Abstract
The re-performance of ancient drama requires a physical/vocal response attuned to the text’s rich seam of rhythms, breath patterns, complex shaping of dramatic verse, and the sensory qualities of words. This chapter examines the relationship of music and poetry in ancient Athens, and its performance culture. Most English-speaking actors probably will encounter the texts of tragedy via translation (a recent Australian production of Antigone offers the chapter’s main case study); however, this chapter argues that such encounters with ancient plays still require a deep excavation of musical and metrical structures, and their somatic promptings, providing a series of practical exercises to support this process.
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Notes
- 1.
21 August–13 September 2015 at the Malthouse, Melbourne, Australia. http://malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/antigone (viewed 20 February 2018).
- 2.
The term ‘somatic’ from the Greek somatikòs, meaning ‘of the body’. Somatic practices are underpinned by the principles of a mind-body continuum, with breath as a major component of the practice. For somatic training, see Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s work on embodied somatic practices (Body-Mind Centering), www.bodymincentering.org. For applications to actor training, see Armory (2010). For current practice-led research on somatic actor training, see Kapadocha (2018).
- 3.
This approach towards the two disciplines, emerging from a post-Wagnerian enthusiasm for holism in the arts, also reflected Stanislavski’s ideas about music and drama, whose laws he believed overlapped, and whose expressive elements, particularly tempos and rhythms, gave actors and singers the wherewithal to perform in a dramatically vital and credible way (Dunbar 2016, 63–4).
- 4.
See further Stanislavski & Rumyantsev (1975).
- 5.
- 6.
Formal somatic voice work is also a more recent development within vocal pedagogy. See, for example, Jeanie LoVetri’s body-based method of vocal training: http://www.thevoiceworkshop.com/somatic.html (viewed 12 July 2018).
- 7.
Though even readers of ancient Greek cannot know how the play sounded when it was first performed (Wiles 2000, 196).
- 8.
See also Wiles (2007, 238–9).
- 9.
For general reading on philosophical foundations of Greek music, see West (1992).
- 10.
Plato’s Republic (III.399a–b, 400b–c; and Laws 668–73).
- 11.
Damon, an ancient commentator on innovations in music during the fifth century BCE, made a systematic study of the political implications of music. See Wallace (266–7).
- 12.
Connections between epic and tragedy are explored further in Chap. 5 (Acting Myth).
- 13.
The classic account of the Homeric poet as epic-singer can be found in Lord (150–4).
- 14.
A modern equivalence may be demonstrated in Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s stage adaptation of The Odyssey , where references to the Peloponnesian War are re-contextualized in terms of current conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, and Afghanistan (Harrop 2018, 265–6).
- 15.
Not forgetting that tragedy drew its rhetorical tone from the law courts, and was perhaps also perceived as a political discourse. See, Wiles (2000, 52–65).
- 16.
On the politics of lament see Foley (2001).
- 17.
For a recent study of the development of monody in Greek tragedy, see Catenaccio (2017).
- 18.
On the rise of the ancient ‘professional’ Greek and Roman actor, see Easterling & Hall (2002).
- 19.
- 20.
See Taplin & Wyles (2010).
- 21.
A comprehensive study of the history and reception of the Greek mask can be found in Wiles (2007).
- 22.
Some things do get lost in translation, arguably the most problematic being how to reify the ancient ritual cries of lament—from the Greek ototoi—to the modern keening of ‘ah’ or ‘oh’, to stylized phrases such as ‘woe is me’ or ‘ah me’ (Goldhill, 201).
- 23.
Goldhill contributes a helpful comparison of different versions by modern poets and theatre-makers of Cassandra’s speech in Agamemnon . They highlight the different ways these translations tweak and calibrate the language of ‘ambiguity and allusiveness’ to meet the theatrical expectations of the audience (155–61). See also Wiles’ comparative examples (2000, 200–8).
- 24.
Goldhill (168) adds: ‘Translations bring their own politics to the table’. Actors too bring their own sedimentation. As Griffiths argues, a character name such as Antigone comes heavily loaded with meaning. An actor ‘cannot come to the text without looking beside and skirting around the potential that lies within the name’ (2010, 227).
- 25.
Morrison (2010), for example, discusses how some translators have sought an archaic style for Antigone’s choral ‘Ode to Man’ in Antigone, formally echoing the conservative sentiments of a chorus which celebrates a patriarchal world view (260).
- 26.
See also Brantley (2001).
- 27.
The fact that Olivier’s performance was part of a double bill in which, in the same night, he played the comedic Mr Puff, in Sheridan’s The Critic, is a testament to his vocal and acting craft. See Holden (1988).
- 28.
- 29.
The panel discussion, entitled ‘Complex Electra’, can be read in full via https://www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol5no3/trans02.html (viewed 15 February 2018).
- 30.
Stanislavski’s final rehearsal techniques, as well as his yoga-based practices (see Chap. 3) paved the way for such contemporary approaches. Currently, pedagogies such as somatic training and Alexander Technique also help prepare an actor’s body and breath for richly sonorous Greek tragic text.
- 31.
See also Fitzmaurice (1997).
- 32.
Weate (2009) is particularly valuable in laying out the foundational work of warm-ups and preparation.
- 33.
There are a number of books and online sources introducing the function and experience of chakras. For a current, practice-based account of yoga and actor training, see Hulton & Kapsali (2015).
- 34.
Panet develops a streamlined system through Laban’s movement vocabulary. The notion of speed (or time) is enfolded into other Laban-based vocabularies of action: the ‘flow’ of movement, which can be either bound or free; ‘spatial pathways’, which can be either direct or flexible (the ‘fly’ exercise simulates this particular spatial principle). ‘Time’ can be sudden or sustained. And an intrinsic understanding of all these categories of movement is found in their relationship to force, weight, intensity, and strength (199–261).
- 35.
Some particularly effective messenger speeches include the report of the young prince’s fate in Euripides’ Hippolytus , the ongoing account of the battle in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, and the second messenger’s vivid evocation of Pentheus’ death in Euripides’ Bacchae.
- 36.
A Lecoq-based integration of voice, sound production, text, and movement is explored in Steen & Dean (2009).
- 37.
See also Ali Hodge’s website, available from: http://www.hodge-actortraining.co.uk/ (viewed 25 February 2018).
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Dunbar, Z., Harrop, S. (2018). Acting Sound. In: Greek Tragedy and the Contemporary Actor. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95471-4_4
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