Persons in a Play

Abstract

The persons represented by actors in a Shakespeare play can seem startlingly real. Palpably present before an audience, they discover new resources during the course of a play and may appear differently from one performance to another. These are complicated phenomena for which Shakespeare has been praised down all the centuries. When a play becomes part of a theatrical event, the audience watches its leading characters as they seem to be driven by their own thoughts and feelings in a course of action that leads to a conclusion that is both fitting and revelatory. With each new performance this process will change, sometimes very slightly, sometimes surprisingly so, offering the actors a journey of discovery. By the end of the play, if all goes well, both spectators and actors will have shared in the unfolding of a seemingly complete world that had lain hidden within the text and now has a life of its own. It can seem so effortless and inevitable that both audience and actors wonder how it has all been done.