8-4ShakespearesRoles

What Parts Did Shakespeare Play In His Own Plays? //Answer prepared by Sarah L.// Did you know that Shakespeare played roles in many of his plays? Yes, Shakespeare was a busy man. He managed, wrote, and acted in the theatre business. Shakespeare had a great passion for acting, and was able to perform in a handful of his own creations. According to Robert Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, Shakespeare began his acting in 1593. Robert Greene was a dramatist during Shakespeare's time who wrote a pamphlet on Shakespeare. Most scholars believe the pamphlet is the earliest document that states Shakespeare was a member of Elizabethan London's dramatic community. His first part was probably the title role of Edward in the play Edward I, written by Edward Peele. Most of Shakespeare’s acting is linked to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the leading acting company of his day which he and other men co-owned. From 1594 on, Shakespeare’s plays were only performed by Lord Chamberlain’s Men and in 1603 the company was renamed the King’s Men.

It is not known exactly how many roles he played, according to "The History of the Globe Theater", but those that are mentioned include Adam in As You Like It, King Duncan in Macbeth, King Henry in Henry IV, and Hamlet’s father in Hamlet. Shakespeare’s first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, referred to a role he played as “the Ghost in his own Hamlet” and indicated that he was “the top of his performance”. From this comment it was clear that Shakespeare was a talented actor. This biography was written in 1709, well after Shakespeare’s death in 1616. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that “good Will” played “kingly” roles. The First Folio, representing the 1623 published collection of Shakespeare’s plays, lists Shakespeare as one of “the principal actors in all these plays”. Without clear statements in historical records, we cannot be entirely clear about how many roles Shakespeare acted.

Shakespeare’s acting roles in his plays were often less important parts. For example, Adam in As You Like It was one of the servants of Oliver and a secondary character. He only had ten lines in the whole play! King Duncan was a more significant role for Shakespeare in the play Macbeth, but he was killed early in Act 2. However, in Henry IV, Shakespeare was King Henry, the key character in the play. It seems as though Shakespeare was flexible in his acting and did not have to be the star of the play. This leads me to believe that he was more interested in the goal of entertaining the audiences than he was his own stardom; his main goal was to create plays to the best of his ability.

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