What's That Sound?: The Difference of Actors

Continuing along with this theme of SOUND FOCUSING TEXT, I would like to delve into something that really interests me. The difference of actors. The way that each individual interprets texts adds so much (or, in some cases, takes away) from just the words. I would like to show you a few interesting clips that I've found that compare over 10 different versions of the SAME SCENE in Hamlet, and each one is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! Isn't that amazing?! Last time, we looked at how the setting of the scene can impact the sound, and therefore, the focus of the text. This time we're focusing on just the actors' interpretations themselves.

This is part 1 of 4 of a series that takes Act 1, Scene 2 from Hamlet and gives it to us again and again and again, from different film productions. We'll be focusing on Laurence Olivier, Mel Gibson, Ethan Hawke, and David Tennant. Let's look at some key aspects of the Hamlets in these productions:

How do performance aspects influence how the sounds focus the text?

Continuing in my vein of SOUND FOCUSING TEXT, I will be spending some time with looking at how different performance aspects influence how sound really channels the text. I talked about this topic previously in my post on The Winter's Tale, with how setting influenced the actual meaning of the words being spoken.

Let's take a look at three different performances of Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2, each one with a different take on setting. It's interesting the way that the background details can change the very nuance of the sounds.

Original Pronunciation vs. Received Pronunciation of Shakespeare

Want to hear some Shakespeare in his own accent?!

This is Ben Crystal, an actor and researcher of Shakespeare, performing Sonnet 116 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds" first in modern accent, called RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION, and then in Elizabethan, or ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION.

I am searching for the difference of SOUND between Elizabethan English and modern English, and the effects it has on the text, its understandings, and its performances.

In searching more into my theme of SOUND IN SHAKESPEARE, I went to the beloved class text of The Necessary Shakespeare. The General Introduction happens to be amazing, for anyone that didn't know it already. On page LXXXIV there is a section completely on "Shakespeare's English: Pronunciation." It references the fact that there was the GREAT VOWEL SHIFT that occurred between then and now. That's why many of the words in a "rhyming" poem don't actually rhyme when we read them aloud today. 

A list of some words that have changed include: folk (sound the L), wide  (said woide), knife (sound the k, i said as in wide), house (said hoos), dissention (in four syllables, without the SH sound), creeping (said craypin), and many more. There is an extended list under the section in the book.

Another important issue is that not only have pronunciations changed, but also "the differences in Shakespeare's English and ours in the accentuation of syllables" (LXXXV). Sometimes Shakespeare took certain liberties in changes the accented syllables in his words. Many of the words were just bizarrely accented compare to ours. 

• -TION and -SION were regularly said with two syllables. Some accents were slurred together with a nasal or a liquid. (See dissention in list of words above.)
• This caused other words to be broken. OCE-AN, MARRI-AGE, etc. 
• Nasals and liquids are used as if an "extra vowel were introduced between them and a preceding letter" (LXXXV). Ex: wrest(e)ler, Eng(e)land, ent(e)rance, de-ar, mo-re, etc.

Compared to RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP), the ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION (OP), can have: 1. an extra syllable, 2. one fewer syllable, 3. two adjoining syllables in adjoining words that elide. The spelling doesn't always give that hint away to the modern reader. (From LXXXV.)

That was some of my research for today. It will be more developed Monday as I have more time to round out these ideas and find some more examples in the text. Thanks and have a great day!

Sounds and Silence

This is a production of The Winter's Tale from 1981. Since my personal focus is on sound, and how it focuses the text, I am interested in different castings and productions. Firstly, may I say that after being used to having music in the background of almost every movie that we watch, it is strange listening for sound in a musicless production? Sometimes you don't realize what you're used to until it's suddenly not there.

I would refer you to Hermione's monologue that starts at 6:00. I listened to this seeing how sound could develop this emotional section. I found the inflections, tones, and pauses, that this actress applied very effective. Music is an arrangement of tones and silence, and that makes her speech a bit of  a song, one that appeals for justice and a restoration of her honor.

This is the animated version of the play done by BBC. Our scene starts at about 2:25 and goes to about 4:17. This is a short poignant version of the scene. It really brings to mind the spectacle part of the Romance plays, with the whooshing winds, the fact that Hermione's veil is always moving, and the flashing lights. Sound wise, I thought it interesting that this scene was set in a giant room, and all the words echoed. It gave it an eerie, other worldly type of feeling. It's different than the mute surroundings in the first production, which brought all emphasis on the words, in the moment of speech, rather than the echoes that came after

I am looking for more productions. If anyone can find a good rendition of the monologue by Paulina, please let me know. That was the speech I was originally looking for!