Parts to Perform

Abstract

The relation of speech to performance can be closely observed in soliloquies, for which dramatic focus centres on one person alone on the stage. The changing style of these sustained speeches throughout a play marks a changing relationship of text to performance and of performer to audience that affects the nature of the entire theatrical event. In the course of his career, Shakespeare came to use soliloquies differently, seeming to develop a greater trust in an actor’s ability to draw upon the instinctive depths of his being. Increasingly, he called into play physical sensations and feelings that cannot be put into words because they are beyond the scope of conscious thought.