American Actors and Shakespeare's Language

BARTLETT SHER: What holds a company together in an American context in terms of language as a beginning point, is actual rhythm. So, the rhythm being the five beat line, whether you hold at the end of the line, whether you stop in the middle of the line. And I usually make a set of rules which everybody follows as it comes to the rhythm, so that the company feels connected in an approach to the language.

It doesn't matter what that approach might be, because everybody has different versions of it, whether they're at Shakespeare & Company or the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, or whatever we do at Intiman, or at Theatre for a New Audience. There are different approaches to the language, but as long as there is a singular approach, that helps hold the thing together. And that's what I find to be, I find Americans' acting style sometimes becomes an issue, like is it less intellectual and more emotional? Things like that I think are unimportant.

But the language is the base point of everything about doing Shakespeare. So if there's an approach to that, it makes the most sense.