This approach to writing about Shakespeare's life emphasizes the role and effects of his being an actor and writer among other actors, and writing for particular colleagues and the live stage. "Shakespeare the Player" discusses the companies for which Shakespeare wrote and acted, what English towns they toured to and when, the process of apprenticing actors in his time, how he may have rewritten and replotted his plays over time, and how the particular actors he had to work with might have influenced the stories Shakespeare chose to tell and the characters he decided to people them with.
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The author is a longtime British stage actor trained at the Old Vic, so he is very familiar with the process of bringing Shakespeare's lines to life and mechanics of staging the plays. Photographs include not only images and places from Shakespeare's time, but productions in which the author worked and performed.
The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus
