Freeing Shakespeare's Voice

The actor’s guide to talking the text

– Kristin Linklater –

// Taking many of the techniques explored in her international bestseller „Freeing the Natural Voice“, in this companion volume Kristin Linklater shows how to apply them to the speaking of Shakespeare’s language. Beginning with exercises designed to break long-held habits and allow an emotional rather than intellectual relationship to Elizabethan language, she analyses Shakespeare’s strategies for creating character, story and meaning through figures of speech, iambic pentameter, rhyme and the alternation of verse and prose. Using copious examples from the plays, Linklater offers her readers the tools to increase understanding and make Shakespeare’s words their own. First published in the US in 1992, this is the first UK edition of this invaluable guide to speaking Shakespeare.

(Nick Hern Books, 2010)