On accents

[learnedax]

The other day I was musing on acting accents, spurred partly by a discussion in james_nicoll's journal about how practically no one gets them right, and partly by a background train of thought on playing Elizabethan theatre. Someone asked me a while back whether I did an English accent for Shakespeare; I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess for upper class characters, at least, I do a mostly region-neutral aristocratic tone. I mused on trying to make my pronunciation at least a bit more British, but as before mentioned accents are very tricky. House, M.D. is passable, and Amy Walker seems pretty convincing to me, but this is a singular talent, I would say, which is not possible, and perhaps not desirable, for the majority of actors to use. Because an accent can also be distracting, and an even slightly imperfect accent doubly so. Some roles, like Captain Fluellen, clearly demand an accent, but that's part of the character, written in to be an accent, and so not a distraction laid on top of it.

Still, there is some thinking out there that Shakespeare is more properly played with an English accent, and so I mused on whether I was doing my parts a disservice by not learning their proper tones. But then, while looking at opinions expressed on various internet fora, I saw a point made that was terribly obvious, and completely changed my thinking: modern British English is as much evolved and changed from Elizabethan English as American English is. So until we can all learn to con a true Elizabethan speech, I do not think we should feel lessened for not speaking in a different incorrect dialect.

Comments

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

In Adam Hart-Davis's wonderful series "What the Tudors Did For Us" (one of several such series he's done over the years), he offers an interesting example of how much English evolved just in the 50 years before Shakespeare's works were written. Before Tyndale's Bible (an early predecessor of the King James Authorised Edition) was adopted by Henry VIII, people from as close by as 50 miles apart in England couldn't easily understand one another. Not only were their accents wildly different, but so was their vocabulary. It wasn't until Henry started putting a Tyndale Bible in every parish in England that everyone ended up adopting the Southern dialect, which is what we all speak today. Hart-Davis tries (and I'm told mostly succeeds) in mimicking the accents and vocabs of four different regions as we believe them to have existed when Henry came to the throne. It's probably worth torrenting if this sort of thing interests you.

And yes, bad fake accents annoy me. That said, I'm enough of a mimic by nature that I find I end up doing a bad fake accent when I travel (to the extent that I was warned in London that I shouldn't frequent a pub near the hostel in Earl's Court because the landlord hates Irishmen).

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Still, there is some thinking out there that Shakespeare is more properly played with an English accent

I think that folks who are particularly concerned with how to "properly" play it have missed or forgotten a major aspect of theatre - it is entirely "improper". Propriety is, in large part, defined as being in accord with established procedure - for theatre to be proper, there would be one version, one interpretation that was "correct", and all others would be incorrect.

But theatre is dynamic - even from one performance to another in a given production, there is significant variation in the presentation. And between different productions, there is great variance. This is a strength, and is part of why we still do Shakespeare at all - if we had not varied it from its original presentation, we'd likely not care for it at all, as it would not have much meaning for a modern audience.

Fie on propriety, I say!

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that House's American accent is passable?

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare is "properly" played with an Early Modern accent. Everything else is just modern, even when it is the dulcet tones of Derek Jacobi.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

It also gets into what I call the yoga question. Yoga was invented in India. In particularly warm bits of India (we think). That meant that if you did yoga, you were doing it in a 100 degree room (or 100 degree outside). This wasn't any warmer than the other rooms, it was just what the weather was.

If you want to do yoga in Boston (aside from August) you have your choice of two incorrect things: you can go into a special warm room, or you can do yoga at 70 degrees. Both do weird things.

So you can use the proper accent (which will sound weird to people if you can even do it), or you can

[rising-moon.livejournal.com]

an accent can also be distracting, and an even slightly imperfect accent doubly so

True. Most "American" accents (Branagh in Dead Again is an example) are distracting to me because the actor avoids regional markers. Flat-affect is a frequent attempt to sound "Midwestern" but it's a mistake not to apply pronunciation variances alongside the tonal ones, as Emma Thompson aped to hilarious result in an episode of Ellen.

In-process, of course, a vocal coach has to somehow fine-tune an actor's fillips of individuation without mandating specific line readings.

So I agree with you, orthogonally: until we can all learn to achieve the same regional dialact, and vary it appropriately according to the character, we should not feel lessened.

Play-ing

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

I like experimenting with accents, but my general rule is to apply the accent thickly in practice and then polish it down to something slighter in performance. The result is a subtle change that helps define character without distraction. Usually, when you notice an accent as being way off, it is because someone tried too hard.

I like reading Shakespeare with a Virginian accent when I study the lines. All the broad vowels grant a certain beauty to the speeches. I suspect it would be incredibly jarring to use such an accent in a local performance...

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Also, mediocre-to-bad "English" accents done by Americans sound ridiculous and poncy, and are far more likely to transport the listener to a fourth-rate Faire than to Southhampton.

Two thoughts...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

Of course, you don't act alone -- unless you're acting alone. Being the only member of the cast with an accent or a particular accent -- even if it's the correct accent -- can be more distracting than the wrong accent or no accent for a part that "should" have one. Henry V is funny because it plays heavily with regional and national voices. No one thinks that Theseus ought to be played with a Greek accent (modern or ancient) or that Prospero ought to speak like an Italian. In fact, most of the time, we give Prospero an upper-class English accent... but I digress. Check in with your director; make sure everyone is willing and capable to do accent work before investing yourself in it heavily. In the Shakespeare on The Common production of Henry V I saw a few years back, Henry spoke with an accent; no one else did. It was irritating as hell and made him sound like a pretentious fop.

Second.... My impression (and I'm not an expert) is that the Elizabethan accent is somewhere between modern Australian and modern southern American. It's got a lot of twang and sounds about as much like a modern English accent as a modern American accent does.

O.K., a third thought -- accents are fripparies. They are, just that: accents. They're a nice bonus, but not the first thing an actor should be concentrating on. Learn your lines, your marks, your motivations. Learn your stage combat so no one gets hurt. Once you've got the essentials nailed down, you can -- well -- accent them.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

"this is a singular talent"

Slight disagreement. While there is an element of talent, accent is primarily a learnable skill. I once saw a friend of mine who was a theater student at Brandeis studying an accent textbook. I somewhat covet such a book, but don't do enough performing to justify it...