Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to our drama lesson.

This is the second of three drama lessons looking at a unit of learning called Acting Shakespeare Twelfth Night.

In our first lesson, we look to the character Orsino, and his self consented love for Olivia.

And we also looked at how Shakespeare uses Iambic pentameter, to help us as actors to perform his work.

And in this lesson, we're going to develop on that knowledge by looking at another character, viola.

And looking also at how Shakespeare encouraged us to use our breath, and pauses to add meaning to what we're saying.

But before we do that, let's make sure we got all the right equipment before you make a start.

So this is the equipment we're going to need for our lesson, you're going to need a worksheet or a piece of paper to work from, you're going to need a pen, and you might want a highlighter to highlight some of your lines.

So make sure you've got that equipment now and let's make start once you have.

So this is the rundown of our lesson today.

We're going to start with a quick recap of the play, and then from that, we're going to look at the character viola, and a monologue that she gives at the beginning of the play.

I talked earlier about secrets that Shakespeare gave us in terms of using our breath and pauses.

So we're going to have a quick exercise at using our breath.

Then we're going to use that technique to help us perform a monologue before finishing with a quiz.

But there are of course, keywords we need to know to help us succeed in this lesson.

And today's keywords are motivation.

And motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage.

Facial expressions.

Facial expressions are the way we use our faces, to communicate meaning to an audience.

Gestures.

Gestures are small movements made by the body that communicates something to an audience.

And finally, pauses.

Pauses are deliberately adding a moment of silence, to add meaning to your performance.

Before we go on, let's just check our understanding of one of those really key important keywords we've just looked at there, motivation.

So you tell me now, what does the keyword motivation mean? That's right.

Motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage.

We're going to start today's lesson with a quick vertical warmup.

Now our voices comes from our vocal cords, and then muscles.

So just like when we do any physical exercise, we need to warm our bodies up to make sure that we don't do any damage.

When we're using our voice, we need to warm our voice up, so that we avoid doing any damage long term.

So we're going to start with some breathing exercises.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to demonstrate first of all.

What we're going to do is we're going to breathe out all the air, and then we're going to breathe in for five seconds, we're going to hold for five seconds, and then we're going to breathe out for five seconds.

And we're going to try to make sure that all the air inside our lungs comes out in those five seconds.

So a demonstrate to begin with, I'm going to let all the air out first, and I'm going to breathe in for, hold, and out for, excellent.

Now we're going to do it together, we're going to do it twice through, I'm going to count you through it.

So let all the air out.

And in for one, two, three, four, five, hold for one, two, three, four, five, and out for one, two, three, four, five, and in for one, two, three, four, five, hold for one, two, three, four, five, and out for one, two, three, four, five, excellent.

All we're doing there is we're just gently warming up those vocal cords that allow air to come through and then back out and to help them warm up a bit.

This time we're going to add a hum at the end.

So I'll demonstrate first of all to show you.

We're going to breathe in for five seconds, hold for five seconds and hum instead of breathing out for five seconds.

Are you ready? So I'm going to let all the air out, and then in for, hold for, and out for.

Excellent, there we're just warming up those muscles again, just gently, this forces them and makes them gently press against each other, which warms them up.

So we're going to do that twice, I'm going to lead you through it.

So then all the air out, and in for one, two, three, four, five, hold for one, two, three, four, five, and then hum for.

Excellent.

Let all the air out, and in for one, two, three, four, five, hold for one, two, three, four, five, and out for, Excellent, well done.

So we're just gently warming up those vocal cords.

And we're going to do the next exercise, which is a quick tongue twister.

And it's going to be New York unique, unique New York.

I'm going to say it, you say it.

Unique New York, New York Unique.

You say it unique New York, New York unique.

I say it knew he, knew he.

Say it again, unique New York, New York unique.

You say it.

And I'm going to say it this time, this time I'm going to try to get our mouth as wide as we can, as we say it.

Unique New York, New York unique.

Over to you really push the mouth as wide as you can.

Three, two, one go.

Excellent, well done.

Now we're going to combine those two exercises, the breathing technique with the tongue twister.

And the reason why we're going to do this is because when we're acting and we're performing, it's the breath that we have that gives us projection and volume.

We should avoid shouting because shouting is forcing the air through our vocal cords and forcing them together, which is going to cause long term damage.

Whereas using the breath to get volume is using the vocal cords to a much better effect.

So I'm going to demonstrate first of all, and then I want you to copy me afterwards.

So my demonstration goes like this.

So I'm going to let all the air out.

And breathe in for five, and hold for, and unique New York, New York unique.

And notice, I let all the breath out in that line, making sure there's no breath left before I take a new breath in.

So I'm going to do it with you this time, we'll do it together.

So let all the air out, and in for, hold for, and unique New York, New York unique, excellent.

It's a tongue twister, I think I got it the wrong way around.

So let's do one last time, this time, I want you to do it, and I'll count you through it.

Alright, so that all the air out.

And in for one, two, three, four, five, hold for one, two, three, four, five, unique New York, New York unique, excellent.

Remember is that breath control that gives us projection and volume.

We can shout, of course we can shout, but that does long term damage to our vocal cords.

Instead, we need to focus on our vocal cords and breath work to help that breath give volume and projection to what we're saying.

Let's have a quick recap of the plot of the Twelfth Night.

So remember Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, that's set on the fictional island of Illyria.

Now there are several plots, all of which interweave as the play goes on.

But the central plot is the romantic relationship between Orsino Olivia, and the third character called Viola.

Now in our last lesson, we looked at Orsino and how he is desperately in love with Olivia.

But yet Olivia hasn't declared her love for Orsino.

And in this lesson, we're going to be introduced to the character of Viola.

So let's have a closer look at her character now.

So let's have a closer look at viola's plot in the Twelfth Night, and especially at the beginning of the play.

It starts with a shipwreck.

Viola arrives in Illyria, having shipwrecked off the coast, and she believes her twin brother to be lost in the shipwreck.

So she arrives with just one other character, the captain, and she believes the rest of all perished in the shipwreck.

So she arrives, sad, isolated and traumatised by the events.

But the captain recognises the land that they arrive at, Illyria, and tells Viola that the person who's in charge, the duke is Duke Orsino.

And so Viola decides to disguise herself as a boy, and going by the name of Cesario goes to work for Duke Orsino.

The Duke is quite happy with this takes a viola as Cesario under his employment, and sends Cesario to woo Olivia on his behalf.

Remember, Orsino was deeply in love with Olivia.

Instead of accepting are seen as advances, Olivia, however, falls in love with Cesario, who of course, is Viola.

And if there's not any enough complications, Viola falls in love with Orsino.

So this is Viola's plot at the very beginning of the play.

But we're going to look at a monologue that comes right at the beginning, where Viola tells the captain her plan to conceal herself as a boy and go to work for Duke Orsino and the monologue goes like this.

I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously, conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.

I'll serve this duke, thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him.

It may be worth thy pains for I can sing and speak to him and many sorts of music that will allow me very worth his service.

What else there may hap to time I will commit.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Now we talked to the beginning of the lesson about a keyword, motivation.

Motivation being the reason why a character is on stage, and the reason for what they are doing on stage, and the reason why they are saying what they say on stage.

So what do you think Viola's motivation, in saying this monologue is? We're going to break the monologue down into the two parts.

So pause the video now, and either using the monologue on your worksheet, or the monologue as it does on the screen.

What do you think, is Viola's motivation in this part of the monologue? So here are my thoughts, and I've highlighted them on the screen, and you can copy those down onto your worksheet if you want.

I've got keywords like conceal me what I am, such disguise as happy shall become, both of those the words conceal and disguise, her motivation here is to come across to the duke as a boy to conceal her true identity, which I think are two different things there.

And the I'll serve this duke, her intention here is very much clear that she's going to go to serve the duke.

Let's have a look at the second part of Viola's monologue.

So either using the copy on your worksheet, or the copy on the screen, pause the video now and see if you can identify Viola's motivation for this monologue.

So here's some thoughts that I've got, and again, you can copy these down onto your worksheet, if you're using it.

For I can sing and speak to him in many sorts of music, will allow me very worth his service.

I think she's almost convincing herself here as much as the captain, that she will be able to do the things that he wants her to do, or I should say him to do because she's going to dress up as him and for all Orsino knows, it's going to be Cesario, who's going to be a servant.

And so he's suggesting that he can sing, he can make music, he can do anything that the Orsino wants him to do.

So let's turn our attention to thinking about how we're going to perform this monologue.

Now earlier I mentioned how Shakespeare gave us clues about how we can use our breath pauses to add meaning to our performances.

But before we do that, let's just have a quick recap on our understanding of the keyword pause.

So tell me now, what does the keyword pause mean? Excellent, well done.

Pauses are deliberately adding a moment of silence to add meaning to your performance.

Now, Shakespeare was very clever in this and did something that I like to call punctuation pauses.

So Shakespeare guides us to where to place pauses for dramatic effect, and that is to take a pause every time you get to some punctuation.

But there are some rules.

There are short pauses and long pauses.

Short pauses come in any punctuation that breaks sentence up.

So things like commas, brackets, semicolons, or colons.

Whereas long pauses come at the end of sentences.

So they come when you see a full stop, a question mark, or exclamation mark.

So if we look at the monologue we're working with at the moment, I have made some annotations to that, which you can copy down onto your worksheet, or you can use the version that's on the screen now.

And it becomes like this, I prithee, short pause, and I'll pay thee bounteously, conceal me for what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.

Longer pause, but did you notice that what happened is because I didn't take a pause at the end of aid and become, that whole section becomes one long sentence, as you don't read it like poetry, where you take a pause at the end of the line, you take a pause at the punctuation.

So I'm going to read that whole sequence again, and see if you can notice it again.

So I prithee, and I'll pay the bounteously, conceal me for what I am, and be my aid for such disguises haply shall become the form of my intent.

So I read through across each line until the next punctuation point, then I get a long pause.

I'll serve this juke, and then there's another long pause, thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him, long pause, because there's a full stop at the end of the sentence, takes us to the next part.

And you'll notice that there's only one short pause, in that three lines.

So we're going to say those three lines in one.

I'll start, it may be worth thy pains, for I can sing and speak to him in many sorts of music that will allow me very worth his service.

So it's all one breath, it all becomes all one line.

So we don't get to the end of the line, take a breath, and start the next one.

After then we got to his service, long pause, what else may hap, to time I will commit, long pause.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Now, what's interesting is when you add the pauses on punctuation is we start to come away from the idea that it's poetry, and then we speak it like poetry.

But normally with poems, we pause at the end of the line, before we start the next one.

Here, we're speaking all the way through the lines until we get to the next punctuation point.

So we could rewrite this monologue as something else.

We could rewrite it like this.

And here, I've just taken out of that format of being in poetry, and I've kept the same annotations with it.

What is also useful for us to think about is where we can have breaths.

In the warm up we were talking about how we use breaths to help our voice to project across the space, and how before we say a line, we take a breath, and use that out breath to give volume and projection.

So here we've got this idea of short pauses and long pauses, so you should know short pauses are also opportunities for you to take a quick breath.

Whereas a long pause, allows you to take a long breath in.

And if you can see here, we've got two really long sentences.

So we need to make sure that we've got enough breath to say all of that sentence.

So I'm going to present this as I've written it down on this form.

So I'm going to start with a deep breath, I prithee and I'll pay thee bounteously, conceal me for what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.

I'll serve this duke.

Thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him.

It may be worth thy pains for I can sing and I can speak to him in many sorts of music that will allow me very worth his service.

What else may hap to time I will commit.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

By breaking it up, you start to see a little different structure to it as well, because we've got two long sentences followed by two short sentences.

It also changes the pace.

Because it's such long sentences, we tend to quicken our pace to get through that sentence in order to maintain the same breath before we start the next sentence.

So you see, following that little secret of punctuation pauses, really changes the way in which we speak and present the language that Shakespeare has written.

Now before we perform it, let's just check which of these statements are true.

Option one, facial expressions are the way we use our faces to communicate.

Option two, proxemics are small movements that communicate meaning.

Option three, gestures are small movements that communicate meaning.

And option four, body language is the way we use our faces to communicate.

Tell me now, which of these statements are true.

That's right, option one and option three.

Option one, facial expressions are the way we use our faces to communicate, and option three, gestures are small movements that communicate meaning.

But let's just check out some of those other options.

So proxemics are not small movements that communicate meaning.

But proxemics is the distance between two characters, and what that distance communicates about their relationship to the audience.

Whereas body language, is not the way we use our faces to communicate, but body language is the way that we hold our bodies, we use all of our bodies to communicate how our feelings are to the audience.

So before I ask you to perform the monologue, I'm going to demonstrate it for you.

But before I do that, I want to remind you the process that we've been through so far.

So we started by identifying the motivation of the character in this monologue, which is, in part to convince herself that she's able to conceal herself as a boy, and go to work for Duke Orsino.

Then we also started to identify where to take long pauses and short pauses to add meaning to what we're saying.

And finally, I want us to think about gesture, and movement to be able to add meaning into it as well.

So this is my interpretation of the performance, and I want you to work in a moment on yours, which might be different to mine, and that's fine.

So it goes something like this.

I prithee and I'll pay thee bounteously, conceal me what I am.

And be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.

I'll serve the duke.

Thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him.

It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing and speak to him in many sorts of music that will allow me very worth his service.

What else may hap, to time I will commit.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

So, over to you now it's your turn to perform the monologue.

I want you to act out the monologue, adding facial expressions and gestures to help communicate the meaning and the motivation of Viola.

And remember that key secret about pauses.

So remember to keep the pauses where you've placed them, and to take a short or a long breath, according to the pause.

So use the monologue as it appears on the screen or the one on your worksheet.

Rehearse and perform the monologue and press play when you're ready to carry on.

Now, how did that go for you? How is your performance? Did you find that you're able to use those short pauses and long pauses to give you breath, enough to be able to deliver the lines with volume and with projection? It's not easy and it takes time to learn, especially over those longer sentences.

But it's well worth doing because it will improve your performance in the long term.

So before we finish up, I just want to check your understanding of some of the keywords we've used in our lesson today.

So is this statement true or false? Moving across the stage is an example of a gesture.

Tell me now.

That's right, it's false.

Moving across the stage is not an example of a gesture.

Gesture, are actually just small movements that communicate something specific to the audience.

Before we finish up today, I want to say well done on your performance.

It can be really hard to perform, especially performing Shakespeare, cause Shakespeare can sometimes be really, really daunting.

So I hope that the tips and tricks that we're exploring in these lessons are really helping you come to Shakespeare with more confidence than you did before.

Well done.