Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare

by M.M. Mahood

Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare is a unique survey of the small supporting roles - such as foils, feeds, attendants and messengers - that feature in Shakespeare's plays. Exploring such issues as how bit players should conduct themselves within a scene, and how blank verse or prose may be spoken to bring out the complexities of character-definition, Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare brings a wealth of insights to the dynamic of scenic construction in Shakespeare's dramaturgy.
M.M. Mahood explores the different functions of minimal characters, from clearing the stage to epitomizing the overall effect of the comedy or tragedy, and looks at how they can extend the audience's knowledge of the social world of the play. She goes on to describe the entire corpus of minimal roles in a selection of six plays:
* Richard III
* The Tempest
* King Lear
* Antony & Cleopatra
* Measure for Measure
* Julius Caesar
This new edition comes enhanced with a new Appendix, 'Who Says What', especially designed to aid directors in making decisions about the speaking parts of the minimal characters. It also comes complete with an index of characters (including line references) as well as a detailed general index.
An invaluable aid for directors and actors in the rehearsal room, this perceptive and informative volume is equally of interest to students studying and writing about Shakespeare's plays.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 1993

About the author

Molly Maureen (M.M.) Mahood studied a Master of Arts with a dissertation on 17th century comedy, and this was the beginning of a life of wide-ranging interests. After some time spent teaching at Oxford, Mahood taught English in Tanzania and Nigeria (where her students included Robert Mugabe and Wole Soyinka) before returning to the UK to teach English Literature at the University of Kent.

Mahood published notable works on postcolonial African literature, poetry and botanism, and notably the works of William Shakespeare. According to Mahood's obituary in The Guardian, "her book Shakespeare’s Wordplay (1957), a study of the playwright’s ambiguities and puns, is still essential reading for students and fellow academics".

Mahood retired in 1979, remaining Professor Emeritus at Kent, and completing a degtree in biological sciences. In retirement, she lived in Sussex, working with the local Wildlife Trust and continuing to attend Shakespeare conferences and publish into her 90s. Mahood died at 97.

Reviews

[Sammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly not for beginners, as this is an academic survey through and through with constant passing references to (presumed known) facts about Elizabethan theatre and, naturally, minor characters from across the Complete Works - although written in a delightfully conversational style.
If you're across the subject matter, though, it's a great contribution to Bardolatry. One of the areas in which Mahood excels is in defining the links between Shakespeare's mind at work, the realities of rehearsing and staging a show, and how that comes down to us in a text. So, where one version of a play has a character's headless body brought on, another version alters that to merely a mention; Mahood sensibly suggests that the former came first, but would have been discovered in rehearsal or the first run of the show to be a needlessly costly and cumbersome event, thus leading to the refined script. These kind of sensible decisions pepper every page, and make this worthwhile for those of us who get a strange amount of joy out of textual quibbles and decisions.
Well put from start to finish, engaging, and hopefully influential for directors and lovers of the Bard.
(One caveat though! The title may lead you to think this is some kind of acting manual. It's not. It's a text about the history of bit parts, their provenance, and role in the drama. Valuable perhaps for actors but not a guidebook.)