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the actor, had once stood was ‘I am these things because I have to be’. I am still not 
entirely sure what this means, whether it was simply an acknowledgement that the 
role was written that way and was not a real person with choices, or the empirical 
observation that very rarely do people become bitter and hardened by choice.    
The Acting Shakespeare module has proved to be a journey of continual  
exploration, both internal and external. It has involved elements of liberation,  
especially in finding joy in the creative process and performance through working 
with people who make me laugh, and consequently, I do not need to beat myself 
up or isolate myself to achieve acting I am proud of. Crucially, by engaging with 
feminist theory and embodied rehearsal practices throughout this module, I  
shifted from viewing Shakespeare’s presence in the canon as restrictive to alive 
and visceral, being a space for critical reflection, gaining confidence and  
establishing creative agency. 
 Federici, Silvia (2004). Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive 
Accumulation. London: Penguin Modern Classics. 
Rodenburg, Patsy (2023). Speaking Shakespeare. 2nd edn. London: Methuen. 
Shakespeare, William (2015). Macbeth. Edited by S. Clark and P. Mason.  
London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. 
Thorn, Oliver (2018). Witchcraft, Gender, & Marxism [Video]. YouTube, 26 Oc-
tober. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmk47kh7fiE  
(Accessed: 10 January 2026). 
Wangh, Stephen (2000). An acrobat of the heart: A physical approach to acting 
inspired by the work of Jerzy Grotowski. New York: Vintage Books.

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