Reviews for Tools and Techniques for Character Interpretation: A Handbook of Psychology for Actors, Writers, and Directors

The average rating for Tools and Techniques for Character Interpretation: A Handbook of Psychology for Actors, Writers, and Directors based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-30 00:00:00 Armesios Patapiou When you pick up a book, you're never quite sure where it will take you. That's certainly the case when I purchased Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. I don't recall where I got it or my motivation for getting it, but I ended up learning more about poetry than acting. The crux of Hall's acting theory ' and, I would say, verse theory ' is this: "Form comes first and if it is observed, it helps provoke the feeling." (p. 13) Hall notes the unfashionableness of this statement. Today, form is considered pedantic, mechanical, untrustworthy and artificial. Acting (and verse) today values the appearance of spontaneity, passion, directness. Method acting, in which you draw on past emotions to nuance your performance, wants to be free from text, from words, from anything but the emotional connection with the character. Form is an obstacle to overcome - it's something to get around - rather than a tool on which to build. But Hall notes that "there is no art without form. Form disciplines the inspiration and makes it expressive. Form contains the emotion and ensures that it is credible and not indulgent." (p. 22) He continues: "The paradox of art is that the rules of form must always be challenged in order to achieve spontaneity. Yet they must not be completely destroyed. There is a balance between the discipline and freedom which the great creative genius or the astonishing performer can achieve." (p. 22) Hall provides the traditional view of the line, the syllable, rhyme, rhythm and rhetoric in a way that many contemporary readers - myself included - typically do not see it: as rhythmic speech. And this is significantly different than poetry written to be read. This is an eye-opening book, and one I'll re-read throughout my life. I recommend for anyone interested in Shakespearean acting - or writing poetry.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-08 00:00:00 Chris Coolley This book was too long--it would have been better as an magazine article at half the length. Something about brevity and the soul of wit (and I realize the book wasn't supposed to be witty--trust me, it wasn't). Still, the book did show me another way of looking at reading Shakespeare's plays, at looking at the language and the structure of the dialogue. Thank you for that, Mr. Hall. Task 5.7