Berlin-based actor Mark Wartenberg is in the throes of a new challenge: recording a sonnet a day, and posting each video onto Instagram.  He explains his fascination with Shakespeare, and how he got the idea in the first place.

– How did you come up with this idea of doing a Shakespeare sonnet a day?

I think that doing a sonnet a day is quite a unique way of conveying the liveliness, nuances, inventiveness, and paradoxes of Shakespeare’s style. For instance, I imagine he dashed some lines off while obsessing over others. And I think that the daily attempt to perform each sonnet under limited preparation time also conveys what I imagine was Shakespeare’s interest in taking risks poetically.

– And you do every sonnet differently.

I try to mix things up a bit: different locations; different acting styles; different camera angles; depending on how I feel, and the energy of the sonnet. Sometimes the sonnets are sung, sometimes they are performed in an accent, et cetera.

– We have 154 published Shakespeare sonnets: isn’t it quite a challenge to knock a new one off every single day?

Each of my performances is necessarily imperfect. I mean, there might be a lack of diction; or I might forget or flub lines; there might be hazy intention and meaning; et cetera. But I believe that all hundred and fifty-four performances together will create a powerful work.

– You’re also not British.

My English is native-level, and sounds American, but I’m actually French-German-Indonesian.  But I think the fact that I’m not British adds an interesting dimension: Shakespeare didn’t talk in RP [received pronunciation], so departing from that might bring him closer to us.

– What fascinates you about Shakespeare, and particularly his sonnets?

It’s the imaginative breadth, depth and playfulness. How he seems to love contradictions and nuances, and yet his sonnets are very dramatic. They’re also, often, very silly. Shakespeare has such a bold way of creating images, breaking rules, and still following through on logic. And I love the cadence of his poetry: it creates these amazing variations in thought and emotion.

– What about Shakespeare the man? Are you equally fascinated by the historical Shakespeare?

Notoriously little is known about Shakespeare, which is perhaps why I find him so fascinating. He was living in a world so different from ours – Renaissance England – but he wrote verse that is incredibly vivid, still to this day.

Follow Mark Wartenberg on Instagram for recordings of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets.