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Drama in performance: staging and voice

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Plays are written to be performed. The same words can mean different things depending on how they are spoken and staged. Directors and actors make choices, and you can too.

Dramatic techniques

The performer's toolkit

The National Curriculum lists the tools actors use: role, intonation, tone, volume, mood, silence, stillness and action.
Example: 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' could be whispered dreamily, or cried out in frustration. Each choice changes the meaning.

Different stagings

Directors can set a play in a different time or place. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film *Romeo + Juliet* keeps Shakespeare's words but sets the story in a modern city, with guns instead of swords.
A staging choice is an interpretation: it shows one way of understanding the play.
Worked example

How might two actors deliver Tybalt's line 'I hate the word, / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee' differently?

  1. Option 1: loud and furious, drawing his sword at 'thee'.
  2. Option 2: quiet and cold, with a long pause before 'and thee'.
  3. The first shows a hot temper; the second makes him seem calculating and more frightening.

Answer: Shouted with action, he seems hot-headed; spoken quietly with a pause, he seems cold and menacing. Each is a valid interpretation.

Key idea

Know soliloquy, aside, dramatic irony and stage directions. Performers use role, intonation, tone, volume, silence, stillness and action. Different stagings give different interpretations.

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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