MITN Interactive Workshop - Piers Ibbotson - Lost in Translation? - Shakespeare Interactive Workshop

Performing Shakespeare in other languages.

In this workshop we will look at the challenge of performing Shakespeare in translation.

One approach to the performing of Shakespeare pioneered by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the guidance of the renowned scholar and director John Barton and voice coach Cicely Berry, focused on the plays as spoken poetry. They focused on the language and developed an approach to performance that honoured the auditory nature of Elizabethan theatre (as opposed to visual) and emphasised the powerful and extraordinary poetry of Shakespeare. This was a shift away from modernism and the psychological approach taken by contemporary playwrights of the 50’s and 60’s when their work was being developed. Their emphasis on the text and the structure of the poetry, led to the development of an approach to acting and to training actors that encouraged a visceral, embodied connection with the language.

The workshop will use some of their methods and approaches in a practical, participatory session in which we will explore the connection between voice, verse and emotion.

We will then look at different translations of the same piece of text to investigate the impact on both the speaker and the audience of the same dramatic moment articulated in different languages: We will

Experience the embodiment of vowels and consonants in different languages

Investigate the ways different languages express emotion through sound

Examine speech acts and the ways they are embodied differently in different language

Explore the impact of the specific language on the manner and the content of an emotional moment

Examine different translations and their impact on our understanding in performance