ACTORS AND THE TEXT Each actor has his own way of working, and therefore of finding the reason for the words he has to speak, of relating them both to his own experience and to the motive of the character, in order to make them authentic. ometimes the actor when he is ready to say them, very often stays with the reasons in his head, without quite springing the energy of the thought into the words. Words should be the thought in action. What is important is that the energy of the thought and the word coincide. This has partly to do with how we use our yoice. In a great deal of modern work the actor needs to play the subtext against the spoken text, so there has to be different kind of focus on the words. Also different styles of production ask for different kinds of concentration. Whatever the style, and however naturalistic, language is always a positive choice, and as such it is special, and must create interest in the hearer. The words must be a release of the inner life, and not either an explanation of it or a commentary on it, otherwise we start to present the reason for the language and not the discovery of the thought. We have to live through the thought as it happens.....not to present the result of the thought, but the thought itself. ATTITUDE TO WORDSWe are curiously unaware of the physical nature of words. We think of them mainly as expressing reasons and ideas and of colouring them with feelings, and not in terms of our physical self being. expressed through them and involved in them. Words act as signals and can arouse basic and primitive responses in us, which are totally subjective. The physical response we have to words which touch our our inner thoughts and feelings, where the association of the word itself can evoke a response separate from the feeling The point being that the words have been an instrument of change within us. This is one of the most important points to keep in mind ; that words change both the situation, the speaker and the listener. After words are spoken, nothing is quite the same again, Then the energy is handed from one character to the next, and the words become an active force not for yourself alone. In our anxiety to fill the text with our own meaning, we often become too involved with what we are saying for ourselves and how we are saying it; we overplay our own feelings and our own responsibility, so that we do not let the words go, let them free to change the situation and provoke a response. To do this it asks for a commitment to the the work beyond a personal commitment. Words spring from many layers of consciousness: from the ordinary management of our everyday lives, to the unguarded expression of deep feeling. We must be ready for their shifts. HOW WE PRESENT LANGUAGE. We mostly increase the sound energy, the volume but do not increase the verbal energy to balance with it, And this has all to do with how we fill the words themselves. This we do by carrying the intention through the vibration of the vowels and the consonants, being aware of the physical movement of the words and making them reach. We tend to reduce these possibilities to our everyday expectation of them - anything else sounds slightly false to our ears,- instead of giving them the room that they need, and this will vary with each space you work in, In all live performance there is something more that has to be done to make the language telling to the audience.To fill another character we need to open ourselves to all the possibilities of the language, and this has to reach an audience not just by being loud enough, but by being filled with purpose. The making of the words themselves has to be perceived. We have to find ways to get words not only on our tongue, but to make them part of our physical self in order to release them from the tyranny of the mind. Do an exercise the first speech of Gower from Rudkin’s “The Son’s of Light” NOTES ON THIS SPEECH » Itis the natural almost comporting quality of the rhythm, which heightens the cruelty of the content, > Itis the unexpectedness of the word which has to be allowed for. » Rudkin’s writing is wordy and filled out - cumulative » It brings no comfort, simply makes us ask questions of ourselves. » Yet the images must be experienced on different levels.. vv ouaunge Ut Vivien, and the events of the play may impel the ‘characters into heightened language which will Shock, but itis still recognizable in everyday terms, So now I want to look at three passages from plays written within the ‘The writing in each case has a very particular style. ipeech of Gower from Rudkin’s The Sons of Light, It is rhythmically quite colloquial, but the language itself ic not, and that is what is shocking. (songless, stunned) They have divided me. ‘They clamped me toa wheel, my face to Heaven, arms out, legs wide. Brought salves, sides, to slit me, long and parallel and deep. Here, here here; here, heres here, here, here... ‘Search more,’ Holst said. Lith the redhot piercing tips of hooks, the wall of my belly, the Hesh of my breast: deeper: deeper ... the flesh ripped ou of Beg uOOk! they said, ‘we can see his teating heart!” And the King said “That? An heart? Is that what breaks inva ment? ‘Caress him more,’ Holst said: ‘search more.” Everywhere that I Was rent and gouged, with seething oil and spitting pitch and Wax they larded me. So... . So... $0. .. My lege raised up pefore me, up, over my face, to bend me like a hoop: these into me. . . with a searing implement, opening me and Pumping into me such scalding shocks — How could I endure this? Iwas fixed. . . Why am I'in 50 many pieces? To each af armpits and my groin, T uttered not one cry. Why was that? | came apart quite easy then. (Pause) Poor King of Love. To find a soldier blemished. And have to toil so hard and long unstitching me. That I should make him Weep, over whatever blemish Gower’s was, in a beloved soldier, Poor King .. . Tomake Him grieve... Poor King of Love Rudkin’s writing is wordy and filled out — cumulative, Beng writes in a much sparer way, as if finding the feeling and analysing it at the same time. It brings no comfort, simply makes us ask questions of ourselves, for only by doing that will there be hope. 40 10 ne in th G jai