Playing Shakespeare False: a Critique of the ‘Stratford Voice’

Abstract

Acting style is notoriously difficult to recapture, and our knowledge of how Burbage or Betterton or even Irving performed is scant indeed. This is understandable: less so is the reluctance of contemporary critics to get to grips with the description and evaluation of present-day styles of acting. In part in response to the ‘masterclasses’ given recently on London Weekend Television by John Barton with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Andrew Rissik argues that the present ‘Stratford voice’, in contrast to that of the 'sixties and early 'seventies, does not serve Shakespeare well, and is fast becoming a new kind of declamatory self-indulgence. Andrew Rissik himself taught and worked on Shakespeare at Oxford, before becoming a full-time writer whose work has been performed on BBC Radio and TV and on Thames Television.