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.

Taming of the Shrew: A Literary Analysis Using a Feminist Criticism

Image from here 

Mary Wollstonecraft was in the First Wave of feminism that started way back in the Romantic Era. She wasn't a radical, burn-your-bra kind of woman. She was a woman that wanted equality with men in relationships. I will be using her brand of criticism from her essay A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Society has set forth a constructed set of rules that dictates this is masculine, that is feminine, and then people act according to those dictates. In the world of The Taming of the Shrew (Taming), a good woman was to be meek, quiet, soft, and beautiful. They were not to be opinionated, strong-willed, or vocal. That was the man's realm. Bianca pretends to be the perfect woman, and in doing so, gains the admiration of society. Kate does not conform to the feminine, and is othered, and labeled as a Shrew. 

Finishing the Reading that I started

Courtesy of Karen Whimsey

I have been catching up on my reading this past weekend, finishing plays that I didn't have time to complete earlier in the semester. Can I just say that the History Plays are duller than a dead cat licking peanut butter off of a moldy pickle? Ya, they're just not very exciting. What was exciting, however, was finishing The Taming of the Shrew. That's a good play. It's the one that I've been the most drawn to all semester. I've watched several film versions/adaptations of this movie, some of which I blogged about in previous posts.

Peer Evaluation: Laura Davis

Laura's blog has the fascinating topic of myths and archetypes in Shakespeare's plays. I am looking over her blog for a peer evaluation.

UPDATE: I'm not dead, but close enough to it...

Sorry to the world for falling off and dying so completely. Please know that intelligence will be restored, but it's just been one of those weeks. I hope to be alive again shortly. Have an enjoyable day.

Coming Attraction and SKYPE ANALYSIS

I had fun with getting contacts and figuring out technology last night, so I'll be posting later today what I should have posted last night. I am looking forward to this post about SOUND and DIFFERENT SPOKEN INTERPRETATIONS.

So skyping that Shakespeare scene was one heck of an experience. I did not actually participate in the way of having lines and reading, but I did listen in since it very much had to do with my topic. I noticed that having just the sound made a big difference in the understanding of the text! That may sound ridiculously obvious, but really, this made you really listen to the actual words. Since we couldn't see who was speaking, we had to listen to the words and try to determine the character that way. I concluded that it is important to have a means of distinguishing the characters from each other in a way that is audible. Think about it. Even if you were watching a play, and all the characters sounded just the same, then the beauty of the play would be rather lost, wouldn't it?