The student should turn to page 411 in Traditions in Literature. Read the passage Comment: Putting the Plays on Stage. Note that certain roles in the play were written by Shakespeare for a particular actor. Write about how this team approach to acting would strengthen the performance.
It’s easy to see why Shakespeare wrote his parts specifically for the actors that would be playing them. This way, the overall performance of the play would turn out to be much stronger when the character was molded for the actor instead of the actor adapting to the character.
The time that the actors had to memorize and work with their parts for a particular play was much more limited in the Shakespearean times. This is because they performed many different in a very short period of time. This is much different from today, in which actors perform the same play for much longer time spans. When the character that the actor was performing was much similar to his own individual personality, it must have made it much easier to get into their part. This way, the actor spent much less time on memorizing the emotions of the character, and could focus more on what the character was saying.
The method that Shakespeare used in writing his plays made the actual performance better as well. When actors could act more like themselves on stage, the result would obviously be a more natural flow to their parts. When you try and pretend to be someone else, it takes more effort to act in that particular manor.
Shakespeare’s technique of form his characters from the people who would play their roles was helpful in the effect of his plays.