Well when you put it out there, it comes back to you they say. You know, the whole concept about you put something out in the "universe" and then all of a sudden its everywhere for you.For me I guess you could say "the British are coming! the British are coming!" Those British actors and their work with words that is. And lots of questions about it.
Let me preface all this though. I like anything to do with the work of acting, deciphering texts, directing, etc. I'm not about hogde-podge anything goes and everyone do their own thing, but when it comes to a practical working skill, craft, that an actor does in the actual process of acting, including speaking, I'll take it. What I don't like though is common. I don't like when certain elements fall out of context or assume an emphasis unduly. Further, like anyone, I don't like when a craft element becomes a cliche of itself.
An actor with a rich, strong, articulate, flexible voice who knows how to "handle" words and dialogue as an expression grown out of the total experience of the character - yes indeed! Heady, vocal gymnastics, intellectually ground together at the expense of real experience - boring! Booorrriiinnnnggggg! boring!
Stanislavsky's work with words and language is as exhaustive and comprehensive as any ones, detailed and precise in his analysis and use of sounds, meanings, musicality, etc. It wasn't pure luck that the big man was known to have tremendous vocal quality and ability - he worked for it.
But now back to the British. Like many young actors and others, I spent a couple of months working with and learning from members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Yes, I had my crush on one of them too, a pretty and engaging lady with a sexy dialect. We all had our crushes at that time. (That's important to this post...somehow). We also had some terrific get togethers and parties in the foothills where the RSC members were holed up at the time. (That's important too). What I learned in that time has always carried forward - I'm talking about working with texts and words again now - and I have built upon it as could be expected.
There was a time when the British with their great tradition of "language" far outpaced us Americans in the ability to be expressive in this regard as speakers and orators and actors. That time is gone. Americans are way better now. Yep, I said it! Way better. That's no slam on the Brits. They are still good and admirable and can teach us, but we, Americans as a whole, are more diverse and dynamic now in our developments and uses of language. Who would have thought I would be promoting or holding up rap music as a kind of example - but there you go.
I'm not suggesting it holds the poetry of Shakespeare (as much of it is closer to nursery ryhmes), but the intricacies and the cleverness and the overall sound and action of the words is unique in form. Love it or hate it, it is an American original (as original as we can get in America) and part of a larger complex movement or way with words that has taken hold. We have more regionalisms and sub-cultures old and new, than does UK, each with their own unique sound and details which our playwrights have been able to take hold of for good use. In this case, size matters! As does depth!
That said, I do love watching some of those UK actors in action. Who wouldn't or who doesn't? Royce has been keeping me refreshed in the work of some of the best. Recently he sent me a video of Trevor Nunn working with David Suchet and yesterday with Howard we watched John Barton working with Patrick Stewart and David Suchet on Shylock. My favorite thing about Trevor Nunn in this case, although he didnt go very far with it under the circumstances of the demonstration, was what he told David Suchet at the beginning of their work. They are working on a sonnet. Nunn suggest the first thing that must happen is that Suchet must use an imaginitive and personal substitution to make the words come alive out of a specific situation and circumstance. He gives Suchet a very simple and personal imaginitive substitution for the context and tells him he should focus on this as he speaks the words. Suchet does so. As this work demonstration is brief, they do not follow up with any specifics or other adjustments to this but it is telling in and of itself. Suchet's talent is evident when he takes Nunns suggestion and you see him that first time through using the language to articulate what he is thinking and feeling and doing, exploring his being, his relationship with the world around him with the language, hearing it himself for the first time, making discoveries, all that. The subsequent times through when Nunn asks him to consider certain arrangements and sounds of words, Suchet's action becomes that tired old obvious one that so many actors do - to explain! In the most obvious of fashion. And to show! In the most obvious of fashion. While somewhat entertaining and admirable, the specifics and complexities of life and the poetry are lost, the dualities that existed in behavior and meaning are gone, all at the expense of an intellectual appreciation of the "text."
A more obvious contrast exists in the work with Barton and Stewart and Suchet. Stewart in each of his scenes as Shylock plays an intellectual analysis and understanding of the language, literally, at all times. In other words, he plays an abstaction. Suchet on the other hand plays the life of Shylock as could be created based on the circumstances and events, as real behavior done in actuality. The layers and details and complexities of Suchet's work stand in sharp contrast to the very general and one demensional effort of Stewarts. Suchet makes a human being. Stewart makes words. Suchet's language, the poetry, the meanings, the sounds, intonations are far more beautiful and elegant and impactful than Stewarts. Stewarts words have nothing to hold on to except a single overall action, and that action itself exists only on Stewarts charisma and general energy. There is no depth, no substance as there is in Suchets.
Break time!
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