I have to learn the title role of King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s largest roles, in a comparatively short amount of time. I am 74 years old and memory is not quite what it used to be. What are the best techniques for a task like this?
You may find the answers in that thread useful: I have some doubts about memory palaces [verbatim text] - #5 by Hari-P
But maybe somebody with more acting experience could give some other tips.
This seems relevant to your task: The Divine Comedy and the Art - The Craft of Memory Podcast - Apple Podcasts
Here’s the description of that episode from that page:
In this episode, I speak with Vanni De Luca, mnemonist, author and co-founder of Mnemonica , a course on the art of memory along with Andrea Muzii, and Alessandro de Concini. We discuss the mnemonic structure of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, techniques for memorizing texts verbatim, memory palace construction, strategies for review, long-term memorization, and more.
1 Like
You should add some info that might help others (not me) give you more relevant answers/resources:
What acting experience do you already have if any?
How are you planning to go about learning this, if no one gives you any ideas? And how would you do it if you had much more time?
Are you already familiar with Shakespeare and King Lear and its structure and meaning, have you watched different performances of it or of anything else, etc etc (give us an idea of how you relate to this kind of stuff)?
I’ve been acting for over fifty years. I’ve done hundreds of plays and many hundreds of film and TV shows. I’ve done lots of Shakespeare, I’ve done King Lear (in a different role), and I’ve seen the play dozens of times. My concern is that it is harder to learn large roles at my age. (When I played in King Lear the first time, I learned my role overnight. Those days are long past.) I’m hoping to find new techniques, especially because I do not have as long as I would like in which to learn the role.
1 Like
(I guess I’ll answer again since no one else seems interested yet)
Great so that already gets some problems out of your way.
Still it’s not clear to me what are the kinds of things that are harder now for you than before. Also I don’t really have any idea of how an actor thinks and what are the challenges in this (not that I think it’s easy, just dont know the details).
For example: how do you usually know what you have to say next? (For example: is there some sort of trigger in what someone else says, or in your previous sentence, which reminds you of what your next line is? Or do you usually just instinctively know it - of course due to the previous study and training of the part?) In the moment when you remember and say a sequence of words, is it immediately obvious to you what emotions you should be expressing and the movements you should be making, or do you have to take note of those too? How have you been able to remember your roles in the past - just some version of read-understand-repeat several times, or something else too?
I know there’s long monologues and complex language in this role: are these the main challenges you’re thinking about, or is there something else?
There are lots of tools, each for different needs. The main tool you likely need to know is the method of loci (or memory palace) - just look that up it’s easy to understand, and it’s very useful.
The main concept of memory techniques is that when you don’t remember something, you should turn it into some very vivid image, possibly funny or exaggerated or emotional and perceived through as many senses as possible, and this image doesn’t at all need to correspond to the original thing to remember, instead it just needs to instantly remind you of that thing. Examples: to remember “passion” you can imagine a big delicious passion fruit, to remember “gratitude” you can imagine a tasty spoon of finely grated cheese, no one cares what you have in mind as long as it reminds you of the right thing. And then make sure that this image is vividly attached to something, let’s call it a trigger, that will for sure come up when you need to remember that thing. Example: if you need to remember that a person’s phrase should elicit your gratitude, you can imagine them saying that phrase and then while doing their last movement they start spitting grated cheese. So generally on recall it will go: you see the trigger - it reminds you of that vivid image you vividly attached to it - the image reminds you of the thing you need to remember - done.
To get a better idea of how this works, you should take a look at the free pdf in case you haven’t already https://artofmemory.com/resources/Learn_the_Art_of_Memory.pdf
Last thing, for sure you know it: make sure you review what you have memorized (look up spaced repetition in case you don’t know the best times for that)
Get an idea of what are the tools out there that might be of help to you, then figure out what you need most help with (memorizing some parts verbatim? Just remembering what’s next in some parts? The presence of some complex words in a sentence? Just feeling confident about what you have memorized despite the volume? Something else?), and come back if you have doubts on how to apply those tools to your specific needs. (TBH I think your best bet is to first quickly get acquainted with the basics and then get like an hour of two of tutoring with an expert for getting the ideas you need for your specific situation)