ABSTRACT
This is an exercise which actors and directors often use at the start of rehearsals, as part of the process of getting to grips with a text. It is not about character-development, etc., but more an examination of the poetics of the text. For writers it is equally useful as a means of experiencing how a skilled practitioner has chosen to lay out the words in a specific way.
1 Select a passage from the opening scene of any act in a play. It should preferably be one that is not known to you or to the group, so that there will be no preconceptions about it. (See Example 94.1.)
