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| How Shakespeare in Love's director taught me to talk like Juliet | How Shakespeare in Love's director taught me to talk like Juliet |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| "Longer on the vowels," says Declan Donnellan. "Much longer. Don't rush them." But Shakespeare's words seem to have turned to Weetabix in my mouth. I have heard these lines countless times, but they have become a mass of strangulated vowels and sandpapery consonants. As I plough on, it gets even worse. | "Longer on the vowels," says Declan Donnellan. "Much longer. Don't rush them." But Shakespeare's words seem to have turned to Weetabix in my mouth. I have heard these lines countless times, but they have become a mass of strangulated vowels and sandpapery consonants. As I plough on, it gets even worse. |
| "We rush our vowels to hide our emotions," Donnellan is saying. "But when people are paying 80 quid for a ticket, it's not really about hiding your emotions." He laughs, a little grimly. | "We rush our vowels to hide our emotions," Donnellan is saying. "But when people are paying 80 quid for a ticket, it's not really about hiding your emotions." He laughs, a little grimly. |
| Just as well they're not paying 80 quid for me. The reason Donnellan is inspecting my vowels is that I am sitting in on a verse class at the Noël Coward theatre in London. In a few days, Lee Hall's new adaptation of Shakespeare in Love will open, directed by Donnellan – and you can't mount a show about Shakespeare without being able to speak him. | |
| Nine cast members have taken an hour out and come into the empty theatre for a short refresher. As I count the circle of chairs in the mock-up Globe theatre that has been erected on stage, I realise one has been laid out for me. Yikes. | Nine cast members have taken an hour out and come into the empty theatre for a short refresher. As I count the circle of chairs in the mock-up Globe theatre that has been erected on stage, I realise one has been laid out for me. Yikes. |
| The speech giving my tongue such trouble is Juliet's from act three, scene two of Romeo and Juliet, the soliloquy that begins: "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds … ". Donnellan plants himself in the circle and reminds us of the context. Juliet and Romeo have just been married; on the way back, Romeo has run into her cousin Tybalt and killed him in a swordfight. Meanwhile Juliet – who so far knows nothing of this – is impatiently anticipating their wedding night. "So it's a speech about sex, basically," says Donnellan. "Sex and death." | The speech giving my tongue such trouble is Juliet's from act three, scene two of Romeo and Juliet, the soliloquy that begins: "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds … ". Donnellan plants himself in the circle and reminds us of the context. Juliet and Romeo have just been married; on the way back, Romeo has run into her cousin Tybalt and killed him in a swordfight. Meanwhile Juliet – who so far knows nothing of this – is impatiently anticipating their wedding night. "So it's a speech about sex, basically," says Donnellan. "Sex and death." |
| Daisy Boulton, who's playing the character of Kate in Shakespeare in Love, a girl vying unsuccessfully with Viola de Lesseps for Will's attention, starts reading. Everyone listens intently as the soliloquy unfolds, with Juliet begging "love-performing night" to rush on so that Romeo can "leap to these arms untalked of and unseen". It's harder than it looks, particularly as Donnellan has removed all the punctuation. | Daisy Boulton, who's playing the character of Kate in Shakespeare in Love, a girl vying unsuccessfully with Viola de Lesseps for Will's attention, starts reading. Everyone listens intently as the soliloquy unfolds, with Juliet begging "love-performing night" to rush on so that Romeo can "leap to these arms untalked of and unseen". It's harder than it looks, particularly as Donnellan has removed all the punctuation. |
| After a quick check for trip hazards (there is urgent discussion of Phaeton, the doomed charioteer of the sun), we're down to the nitty-gritty: the beat and throb of the line. This is iambic pentameter, the pulse that underpins nearly all of Shakespeare's blank verse. Each line has five iambs, an iamb being a two-syllable rhythm with the weight on the second. "Blank" refers to the fact that there's generally no rhyme at the line end. We beat it on our legs: de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum. It is considerably easier to do – and feel – than explain. | After a quick check for trip hazards (there is urgent discussion of Phaeton, the doomed charioteer of the sun), we're down to the nitty-gritty: the beat and throb of the line. This is iambic pentameter, the pulse that underpins nearly all of Shakespeare's blank verse. Each line has five iambs, an iamb being a two-syllable rhythm with the weight on the second. "Blank" refers to the fact that there's generally no rhyme at the line end. We beat it on our legs: de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum. It is considerably easier to do – and feel – than explain. |
| Donnellan's analogy is to music: you have to sense it in your body and breath before you apply meaning. "Body first, then head. Verse is to prose what running is to walking: you have to let it carry you forward. It's more intense; the stakes are higher." But although the rulebooks say every iambic pentameter line should follow this pattern, almost none of Shakespeare's do. Juliet's very first word, "gallop", kicks the rhythm the other way ("ga-llop") before it settles. Donnellan smiles beatifically. "Shakespeare's like a great jazz artist, Coltrane or something. The tension of jazz is created by the expectation of rhythm, of regularity. You need the beat to be strong so you can pull against it." | Donnellan's analogy is to music: you have to sense it in your body and breath before you apply meaning. "Body first, then head. Verse is to prose what running is to walking: you have to let it carry you forward. It's more intense; the stakes are higher." But although the rulebooks say every iambic pentameter line should follow this pattern, almost none of Shakespeare's do. Juliet's very first word, "gallop", kicks the rhythm the other way ("ga-llop") before it settles. Donnellan smiles beatifically. "Shakespeare's like a great jazz artist, Coltrane or something. The tension of jazz is created by the expectation of rhythm, of regularity. You need the beat to be strong so you can pull against it." |
| Donnellan, whose Cheek By Jowl company is now over 30 years old, knows whereof he speaks, having directed almost every Shakespeare play in the book, some more than once. He's known for intimate, incendiary readings of the classics, and this is his first commercial West End show since Martin Guerre in 1996. Although it's undeniably more populist than his previous work – one wonders if Disney, the producers, saw his hectic and hyper-sexualised 'Tis Pity She's a Whore – Donnellan is approaching it with some seriousness of purpose. Appearances of genuine Shakespearian text are fleeting (as in the movie, Will is here battling with a play called "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter"), but every member of the 28-strong cast has done six weeks of rehearsal and verse study nonetheless. "You need it even if you're doing Pinter," says Donnellan. "I do verse class with nearly everything I do." | Donnellan, whose Cheek By Jowl company is now over 30 years old, knows whereof he speaks, having directed almost every Shakespeare play in the book, some more than once. He's known for intimate, incendiary readings of the classics, and this is his first commercial West End show since Martin Guerre in 1996. Although it's undeniably more populist than his previous work – one wonders if Disney, the producers, saw his hectic and hyper-sexualised 'Tis Pity She's a Whore – Donnellan is approaching it with some seriousness of purpose. Appearances of genuine Shakespearian text are fleeting (as in the movie, Will is here battling with a play called "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter"), but every member of the 28-strong cast has done six weeks of rehearsal and verse study nonetheless. "You need it even if you're doing Pinter," says Donnellan. "I do verse class with nearly everything I do." |
| We try another task, talking only in iambs, passing them between us so we can feel their spontaneity (I fluff my cue). Then we try an exercise that's surprisingly affecting: closing our eyes while one person reads out the last word in every line in Juliet's speech. I had known, despite its passion, how it is shadowed by bleakness and loss, but hearing the words "night," "back", "night", "die" toll around the theatre makes it clear how Shakespeare communicates the thought almost without anyone realising it. | We try another task, talking only in iambs, passing them between us so we can feel their spontaneity (I fluff my cue). Then we try an exercise that's surprisingly affecting: closing our eyes while one person reads out the last word in every line in Juliet's speech. I had known, despite its passion, how it is shadowed by bleakness and loss, but hearing the words "night," "back", "night", "die" toll around the theatre makes it clear how Shakespeare communicates the thought almost without anyone realising it. |
| I intend this to be the final occasion on which I recite Shakespeare on a West End stage, but as Boulton runs the speech again, this time standing, there is a palpable change: a sharpening of tension, of immediacy and clarity, as she navigates the flow and ripple of the verse, reacting to the images Shakespeare conjures rather than simply imagining them. | I intend this to be the final occasion on which I recite Shakespeare on a West End stage, but as Boulton runs the speech again, this time standing, there is a palpable change: a sharpening of tension, of immediacy and clarity, as she navigates the flow and ripple of the verse, reacting to the images Shakespeare conjures rather than simply imagining them. |
| "Good," says Donnellan softly when she's done. "Good." | "Good," says Donnellan softly when she's done. "Good." |
| • Shakespeare in Love opens on 23 July at the Noël Coward theatre, London |
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