"You can’t act Shakespeare until you can speak him." These words inform every page of Speaking Shakespeare. Patsy Rodenburg tackles one of the most difficult jobs an actor can take on: speaking Shakespeare on the stage both as his words were meant to be spoken as well as in an understandable and dramatic way that projects the reality of the character. Patsy calls this book "a simple manual to start the journey into the heart of Shakespeare." She begins with the "givens" of speaking verse. She then moves on to the rehearsal of leading Shakespeare roles from Hamlet, King Lear, Richard III, Macbeth and others. Like The Actor Speaks, this will be a book every working actor will need to have. Speaking Shakespeare is a passionate book about how one properly plays the characters of the most well-known playwright in the English language and that passion is encompassed in another rule she passes on to her students and readers.