Table Of ContentActing from Shakespeare’s
First Folio
“Original” Shakespearean theatrical architecture, texts and
performance methodologies have become subjects of great
popular, professional and academic theatrical interest. Acting from
Shakespeare’s First Folio: Theory, Text and Performance examines a
series of techniques for reading and performing Shakespeare’s
plays that are based on the texts of the first “complete” volume of
Shakespeare’s works: the “First Folio” of 1623.
Do extra syllables in a line suggest how it might be played? Can
Folio commas reveal character? Don Weingust places this work on
Folio performance possibility within current understandings
about Shakespearean text, describing ways in which these chal-
lenging theories about acting often align quite nicely with the
work of the theories’ critics.
As part of this study, Weingust looks at the work of Patrick
Tucker and his London-based Original Shakespeare Company,
who have sought to discover the opportunities in using First Folio
texts, acting techniques, and what they consider to be original
Shakespearean performance methodologies. Weingust argues
that their experimental performances at the Globe on Bankside
have revealed enhanced possibilities not only for performing
Shakespeare, but for theatrical practice in general.
Don Weingust is Assistant Professor of Drama at Tufts University,
Medford, Massachusetts. He holds a PhD from the University of
California at Berkeley and is a member of Actors Equity Asociation.
Acting from
Shakespeare’s First
Folio
Theory, text and performance
Don Weingust
First published 2006 in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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© 2006 Don Weingust
Excerpts from SHAKESPEARE’S PRODUCING HAND: A STUDY OF
HIS MARKS OF EXPRESSION TO BE FOUND IN THE FIRST FOLIO
by Richard Flatter. Copyright 1948 by Richard Flatter. Used by
permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Published by William
Heinemann. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Weingust, Don.
Acting from Shakespeare’s First Folio: theory, text and
performance / by Don Weingust
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Dramatic production –
Methodology. 2. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Stage history.
3. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Criticism, Textual.
4. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Bibliography – Folios.
5. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Criticism and interpretation –
History. I. Title.
PR3091 W45 2006
792.9(cid:1)5–dc22
2006011129
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN10: 0–415–97916–1 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–97915–3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–96897–2 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–97916–0 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–97915–3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–96897–0 (ebk)
This text is dedicated to Layah Weingust Emma, the
memories of William Gordon Weingust and Alexander
Emma, and especially to the two persons who made
this effort possible through their gifts of time, devotion
and love, Nora Chorover Weingust and Sarah Ann
Weingust.
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments xi
1 First Folio acting techniques: Richard Flatter,
Neil Freeman and Patrick Tucker 1
2 First Folio techniques and the death of the
bibliographer 78
3 First Folio techniques in performance: the Original
Shakespeare Company and the International
Shakespeare’s Globe Center 137
Works cited 192
Index 201
Preface
This text is bound to be controversial. While such is often the case
with Shakespearean matters textual, editorial and performance-
oriented, controversy is even more likely given the specific sub-
jects here. In this text, I explicate the background to and
techniques involved in the currently popular practice of acting
Shakespeare using the first collected edition of the plays, assem-
bled by two of Shakespeare’s partners in his acting company, the
1623 “First Folio.” I go on to place these techniques within recent
approaches to Shakespearean textual and editorial study, and
then to discuss the use of these techniques by a professional
London-based company in guest performances at London’s
Shakespeare’s Globe. I also discuss how this company’s work,
employing what they consider to be “original” Shakespearean
methods of performance preparation, helps to illuminate resi-
dent-company work at the Globe, and what, by comparing the
two, we might learn about the state of Shakespearean perform-
ance, and theatrical performance in general, today.
The Folio techniques discussed here have become extremely
popular with actors, while at the same time, a matter of great
concern for Shakespeare scholars, particularly those with interests
in Shakespearean textual theory and the practices of editing. In
the scholarly discussion of these matters, the practice of acting
Shakespeare from techniques based in the First Folio has been
little defended and much attacked. As I will touch on in this text,
there is a great deal of information available to the Shakespeare
scholar that would help facilitate such attacks. Thus far, however,
there has been little discussion of the values of First Folio acting
techniques. Some might quip that there is good reason for this
imbalance. In this text, however, I seek to discuss the ways in
Preface ix
which the practice of acting from Shakespeare’s First Folio has
many elements in common with some of the recent and quite
important movements in textual and editorial study, and how in
so many ways, these seemingly opposing practices seek toward
similar ends.
At least one of the proponents of these First Folio techniques
has been branded as “the devil” by at least one important textual
scholar. I will admit here that a disproportionate amount of the
current study takes on the task of this First Folio proponent’s
advocacy. Not unaware of the difficulties posed by theories of First
Folio acting, I believe that this “devil” and his colleagues have
earned an examination beyond questions simply regarding per-
sonally Shakespearean authority. When I first embarked on this
project considering the work of Freeman and Tucker, one well-
known scholar emphatically urged me to “blow them up.” My
position is that, even absent some of the authority they may claim,
their contributions are quite useful, and that exploiting the argu-
ments specifically against their authority claims – as characterized
by some of the reactions to Richard Flatter in the middle of the
last century – would overwhelm a useful discussion of the utility of
their readings. My desire in this study is to lend voice to some of
the merits of their challenging ways of reading Shakespeare, and
to leave the leveling to others.
The opportunities afforded by reading Shakespearean texts as
Flatter, Freeman and Tucker advocate are not merely for actors,
nor in their intersections with current work in textual and editor-
ial theory, just for scholars. The ways of reading that these men
advocate can be of great utility for the student or lay-reader of
Shakespeare as well. By focusing on the rhetorical opportunities
of the early texts, their techniques help to bring the reader into
closer contact with useful textual details and can make the texts
more immediately accessible. Although I was forewarned against
the practice, sharing early texts with undergraduate students has
demonstrated to me how very useful early texts can be in the class-
room. Freeman and Tucker offer a technology that makes these
early texts accessible to students and other consumers of Shake-
spearean literature, providing a “way in” to the texts. In my own
dramatic literature courses, I challenge students to create a
“theatre of the mind” as they read. I suggest to them that if a
proven dramatic work seems boring in their reading, then
perhaps they are not reading closely, actively and creatively
