A bar-note from Peter O’Toole to John Neville, in Canada, about my Bottom. As a pal of Nat’s, he came to see our final production! Talk about a bunch of star-struck kids!
Me as Edgar and Peter Ustinov as King Lear, directed by Robin Phillips, at Stratford. Peter was the funniest man I ever met, capable of any accent, any musical instrument, any animal call, any sound he might think of. Stomach-aches from listening and laughing became a rehearsal-hazard! I was once told that every other young actor in Canada hated me for being cast as Edgar. Surrounded by greats like Douglas Rain, Bill Hutt, Martha Henry and Peter, I could not have cared less. I was there to learn and play!
The brilliant Heath Lamberts as Cyrano de Bergerac, and me as his best friend LeBret, at the Shaw Festival and Royal Alex in Toronto, directed by Derek Goldby.
Chiron, Titus Andronicus, directed by Brian Bedford, starring Bill Hutt, at Stratford, Ontario.
Orgon, as Brian Mulroney, in Tartuffe, for CBC and the Neptune Theatre in Halifax; directed and adapted by Richard Ouzounian, co-starring the delightful Walter Borden, as a Reganesque Tartuffe.
7 summers logging eventually earned me 7 summers at Stratford.
Professional Acting Resume
Film reel
SOL on You Tube
Rodger Barton
I have been an actor/teacher/single dad/monologue coach for most of 35 years. I spent 7 seasons with the Stratford Festival in Canada, doing eight Shakespearean productions under the great Robin Phillips, many with Brian Bedford, Martha Henry, Bill Hutt, five productions with Maggie Smith and two with Peter Ustinov.
Around twenty years ago, I decided to help young people love Shakespeare as much as I do. To do that, they had to play him out loud. To enjoy playing him aloud they needed cut scripts. I discovered and implemented the thought-verse formatting, and then noted the series to finish the job. Interestingly, a French teacher did a meticulous final proofing. I combed the scripts endlessly. It took two years to complete 12 plays. While creating them I read them, and re-read them, and re-read them some more aloud, with Keith Knight - taking equal turns at 'Hamlets and Horatios.' They were only finished when we agreed that they made complete sense. I then sold paper versions of the series for several years. New Year's 2013, in an effort to trump budgets and bores and stick to my purpose of growing love for Shakespeare, I decided to post the whole series on this website for free. I then had about 40,000 scripts downloaded. Old age approaches and it is time to sell my wares, my life’s work. Why? Because it is fair and because SOL works! It will inspire young minds while easing their pain and my aging.
I don’t actually expect teachers to be very practiced at teaching communication skills, or directing reading of Shakespeare; usually they are lecturing to 30 students at a time. What the students mainly need is individual practice. This whole website is a tool-chest for that challenge - a vocal gym, crammed, mainly, with the best of Shakespeare. I’m looking for passionate teachers who listen well and suggest kindly.
The SOL audio recordings and monologues, produced during Covid, are my newest way to meet the plays - the way Will intended, out loud! I played all the parts except the French ladies in Henry V. I grew quite fat during Covid - best that the recordings were just sound files, anyway. The audio files for each play provide choices for thoughts, emotions and stresses. The monologue page, which I continue to add to, provides pdfs and mp3s for 40 of Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquies and passages. They all had to learned perfectly. My 10,000 hours of coaching, mainly Shakespearean monologues, were a boon to me for that task. Now, they are just a starting point for young people - some old guy trying to make sense of the words. They are not definite, just the best that I could do, at that time. Now students have a reasonable starting point to practice from. They’ll want to be better than I am. Go for it!
Like the world class actors I had the pleasure of working with, I try to make my text sound like heightened, everyday speech, and not the chanting of some poem! Scholars like to pontificate about rhythm, like some magical chant to unkock a story or character. Well, good actors never want to sound predictable. In the 4 years and 5 Shakespearean productions I did with Maggie Smith she never mentioned rhythm once, and had someone else tried this nonsense, she would have snorted at them! Never that simple!
The character must need the words, need to invent the words, to accomplish their goals. Michael Lngham called it fresh-minting. Would you want to go to a production only cast with scholars? Not me. I do not want to hear three hours of ponderous rhythm, rules of the verse. I want the text well-cut and I want to hear the characters inventing their language, as we do everyday. All the greats do it; all the greats can also be surprised by their minds!
Michael Langham once said, “The most valuable emotion in Shakespeare is wonder.” This is often felt in silence, in stillness - the body needs to be still to help the mind work deeply. So less is not more. More thought, more stillness to solve problems, is more!
Emotions are the result of thoughts and NOT the other way around. Figuring why Will’s characters have such extraordinary things to say and think is the puzzle to be solved. That never stops until and run ends, and often not even then. Martha Henry told me that she ran Propero everyday, even the day after the run had ended. It is a huge role! It needs huge life and imagination, huge exploration, everyday. As an actor you cannot solve it all with some magical rhythm-wand, you just keep working on it, dividing the thoughts ever finer, allowing your emotions, ever deeper.
Ghost, pirate captain at Young Peoples’ Theatre, in Toronto, directed by Richard Greenblatt.
I played Frank twice; I can’t imagine why!