How to Choose A Shakespeare Monologue

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How DO you choose a Shakespeare Monologue? I share with you three acting audition tips and a Shakespeare monologue tip from Sir Laurence Olivier.

1. Choose a Shakespeare Monologue that resonates with you. One that stirs you up, and connects with your gut.

2. Use the Arden Edition of Shakespeare for any language you don't understand and speak the speech using the modern word first then go back to the original and FEEL the difference.

3. Use the fishing rod technique of Sir Laurence. Utterly brilliant!

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TRANSCRIPT

So, you want to know how to choose a Shakespeare monologue. By the end of this video, I'm going to give you three ideas that are going to make that so much easier for you. I'm Nick Dunning. I'm the creator of Total Audition Magician, and the author of How To Get More Acting Work Quickly and Easily.

I have an absolutely passion for Shakespeare. The first thing I want to suggest is this. Choose a speech, one of the speeches, one of the monologues, one of the Shakespeare monologues, that resonates with you. Choose one that when you pick it up and you read it, you kind of go, "Oh, yeah, this is juicy. This is exciting." It challenges you. It sets some kind of a feeling going on inside of your body.

For example, for me, when I was starting out, I used to choose between, say, the speeches of Macbeth, you know, the one about the dagger, and other speeches. Now, most of my contemporaries were all doing Hamlet, but I didn't quite get Hamlet. He didn't really seem to kind of connect with me. Macbeth, on the other hand, absolutely. I knew what he was doing. I knew what he was after. The idea of killing someone you know, I could relate to that. That's the first thing you want to do is find that visceral connection. Find the thing that makes you come alive. And when you connect with that language and you connect with that particular Shakespearean monologue, then you know you've found the right one.

The second piece of advice I've got for you is this. Some of the language is difficult for us. It's not contemporary language. It really isn't. And so you need to find out what some of the words mean. Don't worry about doing this. It's a perfectly okay thing to do. You know, the best way I use that is I always take what's known as The Art and Edition of the Shakespeare. It's the one that the Royal Shakespeare Company uses. Inside it, on one side, you'll find all the Shakespearean text, and you'll find a word that you don't understand.
And the third tip I'm going to give you is this. I've just thought of another one. This one was passed down from Sir Laurence Olivier to one of the actors that I work with at the Royal National Theatre company. And he said, "Whenever you're doing a monologue, take a fishing rod. Imagine you've got a fishing rod in your hand, and you've got this cast now, and you're going to throw the reel, and you're going to throw the hook so that it lands on the end of the monologue. And then as you do, as you speak it, wind it in towards you, so you're always pulling this incredible tight, taught, tense energy inside the actual speech that you're doing." That is just such a great image, and I use that all the time. And I find that, and I think you'll find that, very helpful.