Thought-Verse
The plays need cutting - both prose and verse. What is left becomes a visual jumble. I put it all back on the page as the character thinks, with the length of the lines determined by the connectivity of the thoughts and the width of the page. Occasionally, I even kerned (scrunched) letters across the page in the longest of connected thoughts. Sometimes, three short lines, or separate thoughts, are one on top of another. The words are still Shakespeare's; just fewer of them and put on the page as a modern actor might think and phrase them.

As for iambic pentameter verse, it was barely mentioned during my 7 years with the Canadian Stratford Festival; Maggie Smith certainly ignored it, as did Peter Ustinov, Martha Henry or Bill Hutt. All actors tried to make their text sound like heightened, everyday speech. Brian Bedford was the best at inventing his text, so he played most of the big leads. One always felt in danger when on stage with Brian. While he was always word-perfect, one always felt that he had no idea what he was going to say next. All his characters invented their speech, as we all do every day! Chanters-of-rhythm were rarely hired, and once revealed, would never make it to a second season. So, I got rid of the verse with the troublesome capitals beginning each line, and placed the words left, back on that page as they might be thought. (I purposely lineated every line in the series.)

The 46 video-monologues on my speeches page are all examples of me attempting to fresh-mint my text. Their corresponding pdfs may be in iambic pentameter or thought-verse, but to me, as an actor, they are just invented, connected thoughts, that often cause other thoughts, and a host of emotions as well. It is called acting, and it naturally gets richer with practice and refinement. It is not called recitation, which doesn’t.