Feeling the Beat in Our Bones: Embodying Rhythm and Meter in Actor Training

ABSTRACT

Actors new to speaking the verse in the plays of William Shakespeare are often intimidated by technical terminology and what they perceive to be an abundance of rules that should be followed. This article describes a Practice as Research study conducted over a seven-year period with student actors in drama schools and working professionals in Canada and the UK. The goal of the study was to develop a training methodology that overcomes the initial anxieties actors may experience and facilitate discoveries about how the verse structure can support actors in performance. The second goal of the research was to help actors to a state of deep embodiment of rhythm and meter which, once achieved, can empower actors to play organically and instinctively rather than analyzing intellectually.

KEYWORDS:

• Acting shakespeare
• rhythm and meter
• embodiment
• iambic pentameter
• verse speaking
• actor training

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It is simple enough to conceptualize iambic pentameter when we see it written on the page. What we do to distinguish the meter when we speak Shakespeare’s text is more complex.

2. A detailed investigation of the neuroscientific basis of deep embodiment is beyond the scope of this paper, however, it is a potentially rich subject for further investigation. As stated, “the body knows things about which the mind is ignorant” (Lecoq 2000, 9).

3. Walk-on parts in Julius Caesar, directed by Sir Peter Hall, and Richard III, directed by Stephen Pimlott, for a few months in 1995–96.

4. In all workshop descriptions, I refer to participants as “actors” regardless of whether they are students in actor training programs or professional actors, and irrespective of gender.

5. The actor was working with Macbeth, Act I, scene vii, line 1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Elliott

Michael Elliott is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Speech at the University of Victoria, Canada. He was trained as a voice teacher by Patsy Rodenburg; one of only nine graduates worldwide of the MA in training actors (voice) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (the Guildhall). He has taught at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, the Guildhall, the Actors’ Centre London, Florida State University, University of Northampton, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and he has served as a Voice & Text Coach with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and the Shaw Festival.