Voice in modern theatre

Abstract

IntroductionVoice in Modern Theatre is concerned with a much-neglected area of performance practice -- vocal delivery. By this is meant not only the auditive sound emitted by the actor in his role presentation, but, in the duality which the very term 'vocal delivery' presupposes, the dramatic texts, artistic ideas or communicative needs which have given impetus to these utterances and their execution. In order to define the complex nature of vocal delivery more precisely, it concentrates on the problems connected with performing Shakespeare in the twentieth century, where trends and styles have replaced each other in rapid succession - all of which have been a far cry from Hamlet's advice to his players, 'suit the action to the word and the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature' (Hamlet III. ii).Contemporary theatrical reviews of Shakespeare productions suggest that actors of today have lost the art of speaking verse; describing how they alternate between, on the one hand, wildly emoting without showing any respect for the poetry in the text in productions based on equally far-fetched 'readings', or how they mumble and internalize their stage speech in a manner more suited to the intimacy of the living-room and the demands of the TV screen. Certainly Hamlet�s advice seems a dim echo from a past which has no place in the contemporary theatre, which is terrified of being deadly, aspires to being holy, tampers with therapy and is dedicated at all costs to being visual. This book attempts to show the factors which most probably have contributed to this diversity of vocal delivery styles in the modern theatre, where directives have come from a very wide field, and actors have been encouraged to do everythingnbut suit the action to the words and the words to the action.Is it true that actors have simply lost the 'art of speech', or is this the point of view held by a few traditionalists, who prefer a theatre which resembles spoken literature to a living art form? There is no doubt that the modern theatre is one where the visual has steadily assumed dominance over the audial. Perhaps one of the most significant changes has been in the role of the text. In the modern theatre, the 'performance' text has come to replace the 'dramatic' text, where the words of the playwright are only one of the 'signs' in the performance matrix, which includes costumes and scenography, lighting and sound, proxemics and kinesics. As a result, actors no longer have to carry out the instructions of the text and stage directions in order to produce a performance. Rather, trends would seem to indicate that the most outstanding productions in the modern theatre have been those which have completely gone against the playwright's instructions and created a completely different speech-act context. The part which the director has played cannot be underestimated, as his reading of the dramatic text has been the one which the actors have somehow tried to make their own.n