Acting Shakespeare - John Barton - Ben Kingsley - Masterclass - Part 5 - Irony and Ambiguity - 4K - video Dailymotion

Shakespeare Network

"Barton’s legacy is the most exhilarating tribute one can pay to Shakespeare." Maximianno Cobra - Shakespeare Network - Founder and Artistic Director  The Royal Shakespeare Company founder John Barton holds a masterclass featuring: - CAST - JUDI DENCH IAN MCKELLEN PATRICK STEWART BEN KINGSLEY DAVID SUCHET PEGGY ASHCROFT and members of the RSC: Tony Church, Sinead Cusak, Mike Gwilym, Susan Fleetwood, Sheila Hancock, Terry Hands, Lisa Harrow, Alan Howard, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Jane Lapotaire, Michael Pennington, Richard Pasco, Norman Rodway and Donald Sinden.  Playing Shakespeare - The series features nine master classes on Shakespearean performance.   First group - Objective Things:   - Part One: The Two Traditions - Elizabethan and Modern Acting - Part Two: Using the Verse - Heightened and Naturalistic Verse - Part Three: Language & Character - Making the Words One's Own - Part Four: Set Speeches & Soliloquies - Taking the Audience with You  Second group - Subjective Things: - Part Five: Irony & Ambiguity - Text That Isn't It Seems - Part Six: Passion & Coolness - A Question of Balance - Part Seven: Rehearsing the Text - Orsino and Viola  - Part Eight: Exploring a Character - Playing Shylock - Part Nine: Poetry & Hidden Poetry - Three Kinds of Failure  John Bernard Adie Barton, CBE (26 November 1928 – 18 January 2018), was a British theatre director and teacher whose close association with the Royal Shakespeare Company spanned more than half a century.  Co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, John Barton was, with Trevor Nunn and Peter Hall, one of the legendary theatre directors whose work and acting collaborations in the mid twentieth century would effect the course of Shakespeare on stage in successive decades. His biography includes a range of landmark production through the sixties and seventies (including the 1969 Twelfth Night with Judi Dench as Viola, and the 1970 A Midsummer Night's Dream with Patrick Stewart as Oberon), and with his abilities in helping actors through workshops, his presence and influence are felt even further.  This recording is for educational purposes only and is covered under Fair Use doctrine - Copyright - All rights reserved to their respective owners.  Read the unabridged plays online: https://shakespearenetwork.net/works/plays  _______________________________  FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN - DONATIONS - Shakespeare Network Website and YouTube Channel:  Donate with PayPal or GoFundMe today: https://shakespearenetwork.net/company/support-us/donate-now  _______________________________  Screen Adaptation - Co-Production : MISANTHROPOS – Official Website - https://www.misanthropos.net Adapted by Maximianno Cobra, from Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens", the film exposes the timeless challenge of social hypocrisy, disillusion and annihilation against the poetics of friendship, love, and beauty.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6946736/

Transcript

00:30I said in our last programme that perhaps the actor's most difficult problem was in

00:52handling soliloquies. Well, I was wrong. There's something more difficult and that's how

00:58to handle irony. It may sound surprising to give a whole programme over to irony, but

01:04Shakespeare uses it over and over. But today we're not very good at irony. Most of us use

01:10it rarely, if at all. I suppose the best people at handling irony in Shakespeare that I've

01:15ever come across has been New York drama students, and particularly black students. And that's

01:21because irony is part of their natural idiom. They use it daily, but we don't. It's our

01:27idiomic humour, maybe, sending up, certainly, but irony not very oft. Perhaps we'd be even

01:34pushed to say what irony is. I suppose the simplest way of defining it is something like

01:40this. It's saying one thing while meaning something else, which is opposite to its surface

01:46meaning. It's commonly humorous, but it may at the same time be deadly serious. The speaker

01:53enjoys it, sometimes wryly at his own expense. One of the reasons that it's difficult is

02:00that it's often halfway between thought and feeling. Basic emotions like joy and hate

02:06and fear and greed and joy come easily to us. Any actor knows what they mean and he

02:12can tap them somewhere inside himself. But irony, if I say play it ironically, what do

02:20all of you feel? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what to do?

02:23Now, what you've said is very clear. The difficulty about irony is that it doesn't leap off the

02:31page. You cannot write ironically. The words on the page hold either one meaning or another.

02:39You cannot... I mean, this is why it's so dangerous to give an ironic answer to a question

02:44that an interviewer asks you.

02:46A word on a page is one word.

02:48You cannot write ironically. The actor has to interpret ironically.

02:51What Shakespeare does is writes down one word or group of words, which are, as you say,

02:57one set of words, but there are two meanings to it.

03:00Absolutely, yes. Which you have made very clear, yes.

03:02I mean, the word I haven't used, which obviously comes up in this program, is ambiguity as

03:07well, isn't it? It's the double meaning. So that's what we've got to dig into and see

03:12if we can find it. I think that perhaps one of the key points is this. Irony involves

03:18the speaker in being at once inside and outside the situation in which he finds himself. Perhaps

03:26that's helpful as well. But do we know how to play it? Well, we'll clearly have to get

03:31the right intention again, won't we? That's crucial for leading into it, I think.

03:36But a certain special tone is involved. That's what we're going to find hard to define, I

03:41think, then. And so we'll look at some examples, both simple and more complex, and some even

03:48hidden irony. So let's have a go now. Let's clear and start our exploration.

03:55First, listen to Mark Antony in the forum in Julius Caesar.

04:01Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

04:11The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.

04:21The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

04:30and grievously hath Caesar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, for Brutus

04:38is an honourable man. So are they all. All honourable men. Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

04:51He was my friend. Faithful and just to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.

05:03Good. Now, I think that prompts me to say two things about irony that could go further.

05:11You were pointing it out, but in two ways it could go further. One, sometimes we define irony by putting

05:17words in inverted commas or saying they have capital letters. So I could say to you, give Brutus

05:22capital letters and put the honourable man more into inverted commas. Okay. And the other element

05:29of the irony is what goes on in the eyes, isn't it? Because irony, meaning one thing, but saying

05:36something else, two meanings, comes over if your eyes are equivocal about what you're saying.

05:42Why don't we just do the two lines, but Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.

05:47Yes, right. But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.

06:00A noble and very clear piece of irony. Oh, thank you. You can get that. Thank you.

06:05Well, that's a broad and obvious example. The irony is as overt as Antony dares to make it.

06:11But sometimes Shakespeare's characters are more subtle with their irony.

06:16When Richard II looks at his face in a mirror, he says to Bolingbroke, who has deposed him,

06:23A brittle glory shineth in this face.

06:30As brittle as the glory is the face.

06:35For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.

06:49Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport.

06:56How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

07:01Brutus, the shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face.

07:14Say that again.

07:18The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face.

07:24The shadow of my sorrow?

07:26Ah, let's see.

07:35The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face.

07:41This is both ironic and ambiguous.

07:45The situation seems to be about the grief and the emotions of the king, but those are the key lines.

07:51I think that what Bolingbroke really means here goes to the very heart of Richard II's nature.

07:57I believe that Richard is a player king in the sense that he plays a kingship and his emotions

08:05are often more emotional indulgences which make a kind of play out of the reality around him.

08:11He turns the situation he finds himself in into a cue for emotional and dramatic display.

08:18And he does so here and Bolingbroke catches him at it.

08:23Breaking the mirror and saying, Mark, how my sorrow has destroyed my face is a dramatic

08:28and striking gesture, but Bolingbroke really, really sees through it.

08:33So the shadow of your sorrow really means the unreality of your sorrow.

08:38Shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face, i.e.

08:45your false sorrow has merely destroyed your false playerly face.

08:51In other words, Bolingbroke is telling Richard that his sorrow is as unreal as the rest of his

08:56public persona. Well, Dickie, you played this famously many years ago.

09:02How does that passage strike you coming back to it?

09:05I think that the way I try to interpret Richard, the tragedy was that he never actually discovered

09:12himself, even in moments like this. He doesn't really understand.

09:19He's in a state of almost perpetual bewilderment and I think this is his tragedy.

09:24In the very beginning of the play, in the first few scenes of the play,

09:27when we concentrated very much on, as you're saying, the player king, the show-off,

09:32the demonstrator, the sort of dandy-like, sometimes played homosexual king, which I think is wrong.

09:41But certainly the show-off king.

09:47And there are glimpses of his search for himself and his internal reality,

09:55perhaps as early on as the return from Ireland.

09:57But of course there are moments when the king has that self-knowledge and he's ironic about himself,

10:03which we look at a bit later in the program. It's an unfair test to just ask you to do that one bit.

10:09Yes, I just wonder. I mean, I don't really think that the little sequence we've just done,

10:13I wouldn't describe it as an example of either irony or ambiguity.

10:19Not the sequence isn't, but your remark is, I think.

10:22Well, not altogether, John. I mean, isn't it rather more saying it's not...

10:26If you're being ironical, then you're being disingenuous and saying something

10:33meaning the reverse of what you say.

10:35In this particular case, it's nearer to gentle sarcasm, actually, than to irony, I think.

10:42Why I think it's irony is I think it does have the double meaning of irony,

10:46because to him, the remark seems to be a sympathetic remark of his state.

10:52And he takes the surface meaning, but actually you mean something else.

10:56And that's why you're making an ironic joke, because you know he won't understand you.

11:00Well, in that case, I did it wrong, because then I should have...

11:03But where does sarcasm end and where does irony begin?

11:07Sarcastically, then. I mean, I didn't play irony then. I played gentle sarcasm.

11:11Let's stick to this one point, because it is irony,

11:14because you are saying a surface thing which he thinks he understands,

11:19but you're really saying a criticism of him which he doesn't understand.

11:23Well, then I should have said it as a surface thing.

11:24Well, I think we should round it off by doing it again.

11:27The other way. It'll probably come out the same.

11:29Well, irony and ambiguity, you've got to play both meanings, haven't you?

11:33Right. I'll try again.

11:43For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.

11:51Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport.

11:58How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

12:05The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face.

12:11Got it. Yeah. I'd give it full marks.

12:17Well, what's come out of this, of course, is always, as soon as we go into irony,

12:21this conversation comes up, which is, how much is it overt and how much is it hidden?

12:26I think this is a very good example where it's got to be both at once.

12:30OK, good.

12:33Here's a particularly tricky sonnet.

12:35It's full of irony, but the irony isn't apparent at first.

12:39It is, amongst other things, a terrific exercise in,

12:43our old friends, antithesis and stressing the key words.

12:48If you don't place and stress them, the speech will be incomprehensible.

12:53Let's see what happens if, first of all, you do the speech unstressed

12:59and then see how we make it clearer by the stressing.

13:02OK? Great.

13:04Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

13:07want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend.

13:10All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,

13:14uttering bare truth even so as foes commend.

13:17OK, point made.

13:19Unstressed, it's totally gibberish, totally impossible to follow.

13:24Now start going for the stresses and the antithetical words.

13:30Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

13:35want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend.

13:39All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,

13:44uttering bare truth even so as foes commend.

13:48OK, that's stage two.

13:51You're making it clear now to us and we can go with the argument.

13:55But now let's bring in the irony,

13:57because it wasn't clear what the speaker was actually doing.

14:00And remember that you're mocking somebody.

14:04So play it more to Ben and send him up.

14:06OK.

14:07Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

14:10want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend.

14:14All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,

14:19uttering bare truth even so as foes commend.

14:24Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned.

14:30But those same tongues that give thee so thine own

14:34that give thee so thine own,

14:36in other accents do thy praise confound

14:40by seeing farther than the eye has shown.

14:44They look into the beauty of thy mind,

14:47and that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds,

14:51then churls their thoughts,

14:53although their eyes were kind,

14:55to thy fair flower at the rank smell of weeds.

14:59But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

15:02the soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

15:05Great. Good.

15:06Now, let's dig one thing further.

15:08Just take that last couplet and dig more into,

15:11not only the irony, but the ambiguity

15:14about what you mean by the soil and the common,

15:18because you mean soil.

15:19Sexual ambiguity.

15:20Well, soil means the earth, and common means a common land,

15:24but soil also means sexually soiled and common.

15:27Just those two lines.

15:30But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

15:35the soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

15:41Yes. Good.

15:42Now, how does the actor capture that double meaning?

15:46By putting the words into inverted commas,

15:49underlining them.

15:50It's, again, one of our main points about text, isn't it?

15:53Underlining them.

15:54It's, again, one of our main points about text, isn't it?

15:57Do you have to put them into italics?

15:59The antithesis.

16:01Well, it's not the antithesis,

16:02just it's the ambiguities of saying,

16:04hey, folks, there's a double meaning here.

16:06I mean two things.

16:08And the irony, again, is to do with meaning more

16:11than you seem to say on the surface.

16:13So you signal to the audience in a way.

16:16You have to.

16:16You have to play with the word

16:19to get the information to the audience.

16:21So that the audience has to be an active listener,

16:24not a passive listener,

16:25because if you are serving them with ambiguous words,

16:28they cannot sit there and passively listen,

16:29and therefore they are involved.

16:31That's right.

16:31So even though she's playing the speech to somebody,

16:35she's actually got to be sharing it with the audience,

16:37not just with you.

16:39Let's now go on to an easier sonnet

16:42that makes the same point, Ben,

16:43and you do When My Love Swears,

16:46because it's the same thing.

16:47It's an ironic sonnet,

16:49but in this time it's a bit easier,

16:52and it's a different situation

16:53because you're talking to an audience.

16:55You're not actually talking to your love.

16:57You're talking about your love.

17:04Easier.

17:05This one is easier.

17:06This one is easier.

17:07I think so, too.

17:08This is an easier sonnet, folks.

17:10Just listen to this.

17:11Wait for it.

17:14When my love swears that she is made of truth,

17:17I do believe her,

17:18though I know she lies,

17:21that she might think me some untutored youth,

17:27unlearned in the world's false subtleties,

17:31thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

17:34although she knows my days are past the best.

17:38Simply, I credit her false speaking tongue.

17:41On both sides, thus is simple truth suppressed.

17:47But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

17:52And wherefore say not I that I am old?

17:57All love's best habit is in seeming trust,

18:02and age in love loves not to have years told.

18:08Therefore, I lie with her,

18:13and she with me,

18:16and in our faults by lies we flattered thee.

18:23Oh, I enjoyed that.

18:24That was very, very good.

18:25See, all our little points come up, don't they?

18:28I mean, antithesis comes up again,

18:30like when she swears she's made of truth,

18:32I do believe her, though I know she lies.

18:34And the point I'm making in this program

18:36about ambiguity comes up,

18:37because there's a number of things

18:39that mean two things in that speech,

18:41aren't there?

18:42Like vainly thinking and uttering bare truth.

18:47I thought that you warmed up as you went on,

18:50but perhaps in those early ones,

18:51you could have played with the words

18:53a bit more daringly still.

18:54Yes, you're quite right.

18:55Yes.

18:56Yeah.

18:56Yes.

18:57Well, it's very good, though.

18:58It's made the point.

19:00Lovely.

19:02Let's take another sonnet,

19:04which is rich in ambiguity and double meanings.

19:07But first of all,

19:08it's a terrific exercise in antithesis.

19:11So, Norman, start by going for the meaning

19:14and for all the key antitheses.

19:16You're discussing your sex life with your mistress.

19:19Oh, that's what it's about, is it?

19:21I used to know that.

19:26Love is too young to know what conscience is.

19:30Yet who knows not

19:32conscience is born of love.

19:37Then, gentle cheetah, urge not my amiss.

19:40Less guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.

19:45For thou betraying me, I do betray

19:48my nobler part to my gross body's treason.

19:52My soul doth tell my body that he may triumph in love.

19:56Flesh stays no farther reason.

19:59But rising at thy name doth point out thee

20:04as his triumphant prize.

20:07Proud of this pride,

20:09he is contented thy poor drudge to be.

20:13To stand in thy affairs,

20:16fall by thy side.

20:19No want of conscience hold it that I call

20:23her love, for whose dear love I rise

20:30and fall.

20:31And fall.

20:35Good. Good start.

20:37Now, what you did there was to play

20:40the surface meanings very clearly.

20:42So now, having got the antitheses,

20:44let's feed in one crucial piece of information

20:47which affects the meaning of the whole sonnet

20:49and the whole tone of it.

20:51Conscience here is ambiguous.

20:54The Elizabethans used it not only in the moral sense,

20:57as we do, but also in the sense of carnal knowledge.

21:00So do it again, and from the outset,

21:03bring out all the sexual innuendos that are in the text.

21:06To stand in thy affairs, and so on.

21:09Mock both your mistress and yourself.

21:15Love is too young to know what conscience is.

21:19Yet who knows not?

21:21Conscience is born of love.

21:26Then, gentle cheetah, urge not my amiss.

21:29Lest guilty of my faults, thy sweet self prove.

21:33For thou betraying me, I do betray

21:37my nobler part to my gross body's treason.

21:41My soul doth tell my body that he may triumph in love.

21:47Flesh stays no farther reason.

21:51But rising at thy name, doth point out thee

21:58as his triumphant prize.

22:02Proud of this pride, he is contented,

22:06thy poor drudge to be, to stand in thy affairs.

22:13Fall by thy side.

22:16No want of conscience hold it.

22:20That I call her love for whose dear love I rise and fall.

22:33Very rich in ambiguity.

22:35Now, this is very tricky verbally,

22:38which is why I want to unravel it one by one.

22:41We've got the antithesis.

22:42We've got the double meanings pretty clear.

22:44But now, let's take it one step further.

22:47I think the thing we haven't brought out yet

22:49is the irony.

22:51Mock yourself for being more your mistress's sexual slave.

22:56This time, share your thoughts with your audience

22:58as much as with her.

22:59So be outrageous.

23:01Go as far as you can in relishing

23:03the ironic and ambiguous words.

23:06Take it a bit quicker.

23:12Love is too young to know what conscience is.

23:15Yet who knows not?

23:17Conscience is born of love.

23:20Then, gentle cheetah, urge not my amiss,

23:23lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.

23:27For thou betraying me, I do betray my nobler part

23:31to my gross body's treason.

23:34My soul doth tell my body that he may triumph in love.

23:39Flesh stays no farther reason.

23:42But rising at thy name, doth point out thee

23:47as his triumphant prize.

23:50Proud of this pride, he is contented thy poor drudge to be.

23:56To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

24:02No want of conscience holdeth that I call

24:06her love for whose dear love

24:10I rise and fall.

24:17Very ambiguous, very ironic.

24:19Now, I want to make a digression.

24:21What about the rhymes in these sonnets?

24:24And indeed, the many rhyming couplets

24:26in the plays themselves?

24:28We haven't talked about them,

24:29but what should an actor do about them?

24:31Should he play them or should he ignore them?

24:34Well, I'm sure that he should play them

24:36because they're there in the text.

24:38To dodge them is a cop-out and a textual distortion.

24:42They need to be relished consciously.

24:45So the actor needs, as it were,

24:47to make the rhyme up himself

24:49and to coin it deliberately,

24:51perhaps to show off or to score or stress a point

24:54or to round something off

24:55as happens with the end of this sonnet.

24:58I think if there's any rule here,

25:00it's the same as with heightened language.

25:02After all, rhyme is a form of heightened language.

25:05So it must be found.

25:09Well, I suppose we'd agree

25:10that though we're clear about the nature of irony,

25:13it still doesn't necessarily enable us

25:16always to communicate it.

25:18An actor can't just say or even stress the words.

25:21He clearly has to do something with them.

25:23Norman was using, relishing, savouring the words.

25:28Well, the most practical tip I can offer, therefore,

25:31about irony is to repeat and stress

25:33what I've briefly said already.

25:34The actor must, as it were,

25:37put the word in inverted commas

25:39or give it a capital letter or both.

25:41That's what we've actually been doing, I think.

25:44Brutus is an honourable man, inverted commas.

25:48Brutus is an honourable man, capital letters.

25:51Well, of course, I'm exaggerating,

25:53but I think our point does hold.

25:57So let's look now at a very familiar speech

25:59which brings this out very strongly.

26:02King Richard II has heard

26:04his land is in arms against him,

26:07and so he laments his downfall.

26:10For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

26:13and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

26:18How some have been deposed, some slain in war,

26:23some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

26:27some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

26:31all murdered.

26:37For within the hollow crown

26:40that rounds the mortal temples of a king

26:44keeps death his court.

26:47And there the antic sits, scoffing his state

26:50and grinning at his pomp,

26:53allowing him a breath, a little scene,

26:55to monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks,

26:59and fusing him with self-invained conceit,

27:03as if this flesh which walls about our life

27:05were a brass impregnable.

27:09And humid thus, comes at the last,

27:13and with a little pin,

27:16pours through his castle wall.

27:21And farewell, king.

27:24Good, now, what I'm going to push

27:27what I'm going to push is the element of the self-mockery

27:30and see if we take it even further as far as we can go.

27:33I think to set the whole thing up,

27:35for God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

27:37and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

27:40You should say to the audience,

27:41this is going to be great telling this story

27:43of the death of kings.

27:45I think if you get that trigger into the speech,

27:47you're away for it.

27:48But if you go totally into your grief for death of kings,

27:52the idea of you standing outside yourself

27:55and luxuriating in a situation,

27:57just to go for that one line.

28:00For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

28:03and tell sad stories of the death of king.

28:08That's right, it's delicious.

28:09It's going to be glorious.

28:10We're going to have fun.

28:11Interesting fun.

28:12Now, skip on a few lines and come to the famous lines

28:17within the hollow crown

28:18that rounds the mortal temples of a king.

28:21Your enjoyment of discovering that the crown is hollow,

28:25not the grief of the crown's weight and greatness,

28:29but this crown is hollow and I've been enjoying the discovery

28:33and rounding the mortal temples of a king,

28:37the realization that you're mortal.

28:39Don't play it for the woe of it,

28:41but enjoy mocking yourself that little bit.

28:46For within the hollow crown

28:51rounds the mortal temples of a king,

28:55keeps death his court.

28:58And there the antics sits,

29:02scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp.

29:05That's marvelous.

29:06Allowing him, makes no end of difference.

29:09See that line, scoffing his state, death, scoffing his state,

29:13scoffing his state, death, scoffing your state

29:16and grinning at your pomp is the clue in a way to the speech.

29:20Because death is mocking you, you realize it

29:22and you enjoy laughing at yourself.

29:25Yes.

29:25Why don't you try it through again?

29:27Having latched onto this particular thing that we're going for,

29:30now actually take it a bit quicker

29:31because you will actually enjoy it more.

29:33Yes.

29:34Right.

29:35Right.

29:42For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

29:47and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

29:54How some have been deposed,

29:57some slain in war,

30:00some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed.

30:05Some poisoned by their wives,

30:09some sleeping killed,

30:12all murdered.

30:18For within the hollow crown

30:22that rounds the mortal temples of a king

30:26keeps death his court.

30:29There the antic sits,

30:31scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

30:35allowing him a breath, a little scene

30:38to monarchize, be feared and kill with looks,

30:42infusing him with self and vain conceit

30:46as if this flesh which walls about our life

30:49were brass impregnable.

30:54And humor thus comes at the last

30:58and with a little pin

31:01bores through his castle wall.

31:06And farewell, king.

31:11Now, I think that what you showed beautifully there

31:14was something that I touched on earlier.

31:16You managed to both be inside the character

31:19and yet to stand outside yourself at the same time.

31:23And it's that double thing

31:25which is to me the heart of irony.

31:27And it's very difficult to do both at once.

31:29But I thought you did fully.

31:32Would you define the difference

31:35when you're directing an actor?

31:36When you say be more wry,

31:38do you link the wryness with the irony?

31:40Is it the same thing

31:41or is there a tidge of difference

31:43between irony and wryness?

31:46Well, wryness is simpler, isn't it?

31:49It's what we say is do it with wry humor.

31:53And that's the note about the humor.

31:55Irony is about this double vision

31:57which very often has humor in it

31:59but is more difficult.

32:00It's the double vision.

32:03Good.

32:03I realize we've strayed here

32:05beyond something which is demonstrably

32:08and objectively present in the text

32:10to something much more subjective.

32:13So often with Shakespeare,

32:15it's at first sight arguable

32:16whether irony is there at all.

32:18And it's particularly easy to overlook it

32:21in Shakespeare's political plays.

32:23Yet over and over,

32:24he gives his politician bits of hidden irony

32:28as part of their political persona.

32:30They have a surface urbanity

32:33and inner malice or bitterness.

32:35But it's very easy for an actor to overlook it.

32:38Let's take one very simple example.

32:41In King Henry IV, Part I,

32:43the rebel Worcester comes to a parley

32:46and talks to the king.

32:48I protest I have not sought the day of this dislike.

32:52You have not sought it.

32:54How comes it then?

32:56It pleased your majesty to turn your looks of favor

32:59from myself and all our house.

33:01And yet I must remember you, my lord.

33:03And we would...

33:03Hold it there.

33:05Let's ask ourselves

33:06why there's that little superfluous

33:08my lord in the third line.

33:10Because there's been your majesty in the first line.

33:13And Shakespeare doesn't usually

33:14appear to be very happy about that.

33:16Shakespeare doesn't usually pad out a line.

33:19And clearly, I think both your majesty

33:21and my lord are ironic

33:23because you're reminding him that he's a usurper

33:26and not really a lord.

33:28So do it in...

33:29Really a lord rather than a king.

33:30Well, yes, it's either they're both ironic

33:33or the one's right and the other's wrong, isn't it?

33:35I don't know.

33:36They're set against each other.

33:37That's right.

33:38He thinks he's his majesty, but you don't.

33:41Yes.

33:41All right, good.

33:42Let's try to get all that out in two words.

33:44Okay.

33:47Once again.

33:49I protest I have not sought the day of this dislike.

33:51You have not sought it.

33:54How comes it then?

33:56It pleased your majesty

33:59to turn your looks of favor

34:01from myself and all our house.

34:02And yet I must remember you, my lord.

34:05Good. Very ironic.

34:07Very clearly ironic.

34:10It's the little words of irony

34:12that are often the easy ones to overlook.

34:14That was very well placed.

34:16Got that. Good.

34:18So let's look at another problem.

34:21What happens when a character hides his irony

34:25from the person he's speaking to

34:27but has obliquely to reveal it to the audience?

34:31When his mother persuades Coriolanus

34:34to desert the Volskians and spare Rome,

34:38the Volskian leader, Tullus Orphidius,

34:41says nothing for nearly 200 lines.

34:44When Coriolanus finally addresses him,

34:47he just says four words.

34:50Here is Coriolanus talking to his mother.

34:55Oh, my mother.

34:58Mother, oh.

35:01You have won a happy victory to Rome.

35:05But for your son,

35:08believe it, oh, believe it,

35:10most dangerously you have with him prevailed.

35:14If not most mortal to him.

35:19But let it come.

35:22Orphidius, though I cannot make true wars,

35:26I'll frame convenient peace.

35:30Now, good Orphidius, were you in my stead,

35:32would you have heard a mother less?

35:35Or granted less?

35:38Orphidius.

35:39I was moved with awe.

35:43Good.

35:45Orphidius's reply is so brief,

35:47it's hard to be certain of his intention.

35:50Clearly, it's very ambiguous.

35:52He was moved, but he puts it dryly

35:56and stands outside his own emotion, as Ben did.

35:59The whole content of the scene

36:01tells us that he's thinking about the implications

36:04of Coriolanus's portrayal.

36:05Implications of Coriolanus's portrayal.

36:08So here, the surface meaning is true,

36:12but Ben caught the underneath,

36:15ironic under-meaning which contradicts it.

36:20I was moved with awe.

36:23I thought that was wonderful.

36:24I wouldn't say anything more about it.

36:26Thank goodness.

36:27You should be proud of yourself for the life.

36:29I was standing here shaking in anticipation

36:32of a ton of notes to descend upon me.

36:34Just my congratulations and applause.

36:36I leave you relieved.

36:40There's one other way in which irony

36:43may at first be at work,

36:45where it doesn't seem to be.

36:47Mount Joy, the French herald,

36:49threatens King Henry V.

36:52Thus says my king.

36:54Say thou to Harry of England,

36:55though we seemed dead, we did but slumber.

36:59Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.

37:02Tell him we could have rebuked him

37:05but that we thought not good to bruise an injury

37:07till it were full right.

37:10Now we speak upon our cue

37:12and our voice is imperial.

37:15Good.

37:16Stop it there.

37:17That certainly goes with the way it's written.

37:20But now let's try it in a different way

37:23and suppose that Mount Joy's out to humiliate

37:27Henry V in front of all his soldiers

37:30and he does it with great gentleness

37:33and surface sympathy for Henry

37:35as if he's saying,

37:36my dear old fellow, I'm terribly worried about you.

37:38I'm sorry for you, but I'm on your side.

37:41You're sending him up by doing that,

37:43but you're pretending to be on his side.

37:46Have a go.

37:52Thus says my king.

37:56Say thou to Harry of England,

38:00though we seemed dead, we did but slumber.

38:04Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.

38:09Tell him we could have rebuked him at half-flur

38:12but that we thought not good to bruise an injury

38:15till it were full right.

38:18Now we speak upon our cue

38:21and our voice is imperial.

38:25England shall repent his folly,

38:28see his weakness and admire our sufferance.

38:33Bid him therefore consider of his ransom

38:37which must proportion the losses we have borne,

38:40the subjects we have lost,

38:42the disgrace we have digested

38:45which in wait to re-answer

38:48his pettiness would bow under.

38:52For our losses his exchequer is too poor

38:56for the effusion of our blood,

38:58the muster of his kingdom too faint a muster

39:02and for our disgrace his own person kneeling at our feet

39:07but a weak and worthless satisfaction.

39:11To this add defiance

39:15and tell him for conclusion

39:18he hath betrayed his followers

39:23whose condemnation is pronounced.

39:27So far my king and master, so much my office.

39:33This is a kind of irony, isn't it?

39:35But the technique is different.

39:37The mocking is inverted.

39:39It masquerades as sympathy.

39:42I think it's more devastating the way that Alan did it.

39:45That's great.

39:47Let's take another example of political irony and animosity.

39:53In Troilus and Cressida, the Trojan hero Hector

39:56meets Ulysses, the Greek politician.

40:00They like each other and are very courteous

40:03but the courtesy is loaded and ironic.

40:07They're looking at the walls of Troy.

40:11I wonder now how yonder city stands

40:15since we have here a base and pillar with us.

40:20I know your favor, Lord Ulysses, well.

40:25Our sir, as many a Greek and Trojan are dead

40:29since first I saw yourself and Diomed in Ilion

40:33on your Greekish embassy.

40:35Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.

40:39My prophecy is but half his journey yet.

40:43For yonder walls that pertly front your town

40:47yon towers whose wanton tops to bust the clouds

40:53must kiss their own feet.

40:55I must not believe you.

40:57There they stand yet.

40:59And modestly, I think the fall of every Phrygian stone

41:02will cost a drop of Grecian blood.

41:06The end crowns all.

41:10And that old common arbitrator, time, will one day end it.

41:17So to him we leave it.

41:22Good.

41:23Now, let's just sit down and talk about that a bit.

41:26I think that you would get the irony going further

41:30if you actually played the surface courtesy and chivalry more.

41:35I think it's also about...

41:36You were being a bit too beady.

41:37Yes, you were a bit too obviously beady.

41:39But I think that you both play the political game

41:43of diplomatic courtesies on the surface.

41:47Also, you've met before.

41:48So maybe you actually quite like each other.

41:50You both respect each other.

41:52So there's a kind of umbilical cord of human friendliness.

41:57Because they did actually try and stop it happening, didn't they?

42:00That's right.

42:00In the first meeting that we don't see in the play.

42:03You went on an embassage to try to stop the war.

42:06And so you formed a little bond then.

42:08So you are together.

42:10But within that, the barbs will become more loaded.

42:14So like when you say base and pillar,

42:16as you did put that in inverted commas then,

42:19if it seems courteous, it can also be more rude as well.

42:23It's a funny mixture of courtesy and rudeness.

42:26Perhaps the answer is to just initially to just play the courtesy.

42:29And see what happens.

42:30I think so.

42:30And then maybe the words will do the irony for us.

42:32Yes, let's do it.

42:34Just do it on the floor perhaps.

42:35And just do it for the courtesy.

42:37And then we'll do it another time.

42:38Play it more Chinese.

42:39Yeah.

42:40I wonder now how yonder city stands,

42:45since we have here her base and pillar with us.

42:50I know your favor, Lord Ulysses, well.

42:54Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead,

42:58since first I saw yourself and Diomed

43:02in Ilion on your Greekish embassy.

43:04Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.

43:08My prophecy is but half his journey yet.

43:12For yonder walls that pertly front your town,

43:18yon towers whose wanton tops do bust the clouds,

43:24must kiss their own feet.

43:25Ah, I must not believe you.

43:28There they stand yet.

43:31And modestly, I think,

43:33the fall of every Phrygian stone

43:36will cost a drop of Grecian blood.

43:40The end crowns all.

43:44And that old common arbitrator,

43:47time, will one day end it.

43:52So to him we leave it.

43:55Well, that worked, didn't it?

43:56The irony did come out more through the courtesy,

43:58funnily enough.

44:00Because the irony, if we do it that way,

44:02the irony is a shared irony

44:04and not one that's against each other.

44:06We both know the score.

44:07We both know what's going to happen.

44:09We both know it isn't actually,

44:12I think, a scene of opposition at all.

44:13It's about two experienced men

44:16regretfully knowing what's going to happen.

44:18I think that's excellent.

44:19Shared irony is a new kind of irony that we've found.

44:22I think it's great.

44:23There's also a third character in the scene, isn't there?

44:25And that's the city,

44:26which makes it possible for us

44:28not necessarily to be in contact

44:30because it's dangerous when you're playing

44:32the sort of game necessarily to confront each other.

44:34So there's always the city to bounce off.

44:37That's true, as we play with each other.

44:39And there's old time as well.

44:42The fourth character in the scene.

44:43Talk about him.

44:44See, I think that the irony goes on

44:47up to a point at which Hector breaks it

44:50after I must not believe you.

44:52If you say to him very courteously,

44:53I don't believe a word you're saying,

44:55and then say with complete simplicity

44:59and romantic love of your city,

45:01there it is,

45:02that the non-ironic bit

45:05is the stronger off to the irony.

45:07And I thought you could make a bigger change there.

45:10And I think that you could help it

45:12by getting more irony into

45:15yon walls and yon towers

45:16and saying, oh, they're wonderful, they're splendid.

45:20And then he can undercut it.

45:22And certainly, we've got to find more

45:24out of our favorite word, time, haven't we?

45:27That old common arbitrator, time.

45:31Now, what does it mean?

45:32It means, it's literal sense,

45:34but it also means death to everybody,

45:38maybe to one side, maybe to the other.

45:40Maybe it means something that you know.

45:42We are always doomed.

45:43We're all equal.

45:45It's got to have, well, it's not irony.

45:47It's our other word in the program, isn't it?

45:48It's ambiguity.

45:50Can I try something on you?

45:51Yeah.

45:51Let me do it when we do it.

45:53Yeah.

45:54Okay, well, let's try it again this time.

45:58Stand up.

46:08I wonder now how yonder city stands

46:13since we have here her base and pillar by us.

46:18I know your favor, Lord Ulysses, well.

46:22Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead

46:27since first I saw yourself and Diomed in Ilion

46:31on your Greekish embassy.

46:33Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.

46:37My prophecy is but half his journey yet.

46:42For yonder walls that pertly front your town,

46:46yon towers whose wanton tops do bust the clouds

46:52must kiss their own feet.

46:54I must not believe you.

46:57There they stand yet.

47:00And modestly, I think the fall of every Phrygian stone

47:03will cost a drop of Grecian blood.

47:08The end crowns all.

47:11And that old common arbitrator, time, will one day end it.

47:19So to him we leave it.

47:23I'd like to have one more go at it,

47:25because I know it's risky when one does something

47:27a number of times, and often does a bit better

47:29and a bit less well.

47:30But what you actually lost that time, though,

47:32you gained on the points we'd worked on,

47:34was you lost the friendly courtesy

47:36you'd had on the floor.

47:37You actually were a bit uptight about it.

47:39Well, I was just standing up and sitting down.

47:41Yeah, that's right.

47:41It was a possibility.

47:42All right.

47:43So a sitting down, easy feeling.

47:47And keep that umbilical cord between you.

47:49All right.

47:50OK?

47:51I wonder now how yonder city stands,

47:56since we have here her basant pillar by us.

48:00I know your favor, Lord Ulysses.

48:02Well?

48:04Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead,

48:07since first I saw yourself, Diomed, in Ilion,

48:11on your Greekish embassy.

48:12Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.

48:16My prophecy is but half his journey.

48:19Yet, for yonder walls that pertly front your town,

48:24yonder towers whose wanton tops do bust the clouds,

48:30must kiss their own feet.

48:31I must not believe you.

48:34There they stand yet.

48:37And modestly, I think,

48:39all of us must kiss their own feet.

48:42And modestly, I think,

48:44all of every Phrygian stone will cost a drop of Grecian blood.

48:51The end crowns all.

48:54And that old common arbitrator, time, will one day end it.

49:01So to him we leave it.

49:08I like that.

49:09So I think so to him we leave it.

49:14Well, we've spent a whole program on irony,

49:18not merely because it's important and difficult,

49:21but because it comes up in Shakespeare so often,

49:23and there's so much more of it than people ever realize.

49:27The strange thing is that I can actually think

49:29of no sustained long passage

49:32where Shakespeare gives irony to women.

49:35Odd moments, yes, but never for very long.

49:38The only bit I found suitable for our program was a sonnet

49:41which, strictly speaking, should be spoken by a man,

49:44which is why we've only worked on men's speeches tonight.

49:47Perhaps that tells us something about Shakespeare,

49:50or perhaps it tells us something about irony.

49:53Well, we've strayed into thorny areas.

49:57That is, as I've said,

49:58because we've moved from what is objective

50:01to what is subjective.

50:03Talking about irony has led us inexorably

50:06to talking about interpretation.

50:08In the remaining programs of this series,

50:10we shall go further that way.

50:13And as I said at the outset,

50:14we'll find there are very few rules,

50:16but a lot of questions.

Acting Shakespeare - John Barton - Ben Kingsley - Masterclass - Part 5 - Irony and Ambiguity - 4K

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