparent to the casual reader.  

STAGE DIRECTIONS

To empower the actor / director with more choices, we note alternative readings of stage directions.  These can vary substantially between editions.

We draw attention to those stage directions that were original and those that have been added from the 17^th century onwards.

We also highlight stage directions that are embedded in the text or implied.

VERBAL CONCEITS & RHETORICAL DEVICES

We identify and separate out the key verbal conceits and rhetorical devices:

• antitheses
• puns
• double entendres and sexual innuendo
• repetitions, synonyms and modifiers
• speech builds (ladders)
• alliteration, consonance and assonance
• rhymes, half-rhymes and internal rhymes

POLYSYLLABIC VERSUS MONOSYLLABIC

Heavily monosyllabic passages typically indicate sincerity, seriousness, innocence and absence of guile.  Heavily polysyllabic passages may indicate the reverse.  We identify all heavily monosyllabic lines (defined as eight monosyllabic words or more in a line) so these can spotted at a glance.

ADDITIONAL POINTS

PRONUNCIATION NOT RELATED TO SCANSION

Most actors are not IPA proficient.  Accordingly, for words or names that cause pronunciation difficulties for speakers of British English and / or speakers of American English we make suggestions using phonetic spellings rather than IPA.  

FALSE FRIENDS

False friends are words familiar to us today that have flipped their sense (or substantially veered from it) since Shakespeare penned them.  They can mislead both actors and audience.  Whenever possible we suggest word substitutions for them.  If verse, we try to ensure a metrical fit.

While we encourage the actor / director to make their own decision whether to make a word substitution, there are occasions we do it ourselves.  The actor / director is encouraged to change it back if it’s not to their taste.

NEW EDITIONS

New editions will be released after taking account of feedback.  We constantly seek ways to improve the user experience - perhaps a graphic could be improved, or an explanation made clearer.  We welcome ideas and suggestions.