Cordner, M. (2003) 'To show our simple skill': scripts and performances in Shakespearian comedy. Shakespeare Survey, 56, '. pp. 167-183. ISSN 0080-9152
Abstract
In 1982 the actor Derek Jacobi was in Stratford-upon-Avon to play three roles – Prospero, Benedick and Peer Gynt – for the Royal Shakespeare Company. During that summer he had several abrasive encounters with academics, who criticized some of the line-readings he used as Benedick. One disliked his almost trademark habit of elongating selected vowel sounds and told him that this trait was more appropriate to a stand-up comic than a leading Shakespearian actor. Another regretted a moment in Benedick’s Act 2 soliloquy, as he absorbs the news that a love-lorn Beatrice is allegedly pining away for him. In modernized texts the words in question (Much Ado About Nothing 2.3, 212–13) characteristically read as follows: ‘Love me? Why, it must be requited’. Which Jacobi had the temerity to convert into: ‘Love me! Why? It must be requited’. So the disagreement hinged on whether a single three-letter word, ‘why’, should here be regarded as an interjection-cum-exclamation or an interrogative – an issue less trivial than might at first appear, since contrary judgements about it can generate radically different performances of the soliloquy.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Theatre, Film, TV and Interactive Media (York) |
Depositing User: | York RAE Import |
Date Deposited: | 12 Feb 2009 14:34 |
Last Modified: | 12 Feb 2009 14:34 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521827272.014 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/CCOL0521827272.014 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:7478 |