This has been an adventurous foray into the world of SOUND IN SHAKESPEARE, looking at how SOUND FOCUSES THE TEXT. I've posted a series of individual ideas that I would now like to link together those posts into a conclusion about what I've learned from these studies.
Sound makes all the difference in the understanding of a Shakespearean play. It is what focuses the meaning of the text, and alters the experience of the audience. What influences the sound also influences the focus and theme of the delivered text. The actor is what directly focuses the words from the page to the words ringing in the ears of all those who are experiencing the wonder of a Shakespearean play.
1. The pronunciation of words can change the impact level of the words because of the accessibility of the plays themselves. The way we speak has changed drastically over time, and so the pronunciation of the words changed the sound of the text. Now, this isn't just a throw away piece of information, it's important. It matters because of how Shakespearean plays are perceived nowadays as confusing, baffling, and wholly undesirable to most middle and high school students. This was not so in Shakespeare's day! This is not to say that every Shakespearean actor needs to learn how to speak in this old dialect, because that would still make the performances distant to the average person. But it is possible, through the sound and pronunciation of the text itself, to make the play an experience for each individual.
2. The setting and blocking of the production can impact the sound, and therefore the meaning of the text. The way that the background interacts with the actors' lines brings forth different nuances and hidden meanings in different productions. Sounds can either be focused in the moment, or on a larger scale, through using mute or echo inducing sets. Some texts depend on the rapidity and timing of the delivery, and the blocking and timing of the lines can alter the understood focus of the text. Kate and Petruchio's first meeting can go from being about a battle of wits to a battle of outfoxing in a physical battle. Hamlet can be understood in a variety of different moods according to the setting. Does it bring out the darker feelings, being trapped, being slighted, being a prisoner in mind and body? There are many modern adaptations that bring entirely new requirements of thinking into play. We have to look at how the aspects of the setting and deliverance of the play affects the text's meaning to the audience.
3. The nuances of different actors changes the focused channeling of the words, and can change the themes brought out in the text. Through his or her choice of accenting, drawing out, or skipping over lines and words, the actor changes the focus of the text. It is the job of the actor to bring forth the focus that he or she wishes to draw upon from the written text. That is why different productions vary so greatly. This choice is up to director and to actor: to figure out what to channel and how to channel it, and most importantly, how to do that in a way that is available to those who interact with the medium of sound (ie. the audience).
It is up to the actor to really bring the life to the text, to turn words on a page into an experience in life. The way that people perceive the play, and Shakespeare in general, is generated from the interaction that they have with the words. The written words are very lovely, but it is when sounded that they really take off. The air that gives them sound is the air that gives them life.
