A great speech is like an aria: it has a musical structure, and it is normally clearly marked where the emotional climaxes are, if you know how to read the rhetoric. — Dakin Matthews
We have a BONUS episode today with a mini-Shakespeare master class with Dakin! This “class” is taken from the full conversation with Dakin in episode #12.
Just a bit of what we cover:
- the logic that Juliet uses, and how it unravels
- the structure of what Shakespeare wrote, and its function
- where you need to be at the end of the speech
- how both male and female actors tend to shy away from emotion
About the guest
Dakin Matthews is an actor, playwright, dramaturg, director, teacher, and Shakespeare scholar.
He has been a dramaturg on Broadway for the aforementioned Henry IV, for Macbeth with Ethan Hawke (both directed by Jack O’Brien), and for Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington, directed by Daniel Sullivan. Dakin won a special Drama Desk Award for his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, which combined both parts into one play, and a Bayfield Award for his performance in that show.
His handbook on verse-speaking, Shakespeare Spoken Here, has been used in universities and training programs throughout California; and he has given master classes in Shakespearean acting around the world. See episode #12 for his full bio!
Please enjoy this mini-Shakespeare Master Class with Dakin Matthews!
Total Running Time: 19:29
- Stream by clicking here.
- Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as/save link as”.
What do you think of this episode?
Is there a place for content like this? Is this engaging to you? Would you want more things like this?
Maybe it would be additional podcast episodes, or maybe we could do actual online group classes. I have to believe that we could find a way to make this work if enough people want it!
Leave me a comment below or send a message!
Want to hear more from Dakin Matthews? Check out my full talk with him here!
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QUESTION OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
Show Notes
Dakin Matthews around the web
Film/TV | Wikipedia | Broadway | Off-Broadway | Actors Access | His former Andak theatre company
Dakin discussing Sonnet 29
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 3
[accordion clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item title=”+ click to view/close the monologue” id=juliet state=closed] JulietFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
Laying down her dagger.
What if it be a poison which the friar
Subtly hath minist’red to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonor’d
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is, and yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place—
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest’ring in his shroud, where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking—what with loathsome smells,
And shrikes like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad—
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud,
And in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains?
O, look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink—I drink to thee.
- Juliet, R&J, Act 3, Scene 2: “Gallop apace”
- Lady Percy, Henry IV, Part 2: Act 2, Scene 3: “O yet for God’s sake, go not to these wars!”
Copy and share: bit.ly/waj-mmc
Photo credit (Dakin’s headshot): Walter McBride / Broadway.com
I really enjoyed the “master class” episode and would definitely be interested in listening to more podcasts like it!
Thanks for creating this podcast. I’m enjoying hearing the stories and advice from experienced actors.
Great to hear, Tess! Thanks so much for the feedback!! 🙂