Actors who are good at memorizing often speed through the words because it’s so effortless for you to remember.  Many actors are trying to remember the words, so they naturally put in the natural pauses; others aren’t, so it’s easy to get the engine revved up and lose the audience.

Read that last paragraph quickly, and you can follow it.  Read the following speech from King Lear, and you can’t:

Detested kite, thou liest!

My train are men of choice and rarest parts

That all particulars of duty know

And in the most exact regard support

The worships of their name. O most small fault,

How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show,

Which like an engine wrenched my frame of nature

From the fixed place, drew from my heart all love,

And added to the gall! O Lear, Lear, Lear!

(strikes his head)

Beat at this gate that let thy folly in

And thy dear judgment out!

What to do?

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