shakespearean-spunk:

“you make my heart beat in iambic pentameter.”

no you don’t understand shakespeare literally writes to the beat of your heart

• that’s why shakespearean actors will sometimes pound their chests in time to the words during readings

• that’s why you use fluctuations in the rhythm to track your character’s emotional state – any irregularities in the scansion are like the character’s heart stuttering or jumping or skipping a beat

• that’s why when characters share the rhythm – switching off in the middle of a foot – those characters inevitably have an extraordinarily intimate connection

shakespeare fucking writes viscerally, he is literally in your body, and that, my friend, that is why the best shakespearean actors don’t posture and emote

you have to be fucking alive and passionate and electric – it can’t be intellectual, in the end, it has to be about connection and the sweating, cheering, jeering, bleeding masses you’re performing to, because make no mistake, shakespeare may go to lofty heights, but he only works if you’re just as grounded in the earth. he has to be in your body. he has to be in your body.

holy motherfucking shit i love shakespeare so much, get him in your bones, breathe him in, stomp and rage and pine, dadum dadum dadum dadum dadum, it is literally to the beat of your heart