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whipfinish t1_j29u4uh wrote

If you're going to read the play cold, and read all parts, it can be frustrating. They are not plays--they're scripts, documents not intended for reading. Reading is fine if that's what you want or have, but scripts are made for actors. If you want to become conversant with Shakespeare, it's perfectly fine to do it with film--that's what they are intended to do. I helped inflict a generation of script-reading on high school students, and I came to believe that it's a waste of time unless your reading is part of a process of presentation. If you want to grasp Shostakovich you don't curl up with the score. If you want to enjoy architecture, you don't study blueprints.

If you really want to read them, I recommend that you begin with comedies, and bookend your reading with good film. I recommend Much Ado and this stage-filmed production:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2651158/

(Some big chunks of this are on YouTube This one is by the Old Globe, a filmed version of a stage performance complete with groundlings in the rain, music and dancing, and a good bit of relating to the audience.

Twelfth Night is my next favorite.

These are stage pros and cadence and energy makes meaning. It's remarkable (in this production especially) how important non-spoken elements are. The intense physical interplay is a feature of comedy most of all.

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