The following is a re-airing of Armin’s text work session taken from the full episode with him.
You wanted these text work sessions as separate episodes and I’m happy to accommodate! First up, Armin talks about his general approach to Shakespeare and some of the overall principles he teaches in classes.
In this excerpt we discuss Richard of Gloucester (who later becomes Richard III) in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 3. This soliloquy comes at the end of Act 3, scene 2.
Armin (@ShimermanArmin) is perhaps best known to audiences for playing Quark on the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series.
Armin has been working 50 years in the business and has amassed 200+ credits on IMDb, with 4 projects in post-production. He was a long-running recurring character on Beauty and the Beast, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Boston Legal.
He has voiced Dr. Nefarious in the video game Ratchet and Clank, and has done many other voiceovers, video games, and commercials.
He’s also a Shakespeare scholar, teacher, director, and actor. In recent years, he has played Leo Tolstoy and King Lear’s Fool onstage. He’s also a writer, and has written a few novels with a sci-fi/Renaissance twist in the Merchant Prince series.
Please enjoy the text work with Armin Shimerman!
Total running time: 13:19
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Want to hear more from Armin? Check out my full talk with him here!
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Show Notes
Armin Shimerman around the web
Twitter | Film/TV | Wikipedia | VO Characters | Broadway | Theatre
Selected People and Items Mentioned
Armin’s Monologue from Henry VI, Part III (Act 3, Scene 2) by Shakespeare
RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
[accordion clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item title=”click to view/close the monologue” id=richard state=closed]
Ay, Edward will use women honorably.
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,
To cross me from the golden time I look for!
And yet, between my soul’s desire and me—
The lustful Edward’s title buried—
Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,
And all the unlook’d-for issue of their bodies
To take their rooms, ere I can place myself:
A cold premeditation for my purpose!
Why then I do but dream on sovereignty,
Like one that stands upon a promontory
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
Saying, he’ll lade it dry to have his way:
So do I wish the crown, being so far off,
And so I chide the means that keeps me from it,
And so, I say, I’ll cut the causes off,
Flattering me with impossibilities.
My eye’s too quick, my heart o’erweens too much,
Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
[ARMIN BEGINS HERE, AND CUTS LINES]
Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;
What other pleasure can the world afford?
I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap,
And deck my body in gay ornaments,
And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
O miserable thought! And more unlikely
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!
Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb;
And for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,
To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub,
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size,
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov’d?
O monstrous fault, to harbor such a thought!
Then since this earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o’erbear such
As are of better person than myself,
I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And whiles I live, t’ account this world but hell,
Until my misshap’d trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home;
And I—like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way, and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out—
Torment myself to catch the English crown;
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry “Content” to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall,
I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk,
I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machevil to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.
Armin teaching Shakespeare back in 1993!
Photo credit: video of Armin performing Richard at a convention!
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