From the Folcher Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.

I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folcher's director.

This podcast is called, Oh, there be players that I have seen play.

Each production of Shakespeare starts, of course, with the playwright's words.

It passes through the eyes, mind, and talents of directors,

costume designers, set designers, sometimes musical arrangers, but for the majority of audience members,

Shakespeare is brought to life by the actors and actresses who speak his lines. In 2015,

the eminent Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells sat down to consider all of the

most outstanding Shakespeare performers from past to present and essentially create his own

personal Hall of Fame. He's written about these artists in a book called Great Shakespeare

Actors Burbage to Brana. He's interviewed by Stephanie Kay.

You asked early on in the book about greatness and how to define it.

What makes a great actor as opposed to merely a good one or really competent?

Yes, it's a difficult question to answer.

It's, of course, a very personal matter whether you're bowled over by an actor. That's what I mean by a great

actor, one that bould you over in some way. This has worked most often for me with some actors

of the past like above all Lawrence Olivier. You could go to Lawrence Olivier performance.

It was a special occasion you knew before you went, actually. And he had a magnetic quality which transcended mere ability, mere technical ability.

And, of course, you can be a great actor without being a great Shakespeare actor.

Shakespeare makes special demands on actors, especially in relation to the language of the plays, though not by any

means entirely because some of Shakespeare's greatest effects actually are produced in some

of his silences. In Coriolanus, for example, a moment that Olivier made a great moment out of

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