For the final workshop before auditions for MacBETH, Alisha Huber, Master of Letters in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama, led various students in understanding the language of William Shakespeare’s many plays.

Beyond the iambic pentameter and verse that is usually associated with Shakespeare, Huber challenged students to look deeper into the text for embedded stage directions, acting cues, and emotional beats.

Due to minimal actors, time, and money — everything came down to money — Shakespeare needed to create methods of cutting corners to get what he wanted with as little hassle as possible. This need led to Shakespeare’s particular language style we now know today. Huber urged students, when deciphering the sometimes dense text, that they needed to “just trust Shakespeare … [You] need to just step back and listen, and let Shakespeare tell [you] what to do.”

“I didn’t realize how much thought and complexity went into Shakespeare,” said first-year Kayla Segner, “or how he had twisted around and made direction of the stage into actual dialogue of the play.”

Perhaps one of the most practical methods Shakespeare used when writing was embedding stage directions. The dialogue uses specific phrases to imply movements and actions the actors should take.

Within the workshop, for example, students acted out the scene before the stabbing of Caesar, in “Julius Caesar,” attempting to follow the stage blocking that the verbal cues in characters’ dialogue implied.

Following these cues, students began to form a scene with motion and expression. The written cues instructed actors where to look, how to emote, and where to position themselves before the fatal stabbing.

None of the scene had specific blocking written out, but based on Shakespeare’s cues, the actors could infer and create the scene with little-to-no discussion of how it would be formed. This is how rehearsals in Shakespeare’s day were streamlined and allowed the actors more freedom to improvise if the need arose.

Sophomore Amber Hooper, stage manager for MacBETH, found the workshop valuable, even though she herself would not be acting in the upcoming play. “Knowing about Shakespeare and how to read it and understand it … is useful when you’re going to be working with it.” Understanding how the language of the play works allows for those who are not actors to construct and adapt to what needs to be done to produce the play.

Associate Professor of Theater Heidi Winters Vogel described the upcoming production, MacBETH as a place for actors “to explore this idea of ambition and jealousy and overweening pride.”

Now, with further understanding of how the language of Shakespeare affects scenes and ideas, those actors will be able to develop a story more accurately and, if they use Shakespeare’s techniques, more efficiently.

This language workshop wraps up the preparatory sessions before MacBETH’s auditions. Understanding the reasons behind Shakespeare’s writing, and last week’s stage combat workshop, will be key elements in the upcoming production.