For the whole three hours, we were working on this text from Troilus and Cressida by Shakespeare:
The first thing that Michael told us was not to worry about any of the words on the page, what it means or where it comes from. We stood in a circle and he asked each of us to take one word from the line and deliver it as we went round the circle. Michael emphasised the importance of each word in the essence of Shakespeare's language and the beauty of each individual word and the vowels and the consonants that make it up. He also exemplified the importance of having an element of question and surprise in each word to bring the language to life. Although we were only saying one word each, I think this being the most basic foundation in the workshop was also the most important and instrumental as a lesson. Shakespeare doesn't have to be complicated if you don't complicate it, and Michael showed us this through highlighting the potential of just a few words and allowing us to explore them as a close knit circle, without the prospect being intimidating or challenging.
Progressively, Michael challenged us more: as a group, we began to take on the responsibility of longer lines, taking the essence of the line either by one line written on the page or reading up to the next punctuation mark - here we sought to explore the colour, vowels, consonants and everything embodying the lines. We had a responsibility to deliver the lines with energy and pass them through the circle by attracting the attention of the next person. Here Michael emphasised the importance of strong and vivid eye contact and he also told us the best way to sight read when quickly reading lines as opposed to looking downwards when reading off a page, which deflects energy downwards. Through this, I gained a greater understanding that Shakespeare is not an academic exercise, where all lines being exercised come from the head - when delivering Shakespeare lines, it should be a visceral, full body reaction, which is why Michael made us make bold movements when delivering the lines. I noticed that both myself and my peers in the group began to become more bold and take more risks as we embarked on the activities - Michael developed a really comfortable atmosphere and I think that within this we were all able to push ourselves further with a mutual understanding that Shakespeare wasn't intimidating.
Next, we paraphrased the lines. It was interesting to me that we did this after trying the lines out for quite some time, but it made me understand that Shakespeare has so much power and colour in just his language and text and as an actor, it is best to explore that before trying to constraint everything through academic evaluation. As a group, we conveyed our own idea of the possible meaning and with Michael's guidance came to an understanding of the context of the speech and the meanings of each line, but I think this made the following exercises which involved excessive movement way more enjoyable and also made us even more explorative in the way we portrayed the lines. It gave each line intention. One of the movement exercises involving the speech that Michael got us to do was to mark different people or objects in the room we were in as various people, locations or things mentioned in the speech - as we delivered the speech, we had to run and make contact with those things in the room as soon as they were identified in the speech. Michael made this especially challenging by making corresponding objects and things next to eachother in the speech geographically far away from eachother, and this meant that the whole time we were delivering the speech we had to multitask and move really quickly from place to place. This was my favourite exercise of the whole workshop though, I found it incredibly useful and beneficial because I think that naturally the fact that we related something in our heads to various things mentioned in the speech made our delivery much more colourful and varied in the way that we were saying it - as a speech that opens the play this is really important to establish the main characters, the locations, the situation, conflict etc and therefore the actor's intentions need to be clear and the way in which they describe these elements needs to be as colourful and clear as possible. As well as this, because we we all did this activity individually but then passed the responsibility onto eachother, it challenged us to navigate as an ensemble and to be alert and on the ball at all times not just to fulfil this but also to fulfil our designated changing roles as different components in the piece. Therefore, this exercise was almost like a microcosm for an actual play in which you have to do multiple things at once - you are not just speaking lines, but you're responding to others on stage, delivering the lines with colour, intention and purpose, listening out for cues, moving and changing position etc. While this may have been the most challenging activity, it was certainly the most rewarding and beneficial.
Overall, Michael's workshop was extremely helpful. For me, the most important thing I took away from it was the importance of being open with Shakespeare from the forefront. Shakespeare isn't challenging if you put it on its feet and break it down that way, and it's a lot more fun just to try it out. When you try it out, you have to be committed and deliver it with colour, intention and with an element of 'question and surprise' as Michael said. This way, Shakespeare becomes something that doesn't just come from your mind, but it will naturally evoke itself through your whole body and will become something spontaneous and colourful. It will also be easier to learn lines and intellectualise it if you physically try it out first, as it will have already engrained itself in your muscle memory.
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