Research
Persona per sona (trans: A Mask through sounds)
Discovering ‘character’ through Shakespeare’s Verbal Music
As part of a Master of Philosophy research project in conjunction with Goldsmiths, University of London, I am conducting exploratory work building character through the sound and form of Shakespeare’s language in the Late Romances. This project has drawn on the rich verbal sound-world of the Late Romances to develop an approach to acting Shakespeare that invites the actor to encounter verse-drama as sound, and to create characterisation as an imaginative interpretation of the verbal music.
The Research Question:
My project asks this question:
How can we develop a rehearsal process for Shakespeare that builds character and performance from an engagement with the text that prioritises the sonic properties of the verse over the apparent literal or sub-textual meanings.
The Inspiration:
My project proposes that there is an ongoing need to develop new rehearsal room methodologies based upon the discoveries of great practitioners who have gone before, such as John Barton and Peter Brook.
Such discoveries were perhaps best observed by Peter Brook when he wrote of Shakespeare’s verse:
Concept is there, but beyond concept is the ‘concept brought into life by image’, and beyond concept and image is music – and word music is the expression of what cannot be caught in conceptual speech. Human experience that cannot be conceptualised is expressed through music. Poetry comes out of this, because in poetry you have an infinitely subtle relationship between rhythm, tone, vibration and energy, which give to each word as it is spoken concept, image and at the same time an infinitely powerful further dimension which comes from sound, from the verbal music.
- Peter Brook Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare
Discovering ‘character’ through Shakespeare’s Verbal Music
As part of a Master of Philosophy research project in conjunction with Goldsmiths, University of London, I am conducting exploratory work building character through the sound and form of Shakespeare’s language in the Late Romances. This project has drawn on the rich verbal sound-world of the Late Romances to develop an approach to acting Shakespeare that invites the actor to encounter verse-drama as sound, and to create characterisation as an imaginative interpretation of the verbal music.
The Research Question:
My project asks this question:
How can we develop a rehearsal process for Shakespeare that builds character and performance from an engagement with the text that prioritises the sonic properties of the verse over the apparent literal or sub-textual meanings.
The Inspiration:
My project proposes that there is an ongoing need to develop new rehearsal room methodologies based upon the discoveries of great practitioners who have gone before, such as John Barton and Peter Brook.
Such discoveries were perhaps best observed by Peter Brook when he wrote of Shakespeare’s verse:
Concept is there, but beyond concept is the ‘concept brought into life by image’, and beyond concept and image is music – and word music is the expression of what cannot be caught in conceptual speech. Human experience that cannot be conceptualised is expressed through music. Poetry comes out of this, because in poetry you have an infinitely subtle relationship between rhythm, tone, vibration and energy, which give to each word as it is spoken concept, image and at the same time an infinitely powerful further dimension which comes from sound, from the verbal music.
- Peter Brook Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare
Prospero’s Tempest (working title)
This performance is a mapping of the mind and persona of Shakespeare’s Prospero.
It does so by exploring the dramatic ramifications of the sound patterning in the language of the play, to expose the sound-world Shakespeare creates through words.
The performance draws exclusively on text from The Tempest and its envisaged that it be accompanied by a soundscape incorporating the little-known original music for the play written by Shakespeare’s colleague, the composer Robert Johnson. It takes as its premise the paradox that on an island of Prospero’s mind, the only other figures physically present are his daughter Miranda – to whose protection his intentions turn, and Ariel, without whom he cannot act.
It’s a performance for two actors and a singer:
Prospero/Caliban
Miranda
Ariel - operatic countertenor
Background
In no other play of Shakespeare, is the action, and even the disposition of the other characters so utterly the construction of the central protagonist. Shakespeare uses the device of a ‘stage magician’ – a Faustian necromancer, to explore a single character through all the stage action of the drama. It’s not too fanciful to suggest that the entire enchanted island is a landscape of Prospero’s mind.
This expressionist approach to characterisation is fuelled by the most knotted, ornate and ethereal language in the Shakespearean canon. That language creates a sound world that is simultaneously the world of the island, and sonic portrait of Prospero’s mind – his dreaming.
Shakespeare’s devotion to sound-patterning in language – to the verbal-music, is given a level of power and freedom to dominate the theatrical experience in his last play, especially in the words he gives to his last protagonist – that makes it truly an experimental drama.
A sonic analysis of Prospero’s speech, suggests to us the possibility that perhaps uniquely in Shakespeare’s work, a layer of the characterisation of Prospero may have been expressed almost exclusively in the sound-text of the words, with only the most scant and indirect references to that character dilemma in the literal meaning of the text. Shakespeare’s project with this play was to see how far redemption could be achieved by the most devilish of sinners – a necromancer. Only at the moment of surrender, and then only passingly, does Prospero finally confess overtly to his audience:
It does so by exploring the dramatic ramifications of the sound patterning in the language of the play, to expose the sound-world Shakespeare creates through words.
The performance draws exclusively on text from The Tempest and its envisaged that it be accompanied by a soundscape incorporating the little-known original music for the play written by Shakespeare’s colleague, the composer Robert Johnson. It takes as its premise the paradox that on an island of Prospero’s mind, the only other figures physically present are his daughter Miranda – to whose protection his intentions turn, and Ariel, without whom he cannot act.
It’s a performance for two actors and a singer:
Prospero/Caliban
Miranda
Ariel - operatic countertenor
Background
In no other play of Shakespeare, is the action, and even the disposition of the other characters so utterly the construction of the central protagonist. Shakespeare uses the device of a ‘stage magician’ – a Faustian necromancer, to explore a single character through all the stage action of the drama. It’s not too fanciful to suggest that the entire enchanted island is a landscape of Prospero’s mind.
This expressionist approach to characterisation is fuelled by the most knotted, ornate and ethereal language in the Shakespearean canon. That language creates a sound world that is simultaneously the world of the island, and sonic portrait of Prospero’s mind – his dreaming.
Shakespeare’s devotion to sound-patterning in language – to the verbal-music, is given a level of power and freedom to dominate the theatrical experience in his last play, especially in the words he gives to his last protagonist – that makes it truly an experimental drama.
A sonic analysis of Prospero’s speech, suggests to us the possibility that perhaps uniquely in Shakespeare’s work, a layer of the characterisation of Prospero may have been expressed almost exclusively in the sound-text of the words, with only the most scant and indirect references to that character dilemma in the literal meaning of the text. Shakespeare’s project with this play was to see how far redemption could be achieved by the most devilish of sinners – a necromancer. Only at the moment of surrender, and then only passingly, does Prospero finally confess overtly to his audience:
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Graves at My Command
Have waked their sleepers op’d and set’em’forth By my so potent art! But this Rough Magic, I here abjure. The Tempest Act V, Sc 1
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But the clues to the twisted combination of power-lust, rage and self-reproach in Prospero’s mind are embedded throughout the soundscape of language in the text.
Also unique in Shakespeare, is the fact that the original music written for the play has survived, in the song settings and dance music of Robert Johnson. An approach to acting that draws out the impulses and moods of the sound of the language, is complimented by use of this extant music, to explore what the sound world of The Tempest might have been like in Shakespeare’s original conception. Shakespeare is at pains to link sound to magic and magic to dreams.
Also unique in Shakespeare, is the fact that the original music written for the play has survived, in the song settings and dance music of Robert Johnson. An approach to acting that draws out the impulses and moods of the sound of the language, is complimented by use of this extant music, to explore what the sound world of The Tempest might have been like in Shakespeare’s original conception. Shakespeare is at pains to link sound to magic and magic to dreams.
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the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. The Tempest Act III, sc 2
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This virtual mood-board for the production in development draws liberally on images and other artworks that have inspired the development of this project, and features a recording of Robert Johnson's original song-setting for "Full Fathom Five" sung by Andreas Scholl
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