Check out these sites:
from Suzuki's recent production of the Greek tragic play Electra, which looks to be set in an insane asylum. Prepare yourself for quite a trip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtiNJF0dO7A&feature=related
photo stills from productions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISO1Y6obkBs&feature=related
note that the music in this one is the music for the slow tem teke tem walking -- the big swell in the music is where the turns occur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhHWHNBwH9Q&feature=watch_response
demonstration of the exercises with one professor's ideas about context and purpose
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Voice II/Shakespeare Monologue Suggestions
Twelfth Night: Olivia, Viola, Maria, Sebastian
As You Like It: Orlando, Rosalind, Phoebe, Silvius
Two Gentlemen of Verona: Julia,Sylvia,Proteus
Much Ado About Nothing: Benedick
Measure for Measure: Isabella, Claudio
King Lear: Edgar, Edmund, Goneril
Romeo and Juliet: Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Benvolio
Titus Andronicus: Tamara, Aaron
Othello: Desdemona, Emilia, Cassio
Julius Caesar: Portia, Brutus, Antony
Antony and Cleopatra: Cleopatra
Henry IV: Lady Percy, Hotspur, Hal
Henry V: Henry
Comedy of Errors: Adriana, Luciana, Antipholus
The Winters Tale: Hermione, Paulina
Richard III: Anne, Elizabeth
Merchant of Venice: Portia
Two Noble Kinsmen: Jailer’s Daughter
The Tempest: Ferdinand, Ariel
Love’s Labors Lost: Berowne
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Helena, Hermia, Oberon, Titania,Puck
As You Like It: Orlando, Rosalind, Phoebe, Silvius
Two Gentlemen of Verona: Julia,Sylvia,Proteus
Much Ado About Nothing: Benedick
Measure for Measure: Isabella, Claudio
King Lear: Edgar, Edmund, Goneril
Romeo and Juliet: Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Benvolio
Titus Andronicus: Tamara, Aaron
Othello: Desdemona, Emilia, Cassio
Julius Caesar: Portia, Brutus, Antony
Antony and Cleopatra: Cleopatra
Henry IV: Lady Percy, Hotspur, Hal
Henry V: Henry
Comedy of Errors: Adriana, Luciana, Antipholus
The Winters Tale: Hermione, Paulina
Richard III: Anne, Elizabeth
Merchant of Venice: Portia
Two Noble Kinsmen: Jailer’s Daughter
The Tempest: Ferdinand, Ariel
Love’s Labors Lost: Berowne
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Helena, Hermia, Oberon, Titania,Puck
Friday, September 2, 2011
Voice II article...
"The power of the spoken word is something that goes back to the Greeks and Romans in an age before technology. The most powerful thing is the spoken word. So my work is about going back and looking at the real visceral energy of language and what its prime purpose is. And that requires a fair amount of dexterity and physical technique because we’re much less engaged with language now. Speech is less engaged. We don’t speak with the same muscularity, energy or dynamic like people did before there was a visual back up for communication."
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/interviews/a/language.htm
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/interviews/a/language.htm
Points of Good Speech for Classic Plays
Elisa’s Points of Good Speech for Classic Plays… A Place to Start
Work with Edith Skinner’s Speak With Distinction handbook/cd for empowered and expressive “regional-dialect-free” sounds of American English, suitable for ancient Greek and Roman Plays, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Shaw and Restoration Comedy (when not performed in British RP), also Calderone, Lorca, Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Beckett and other classic and modern classic plays, especially those in translation that should not be performed in an American Regional dialect.
Keep in mind: Vowels/Diphthongs are how humans express emotion and Consonant sounds are how we express intention, how we get what we want. Mark Rylance puts it more beautifully when he says: “Vowels express the Soul, Consonants express the Will.” If you don’t embrace the sounds of English fully, you miss the opportunity to connect with the text on an important, primary level. The audience does, too.
Based on Edith’s work, these sounds particularly elevate and illumine the text as well as establish class and education:
‘wh’ : whether, which, why, when, anywhere, whistle, whipped
‘liquid u’ following t, d, n: Duke = dyook, news, tune, reduce, opportunity
Use the front vowel sound ‘i’ as in ‘bit’ in prefixes: reduce = rih-‘dyoos rather
than ruh-‘dyoos or ree-‘dyoos, deduct, between, beneath, receive, review, before.
Articulation of ‘t’ and ‘d’ when followed by ‘y’: did you not ‘did jew’, can’t you not ‘can’t chew’.
Recognize and distinguish the back vowel sounds, particularly the short ‘o’ as in honest, pop, horrible, Florence, common, and the lengthenable ‘aw’ in cause, law, drawing, daub, saw.
Articulate final voiced consonants: seize = seez (not seese), judge, find, livings, rouge, deserve.
Articulate medial ‘t’ sounds: meter = ‘me-ter (not ‘me-der), waited, entertainment, elementary.
Moderate ‘r’ coloring. There is no need to go to a non-rhotic British sound in a word like “heard” (“huhd”) but neither should it have a hard ‘r’ burr as in many American regional dialects (“hurrrd”).
Recognize and use lengthenable sounds, identified by Skinner in her book: vowels: ee, er, oo, aw, ah diphthongs: aye, eye,oy,oh,ow. In order for a vowel to be lengthened, it must be in the primary stressed syllable of the word and followed by a voiced consonant. Diphthongs follow the same rules, but must be in the final (or only) syllable of the word. Vowel examples: ee is long in seize, short in street/er is long in deserve, short in hurt/oo is long in snoozing, short in snoot/aw is long in cause, short in caught/ah is long in calm, short in papa. Diphthong examples: aye is long in wade, short in wading/eye is long in time, short in timely/oy is long in boys, short in noisy/oh is long in own, short in ownership/ow is long in frown, short in brownie.
Breath: If Rylance is right and Vowels are Soul/Consonants are Will, perhaps we can say that Breath is Inspiration. We breathe in rhythm with our thoughts. In complicated classic texts it can be necessary to plan your breath phrasing so that you get the breath you need. I also recommend that actors think about/feel how their character specifically breathes, how he/she needs to breathe to survive in the world of the play. Without breath-life, your voice will stop at the footlights, your soul and will cannot be expressed.
Vocal Placement: Start with your most balanced, supported, resonant sound. From there you can move the voice around to wherever it needs to be (depending on character choices and the space you are playing in) without losing strong support and resonance. Don’t let instinct replace thought in rehearsal when it comes to placement until you’ve been practicing this for many years: where we instinctively place our voice in our day to day life, or our gut reaction to character and stakes, is often strident and limited onstage.
Musicality: Our musicality on stage is far wider than that of our day to day life. Musicality on stage reflects relationship and stakes, and is crucial to story-telling and communicating complex thoughts. Do a full warm up through your range before every rehearsal and performance. Two concepts to consider: “New Thought = New Pitch” and “Pitch for Emphasis”. Listen for how clarity is improved when you change pitch as you move into a new thought, or how a single word gets special emphasis and more specific point of view when you lift or drop it in pitch.
Text: If the play is in verse, use the verse form. Honor line endings rather than running verses together into prose. Study scansion to aid you in clarity and using the natural rhythm of the verse. Use of musicality, long sounds, identifying operatives (see below) and exploring punctuation will help you find and release into the structure of prose.
Identify operative words (you may also hear these referred to as ‘story-telling’ words or ‘target’ words). These are the few words per verse line or sentence that take primary stress and help the audience to follow the story. They are usually verbs and nouns; rarely will they be negatives, pronouns or modifiers.
Explore alliteration (repetition of consonants) and internal rhyming (repetition of vowels). Often the will or the emotion of your character will be revealed in the sounds they choose to repeat.
A Note on “Rustic” speech: There are many characters in these plays that are poor and uneducated. Their speech will naturally be a little rougher. You can get there without pasting on an American Regional dialect (like Southern, for instance, which is unfortunately often used) by exploring these adjustments: harder ‘r’ coloring / no ‘liquid u’ or prefix of ‘i’ or ‘wh’ or medial ‘t’ / did jew, can’t chew / wider range of musicality / extreme use of long and short sounds / vocal placement in just one primary resonance / and etc. In terms of story-telling, however, stay on those operatives. Don’t see Rustics as any less clearly spoken than Royals (unless it’s in the writing) or your audience will get lost, and so will you.
Work with Edith Skinner’s Speak With Distinction handbook/cd for empowered and expressive “regional-dialect-free” sounds of American English, suitable for ancient Greek and Roman Plays, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Shaw and Restoration Comedy (when not performed in British RP), also Calderone, Lorca, Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Beckett and other classic and modern classic plays, especially those in translation that should not be performed in an American Regional dialect.
Keep in mind: Vowels/Diphthongs are how humans express emotion and Consonant sounds are how we express intention, how we get what we want. Mark Rylance puts it more beautifully when he says: “Vowels express the Soul, Consonants express the Will.” If you don’t embrace the sounds of English fully, you miss the opportunity to connect with the text on an important, primary level. The audience does, too.
Based on Edith’s work, these sounds particularly elevate and illumine the text as well as establish class and education:
‘wh’ : whether, which, why, when, anywhere, whistle, whipped
‘liquid u’ following t, d, n: Duke = dyook, news, tune, reduce, opportunity
Use the front vowel sound ‘i’ as in ‘bit’ in prefixes: reduce = rih-‘dyoos rather
than ruh-‘dyoos or ree-‘dyoos, deduct, between, beneath, receive, review, before.
Articulation of ‘t’ and ‘d’ when followed by ‘y’: did you not ‘did jew’, can’t you not ‘can’t chew’.
Recognize and distinguish the back vowel sounds, particularly the short ‘o’ as in honest, pop, horrible, Florence, common, and the lengthenable ‘aw’ in cause, law, drawing, daub, saw.
Articulate final voiced consonants: seize = seez (not seese), judge, find, livings, rouge, deserve.
Articulate medial ‘t’ sounds: meter = ‘me-ter (not ‘me-der), waited, entertainment, elementary.
Moderate ‘r’ coloring. There is no need to go to a non-rhotic British sound in a word like “heard” (“huhd”) but neither should it have a hard ‘r’ burr as in many American regional dialects (“hurrrd”).
Recognize and use lengthenable sounds, identified by Skinner in her book: vowels: ee, er, oo, aw, ah diphthongs: aye, eye,oy,oh,ow. In order for a vowel to be lengthened, it must be in the primary stressed syllable of the word and followed by a voiced consonant. Diphthongs follow the same rules, but must be in the final (or only) syllable of the word. Vowel examples: ee is long in seize, short in street/er is long in deserve, short in hurt/oo is long in snoozing, short in snoot/aw is long in cause, short in caught/ah is long in calm, short in papa. Diphthong examples: aye is long in wade, short in wading/eye is long in time, short in timely/oy is long in boys, short in noisy/oh is long in own, short in ownership/ow is long in frown, short in brownie.
Breath: If Rylance is right and Vowels are Soul/Consonants are Will, perhaps we can say that Breath is Inspiration. We breathe in rhythm with our thoughts. In complicated classic texts it can be necessary to plan your breath phrasing so that you get the breath you need. I also recommend that actors think about/feel how their character specifically breathes, how he/she needs to breathe to survive in the world of the play. Without breath-life, your voice will stop at the footlights, your soul and will cannot be expressed.
Vocal Placement: Start with your most balanced, supported, resonant sound. From there you can move the voice around to wherever it needs to be (depending on character choices and the space you are playing in) without losing strong support and resonance. Don’t let instinct replace thought in rehearsal when it comes to placement until you’ve been practicing this for many years: where we instinctively place our voice in our day to day life, or our gut reaction to character and stakes, is often strident and limited onstage.
Musicality: Our musicality on stage is far wider than that of our day to day life. Musicality on stage reflects relationship and stakes, and is crucial to story-telling and communicating complex thoughts. Do a full warm up through your range before every rehearsal and performance. Two concepts to consider: “New Thought = New Pitch” and “Pitch for Emphasis”. Listen for how clarity is improved when you change pitch as you move into a new thought, or how a single word gets special emphasis and more specific point of view when you lift or drop it in pitch.
Text: If the play is in verse, use the verse form. Honor line endings rather than running verses together into prose. Study scansion to aid you in clarity and using the natural rhythm of the verse. Use of musicality, long sounds, identifying operatives (see below) and exploring punctuation will help you find and release into the structure of prose.
Identify operative words (you may also hear these referred to as ‘story-telling’ words or ‘target’ words). These are the few words per verse line or sentence that take primary stress and help the audience to follow the story. They are usually verbs and nouns; rarely will they be negatives, pronouns or modifiers.
Explore alliteration (repetition of consonants) and internal rhyming (repetition of vowels). Often the will or the emotion of your character will be revealed in the sounds they choose to repeat.
A Note on “Rustic” speech: There are many characters in these plays that are poor and uneducated. Their speech will naturally be a little rougher. You can get there without pasting on an American Regional dialect (like Southern, for instance, which is unfortunately often used) by exploring these adjustments: harder ‘r’ coloring / no ‘liquid u’ or prefix of ‘i’ or ‘wh’ or medial ‘t’ / did jew, can’t chew / wider range of musicality / extreme use of long and short sounds / vocal placement in just one primary resonance / and etc. In terms of story-telling, however, stay on those operatives. Don’t see Rustics as any less clearly spoken than Royals (unless it’s in the writing) or your audience will get lost, and so will you.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576534690533590346.html (copy and paste)
Here's the link to an article about Cicely Berry, the greatest living Shakespeare voice & text teacher and coach. She taught Patsy Rodenburg, Andrew Wade and many other great coaches, and has been coaching at the Royal Shakespeare Company for many years.
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