Henry IV workshop 1

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Description
A workshop in which the Director, John Russell-Brown, examines something of the relationship, in Shakespeare's Henry IV, between Falstaff and Prince Hal.

Subtitle Number	Time In	Time Out	Subtitle Text
1	00:00:01,000	00:00:05,000	Shakespeare's texts don't tell you how they must be played.
2	00:00:05,000	00:00:09,000	They're extraordinarily open to a huge range of different,
3	00:00:09,000	00:00:15,000	and sometimes even contradictory interpretations, and no two productions are ever the same.
4	00:00:15,000	00:00:19,000	And yet they all start from the same point, words on the page.
5	00:00:20,000	00:00:24,000	But, who has best title to these words and what they mean?
6	00:00:25,000	00:00:29,000	The actor, for whom they were undoubtedly written, or the scholar?
7	00:00:30,000	00:00:34,000	Actors accuse scholars of reading too much into the text…
8	00:00:34,000	00:00:36,000	..and scholars accuse actors of reading too little.
9	00:00:37,000	00:00:41,000	But it's a false quarrel, I maintain. We're all in the same business…
10	00:00:41,000	00:00:45,000	..and I hope that what you're going to see in these programmes will prove this.
11	00:00:47,000	00:00:51,000	When we see a play on the stage or on film or on television,
12	00:00:52,000	00:00:55,000	complete with music and lighting, props and scenery,
13	00:00:55,000	00:00:58,000	with the actors made up and in costume,
14	00:00:58,000	00:01:03,000	word perfect with every movement and gesture, confident and significant,
15	00:01:04,000	00:01:08,000	it's easy to mistake the nature of the process that went before.
16	00:01:08,000	00:01:11,000	Oh sure we know it had to be rehearsed,
17	00:01:11,000	00:01:15,000	the cast had to learn their words and practise their gestures.
18	00:01:16,000	00:01:20,000	But if we're not at the theatre ourselves, what we don't realise is…
19	00:01:20,000	00:01:23,000	..how many choices and decisions have to be made…
20	00:01:23,000	00:01:27,000	..in order to achieve each detail in the finished performance.
21	00:01:28,000	00:01:33,000	Rehearsal isn't just getting the polish on, it's also exploration,
22	00:01:33,000	00:01:39,000	interpretation and discovery, and it's sometimes deciding what to leave out.
23	00:01:40,000	00:01:46,000	Actors have to make responsible choices and this is intellectually very taxing.
24	00:01:48,000	00:01:52,000	In any particular production three major variables combine,
25	00:01:53,000	00:01:59,000	the director, the actor, and the text, which isn't quite as stable as you might think.
26	00:02:00,000	00:02:02,000	It may be cut, it often has to be.
27	00:02:03,000	00:02:09,000	Not even all the words are certain , and it doesn't always render up its meaning easily.
28	00:02:10,000	00:02:16,000	Sometimes time itself and the changes in our language have made obscure for us…
29	00:02:16,000	00:02:20,000	..what the play's first audiences would have found clear as glass.