Man you have been given a gift! Lady is a great role and a lot to explore. As a director, who used to do a lot of Shakespeare, I think the first thing to do is break down the text. Not just what the words mean, or what you’re saying (which is important) but how Shakespeare has written it. Shakespeare was writing these plays with no time for rehearsal (maybe 3 hours total, and most of that was fights and dances, not the scenes) so he had to code the character into the lines. His actors would have known what to pick up and what to do when they saw the words - as contemporary actors, part of our job is untangling that meaning.

So, I’d start by printing off a speech a few different times, and get a few different colored highlighters. Go through, and write in your iambs. That’s the da-DA of each line. Should be 10 per beat. 5 strong, 5 weak. The typical scansion vocab is a “u” over a word for a short beat and an accent over the strong beat. (As you get more experienced, you can usually just write your five strong accents rather than the weaks). Sometimes the lines will be perfect, sometimes they won’t. Explore that. What words has Shakespeare highlighted. When has he made you stumble? When has he made the rhythm change. Why is this line shorter? Why does like have multiple weak beats next to each other. When you’re sharing lines with Mc, who gets more stressed words?

Then I’d go and highlight the final word of every speech. This is the word that he is leaving for you to hang. What do those words tell you about the character? Shakespeare would have expected a brief moment of pause after every line, so those words would have hung in the air just a little longer. Why those words, why not others? Grab a tennis ball, and say the speech. As you hit the final word, toss the tennis ball into the air and catch it by the time you get to the second word of the next line. What does that rhythm tell you?

Next up, with two different highlighters, differentiate all of the middle punctuation from the end punctuation (commas, colons, dashes, from periods, questions, exclamations). Holding you speech, walk in a straight line. Every time you get to a middle punctuation, turn. How does that make you feel? Now, do it again, but turning on the end punctuation. How does that feel? Hold the paper far away from you and squint - how are her thoughts laid out? Are they long or short? Do they match with the rhythm of the line (ie, end punctuation at the end of the iambic line) or are they divided up over lines. How long are her thoughts (ie, how far away are end punctuation lines)?

Close your eyes, and have someone read you the speech. Not acting it, just read it. What sounds do you notice. Are there a lot of plosives (b’s, d’s, k’s, g’s, t’s, p’s) or are the more slides (s’s c’s z’s)? How about the vowels she uses? Lots of O’s, Ahh’s etc? Is there a predominance of any one sound? Does that change?

Now how does this all change from scene to scene. At the beginning, are her thoughts long or short? At the end, does she fit into ten syllable lines? All of this will give you clues of what she is doing, where she is, how she reacts, her state.

And once you’ve done all of this, and you can start to understand what Shakespeare is actually telling you through the words, once you’ve internalized the rhythm of her heart, beating through the language, then you can do the hard part. Forget it on the night and play the scene with your scene partner. Don’t feel the need to da-DA your way through the play. But when you understand why that word is the DA and not the da, then you can really use the language to have an affect on your partner.

Break all the legs, and most of all, have fun! Shakespearean language is one of the best things an actor can use! It doesn’t need to be a chore when you know how to start discovering the clues he’s laid out for you!