Cue for Passion: on the Dynamics of Shakespearean Acting

Abstract

Critics and scholars continue to delve assiduously into the literary nuances of Shakespeare's plays, and increasingly the Theatre Studies community pursues the task of documenting performance. But the dynamics of Shakespearean acting continue to be fogged by ideologies and assumptions dating back to the debate between Alfred Harbage and Bertram Joseph in the early post-war period, and to even earlier disputes between inspirational and intellectual interpretations. Here, director and critic Charles Marowitz looks retrospectively at the problem by exploring the living constituents of the actor's art as it grapples with the canon, touching in the process on acting styles from the seventeenth century to the present, and on the divergence between American and British approaches. During his years in England, Charles Marowitz founded the Open Space Theatre and was a close collaborator with Peter Brook at the Royal Shakespeare Company, notably during the Theatre of Cruelty season. He has published two dozen books on a variety of theatrical subjects, the most recent being Stage Dust: a Critic's Cultural Scrapbook from the 1990s (Scarecrow Press) and Roar of the Canon: Kott and Marowitz on Shakespeare (Applause Books). He is currently Artistic Director of the Malibu Stage Company in California.