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

[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.

Yes, I'm being lazy...

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, have you ever seen a production with the Early Modern accent? How about a recorded production?

I have heard that the RSC has done some in the recreated Globe with middling success. I think it would be a wonderful experiment, although hard to follow and I'm not sure if it would make good theater. Maybe with subtitles?

Re: Yes, I'm being lazy...

[dreda.livejournal.com]

I have seen scenes done this way, both on video and right in front of me (sometimes at my instigation), but I have not been fortunate enough to see a whole production.

I think worries about "hard to follow" are based almost entirely on conflation of Early Modern English with Middle English. Really, it sounds a lot like drawing your cast from extremely upcountry Maine and Vermont.

Re: Yes, I'm being lazy...

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I would be interested in seeing this approach done. It must be even harder to manage an accent that has no living native speakers - but by the same token if you get it wrong in little ways no one is native enough to catch it.

Did you find the accents in those scenes distracting in their unusuality? I could imagine them blending so well, being the native voice for those lines, that it wouldn't seem weird to our ears, but I wouldn't think it was a foregone conclusion. Even if it were something you continued to notice, it might be pleasing as you did notice it. That becomes, I suppose, a question of academic endeavor vs. theatricality.

(If you ever have the urge to put on such a production, I would be very interested.)

Re: Yes, I'm being lazy...

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Well, it's hard to say, since the whole point of the exercise was to explore the difference between modern British, modern American, and Early Modern pronunciation. There were definitely some places where difficulties with lines went away, because they were scanning properly - that sort of thing. I find the accent very pleasing, but then again, I find the North Country accent pleasing, and also the Virginia/NC barrier islands accent pleasing, and it is not hugely dissimilar. (Regrettably, the brief Google search didn't turn up any audio examples - ask me sometime if you're curious. The potted sonnet is still mostly intact in my head.)

I can say for certain that I will not ever mount a full production of EME Shakespeare, or any other playwright - that's not the place I want to pour that much energy. But I have occasionally entertained the idea of doing scenes, less as a production and more as a workshop for the interested.

Re: Yes, I'm being lazy...

[rising-moon.livejournal.com]

This discussion may herald bit of interest in your Pronouncing Shakespeare class. Maybe it's time to teach it again...?

:)

Re: Yes, I'm being lazy...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The just-released-on-DVD series Playing Shakespeare has one bit with John Barton doing a speech in his best guess at an Elizabethan accent. IIRC, it's even from Henry V, one of the ones where the King of France is exhorting his nobles. It's just a brief taste, but a juicy one. As Dreda said, it's a fairly Yankee sounding drawl. Such an accent would probably cause less trouble than Shakespeare's vocabulary often does. (Though those two issues can, of course, add to each other.)

[rickthefightguy.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Maybe Shakespeare is properly played in the exact accent that Shakespeare did it...that is to say in whatever accent the audience uses.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Hence the scare quotes. If "properly" is "historically-informed" in the way that the early music people use it, it's a note-for-note recreation that would include the accent Shakespeare used, as best we can tell. I use the scare quotes because I don't think there's a way to "do Shakespeare properly," even though there are many people who will tell you that there is.