There is, however, one book on acting Shakespeare’s text whose initial sixty - seven pages of exercises stand out as being dyslexia- friendly when put into practice. In Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice (1992) voice and acting practitioner Kristin Linklater takes a radically different approach to the text, stating, ‘my
guide to speaking Shakespeare is experiential rather than prescriptive’ (ibid. 1).
When I have taught Linklater’s exercise sequence based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65, in my experience, my students with dyslexia become animated and more confident when speaking the text.
Linklater’s approach does not escape criticism. Theatre scholar Richard Knowles critically appraises her techniques as based on ‘American psychotherapeutic principles...embodied in “new age” mysticism’ (Knowles in Bulman 1996:100-101). Voice coach Bonnie Raphael reports that:
Advocates of Linklater’s work cite the actors’ connection with their selves, their emotions, and their text, and cite the wonderful simplicity, honesty, and lack of self-consciousness in their delivery. Critics of Linklater’s work describe it as a long and detailed warm-up process that short-changes both attention to clear articulation and the development of the actor’s ability to characterize vocally; they say that those trained solely in Linklater work do very fine and compelling acting, but only in their own personae. (Raphael in Hampton & Acker 1997:208)
I am confident that the ‘long and detailed warm-up process’ criticised here as a negative factor, is advantageous for those with dyslexia, for the reasons I shall make clear.
Linklater does not introduce the text through literary rules which must be received, understood, learned and demonstrated. She guides the participant through the text in a sequence of progressive stages, encouraging an idiosyncratic response to the language. Gradually, through a sequential procedure, layers of personal interpretation and imagery linked directly to the words are consciously accumulated. There is no danger that the participant might not be able to succeed with the task of absorbing or delivering Shakespeare’s words, as each individual response, if coming from what Linklater has termed, the ‘vertical plane’ – (the heart to the head) – is deemed relevant (ibid. 30).
As preparation before engaging with the text, Linklater directs the participant to explore a kinaesthetic experience of individual vowels and consonants, (the ‘building blocks’ of words). She asks the participant to express the phonemes through the voice and body, letting illusory images of colours, shape and movement inform their tone, rhythm, pitch and character. She advises, ‘[b]y indulging sensory, sensual, emotional and physical responses to vowels and consonants – the component parts of words – we begin to resurrect the life of language’ (ibid. 13). Thus, in this groundwork, the phonological sounds of words are given an existence, manifested into auditory images, and so become embedded in the mind.
It is beneficial for those with dyslexia to explore the sounds that make up words, and to work in an environment where there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; ‘... many poor readers – adults as well as children – experience problems in articulating phonemically complex or multi-syllabic words (Brady et al., 1983, Cats, 1986, Elbro et al., 1994; Miles, 1993a; cited in Beaton, A; 2004:101). Linklater places an emphasis on the power of the visual sense and the
accuracy of the images connected with the words. She frequently suggests a realisation of the text in terms of pictures or painting, underlining the effect on the actor when speaking Shakespeare (1992: 33). She remarks:
Images are intrinsic to words....Introduce the sense of sight to the meaning of a word and images will emerge and multiply. Images lead more directly, albeit more explicably, to emotion than logical reasoning does and the speaker of poetry can trust that such a deep instinctive connection is the well spring for a true
understanding of the text.
To begin her exercise based on Sonnet 65, key words are introduced to the reader with questions posed about the words that activate all the senses. She asks the participant to imagine the colour, texture, weight, smell, taste and sound of the word’s object, and then directs the participant to speak the word
slowly aloud; feeling all the consonants and vowels in the mouth,
After working on several words in this manner, she breaks the sequence. Crucially, she emphasises that the participants’ experiences must be written down or spoken aloud, observing that: ‘[n]ew experiences happen and they need to be reinforced in words that describe them or they will dissolve in a flash. In right/ left brain hemisphere terminology, a new experience is recorded in the right (imaging) hemisphere and will only survive if supported by verbal record in the left (verbalizing) hemisphere’ (ibid. 39).
Linklater next instructs the participant to write out another selection of words from the sonnet, and to cut them out and jumble them up, thereby utilising the motor action of the body. She asks the participant to inspect each word individually and ask questions about the word that involves the senses, the emotions, memory, personal associations, and imagination. She specifies again that it is critical to speak the words aloud to experience the vowels and consonants, and to release any deep emotions connected to that word. Her focus is on the stimulation of the senses related to the language of the sonnet. ‘When words are seen, tasted, touched, felt’, she writes, ‘they penetrate and break up patterns of thought. They ... spark the imagination (ibid. 31).
Every word in the sonnet is singularly experienced, until gradually the sonnet is re-assembled into phrases, then into blocks of unpunctuated text, and then stanzas. Finally, the sonnet is presented in its complete form, now accompanied by the accrued mental images and associations. These all contribute to a deep familiarity with the language, when finally spoken aloud.
In advocating learning skills for those with dyslexia, psychologist David McLoughlin & researcher Carol Leather propose that tasks should be made manageable, (to reduce the load on working memory and dual tasking), multi- sensory, (increase the possibilities of learning), and memorable, (to support recall) (2013:127). Reid includes the practice of repetition and over learning, (2003: 206). McLoughlin & Leather also propose the utilisation of visual images as an effective learning tool for those with dyslexia (McLoughlin & Leather op. cit. 118).
Although Linklater has not aimed to especially support those with dyslexia, her breaking down of the sonnet into chunks, requiring both subvocalized and vocalised expression, the repetition of words, the provision of time, the utilisation of motor movements, with an emphasis on the senses (especially the visual) encapsulate all of the recommended factors.