Article
The
English Secret
Robert
Cohen
Just
remember, there's many an actor sleeping on the embankment tonight,
with no soles to his shoes, for lack of an upward inflection.
- Donald Sinden, English classical actor
For
many years, American actors have lamented the fact that New York
theatre audiences (and critics even more so) have reserved their
greatest admiration for British actors. Just to name some recent
English winners of the Broadway Tony Award: Ralph Fiennes, Maggie
Smith, Janet McTeer, Diana Rigg, Nigel Hawthorne, Derek Jacoby,
Jeremy Irons, Ian McKellen, Roger Rees, Constance Cummings, Jessica
Tandy, Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle, and Pauline Collins have
all taken home the coveted New York’s best actor/actress
award during the past two decades. And in films, where there are
no union restraints on non-national casting, British actors are
not only ubiquitous, they are routinely earning high praise not
only for their British and classical roles, but for playing contemporary
Americans as well – with Rupert Everett, Jude Law, Kate
Winslett, Ben Kingsley, Minnie Driver, Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor,
Ian Holm, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan and Alan Rickman coming
quickly to mind. Most astonishingly, Anthony Hopkins recently
played President Nixon and Emma Thompson played an American First
Lady, both to high acclaim.
If
there’s a single reason for this new British invasion, it
is quite possibly the “English secret,” an acting
technique that, while rarely taught in America, is a routine part
of English actor training. The English secret is hardly obscure,
however: it’s simply a mastery of the upward pitch inflection
that is abundantly common in everyday speech on both sides of
the Atlantic, and indeed, in virtually every language.
Pitch
inflections – they can be rising or falling - are buried
in the deep structures of speech; they are as essential for communication
in spoken languages as punctuation and syntax are in written ones.
For example, the two English sentences:
“He’s going out?”
and
“He’s going out!”
employ
identical words in the identical order; the only difference between
the two is punctuation in the written form and pitch inflection
in the spoken. In spoken English (as well as spoken French, German,
Spanish, et. al.), a raised inflection on the last syllable firmly
indicates a question, while a falling inflection indicates a statement.
But that’s not all they do.
Indeed,
conversation analysts have accorded pitch inflections a broad
and primary sub-semantic role in all spoken communications. Willem
J.M. Levelt writes, for example, “Intonation is... an expressive
device. Pitch accent expresses the prominence of a concept, the
interest adduced to it by the speaker, or its contrastive role.
The melody of an utterance expresses a speaker's emotions and
attitudes. It is a main device for transmitting the rhetorical
force of an utterance, its weight, its obnoxiousness, its intended
friendliness or hostility. It also signals the speaker's intention
to continue or to halt, or to give the floor to an interlocutor."
And as to its ubiquity, Levelt concludes that the “relation
between pitch range and intended attentional effect might well
be universal in the world's languages."
Inflections
thus serve many practical purposes in spoken syntax besides differentiating
interrogatives from declaratives.
Specifically,
we use upward inflections (denoted in this essay by a caret [^]
before the raised syllable, or multiple carets [^^ and ^^^] for
an even higher pitch inflection) for several reasons, among them:
to
highlight a key word: “He plays many sports but particularly
likes ^golf.”
to
point out antithetical words: “Give the ball to ^^John,
not ^Jim.”
to
articulate a complex argument, or set of instructions: “Go
^left, then left a^^gain, then ^^^right….”
to
stimulate a surge of excitement: “^Show me the ^^^money!”
to
arouse enthusiasm: “Cry God for ^Harry, ^^England and
^^^Saint ^^^^George!”
to
build increasing momentum in a mere listing of nouns or adjectives:
“She is my ^goods, my ^^chattels; she is my ^house, my
household ^^stuff, my ^^^field, my ^^^^barn, my ^^^^^horse,
my ^^^^^^ox, my ^^^^^^^ass, my ^^^^^^^^anything.”
By
contrast, we use downward inflections (denoted herein by one or
more downslashes [\] following the downwardly-inflected syllable)
basically:
to
create a sense of finality: “Our day is done.\”
to
complete an idea: “Two plus six is eight.\”
to
conclude an utterance: “I have nothing else to say.\”
In
general, upward inflections create liveliness and ongoing enthusiasm,
while downward inflections create decisiveness and closure. The
skillful deployment of both sorts of inflections, and of the infinite
possible gradations between them, transmits – both in life
and on the stage - qualities of infectious energy, forceful authority,
and a confident, expressive persona. Moreover, as these inflections
are directly drawn from everyday speech, the qualities we perceive
as infectious, authoritative and expressive are also perceived
as natural and lifelike. The actor who can master inflections,
therefore, is likely to be seen as not only as theatrically charismatic,
but truthfully human, a delicious combination for the stage.
Let
me briefly go over some of the basics of certain common inflections
in everyday conversation – and consequently their effective
use on the stage.
ASKING
– OR NOT ASKING - QUESTIONS
The
rising inflection at the end of questions – particularly
for questions one genuinely wishes to be answered – has
some important acting implications.
The
upward inflection at the end of these questions (which can also
come on the penultimate syllable):
Are
you ^sure?
Did
you ^win?
Are
you going to the ^game?
Did
you ^like ^^it? (or sometimes ^^like ^it?)
specifically
engages the person addressed; by actively soliciting
an answer (even if one never comes), the inflection makes the
question interactional. It is a sort of hook that draws the asker
to the askee, and even a momentary pause following such an inflection
is normally pregnant with situational possibilities, creating,
on stage, genuine suspense. By powerfully engaging both actors,
the one asking and the one asked, and by creating a dynamic interaction
(instead of a mere exchange of information) between them, such
a question also engages the audience.
Not
all questions genuinely solicit answers, however. Some apparent
questions are in fact implicit criticisms – normally denoted
by a falling inflection:
Are you sure\ (as if to add “you idiot!”)
Are you going to the game\ (as if to add “instead of to
my
party?”)
The
downwardly inflected question seeks to confer humiliation rather
than solicit a response; instead of hooking the askee, it figuratively
looks down one’s nose. Compared to its upwardly inflected
counterpart, it is less interactional, and therefore less inducive
of suspense or dynamic momentum. Actors unduly prone to such inflections
may be trying to project an attitude – but they generally
rob their own performances of interactive vibrancy and magnetism.
POINTING
ANTITHESES
Upward
inflections are crucial in indicating both parts of an antithesis,
with the preferred alternative getting a higher inflection than
its counterpart:
Not
^left, but ^^right.
It’s
^^right, not ^left.
Notice
that the preferred word (“right” in this case) is
inflected further upward regardless of which position –
first or second - it has in the sentence. Similarly:
I
like ^^June, not ^May
^May
is fine, but ^^June’s divine!
That
inflections are crucial for communication becomes even more evident
when we pose antitheses to children, or persons with less-developed
intellectual skills:
Don’t
ride your bike in the ^street, ride on the ^^^^sidewalk!
Ride
your bike on the ^^^^sidewalk, not in the ^street.
Antitheses, of course, are the stuff of logic, the push and pull
of argumentation; by defining both sides of a dialectic, antitheses
make the general specific. Shakespeare, of course, depended heavily
on them (“It’s ^^Helena, not ^Hermia I love”
“Give every man thy ^^ear, but few thy ^voice”), but
so do all dramatists whose characters believe they have something
important to say.
KEY
WORDS: IMPLIED ANTITHESES
Key
or “operative” words generally indicate implied antitheses,
with the antithetical term understood but unstated. They too are
usually highlighted by an upward inflection:
Ann’s
going to Phila^delphia tomorrow. (instead of to Chicago)
Ann’s
going to Philadelphia to^morrow (instead of the day after tomorrow)
^Ann’s
going to Philadelphia tomorrow (instead of Jane going there)
Ann’s
^going to Philadelphia tomorrow (instead of coming back from
there)
Notice
that if this were simply a statement of fact, and did not contradict
any previous assumption (as “Ann’s going to Chicago
tomorrow.”) it would, in normal conversation, be largely
uninflected. Which is one reason you rarely find simple statements
of fact in dramatic works; they create neither suspense nor momentum.
Implied
and often complex antitheses lurk everywhere in logical speech.
As in Horatio’s urging to the Ghost:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me…
As
good is antithetical to the implied (but unstated) bad,
it would ordinarily be given a lifted pitch accent. And as thee
and me are, if not precisely antithetical, then at least
two sides of a spirit/human equation, they too would, for greatest
clarity, be pointed by upward inflections. The urging becomes
a more strongly articulated interaction when Horatio says:
If
there be any ^good thing to be done,
That may to ^^thee do ease | and grace to ^^^me…
A
millisecond pause after “ease,” here indicated by
a vertical line [|], further articulates the different presumed
desires of the Ghost (physical comfort, relief of purgatorial
suffering) versus those of Horatio (spiritual fulfillment, state
of divine knowledge). A mastery of the inflections in this passage
can then touch on subtle but profound meanings that at first seem
tangential to the core goal or objective (“Speak to me!”
which follows immediately) of the speech.
MOMENTUM
And
finally, upward inflections provide, in our daily conversation
as well as on stage, a powerful momentum, carrying the central
idea of a sentence through its natural speaking and breathing
pauses (usually marked in the written text by commas) that separate
clauses, phrases, or separate items on a list. Thus:
^Well,
I went to the ^store that your mother told me ab^out, and bought
some ^grapes, some as^^parag^us, some ^^^peas, some ^^^^cauliflow^er,
a ^^^^^newspap^er, and some ^freshly ^baked ^^^^^^bread\\
(Normally, the pitch on “bread” would start very
high, as the apex of the list, and then slide down the scale
by word’s end.)
On
stage, this momentum is quite simply what makes drama dramatic.
And momentous.
Returning
to Horatio’s speech to the Ghost, we can see that a series
of rising and falling inflections create, not only an appealing
musicality (which Horatio might feel particularly suitable for
invoking a spirit), but the articulation of an escalating
appeal to a reluctant responder.
^Stay,
illusion\!
If thou hast any ^sound, or ^use of ^^voice,
^^^Speak to me.\
If
there be any ^^good thing to be done,
That may to ^^thee do ease and grace to ^^^me,
^^^^Speak to me!\\
If
thou art ^^^privy to thy country’s ^^^fate,
Which happily fore^^^^knowing may av^^^^oid,
^^^^^O ^^^^^^speak!
That
this should be an escalating appeal is a situational necessity:
Horatio doesn’t actually want to make three requests, he
would be most happy if the Ghost would answer him on the first
“Speak to me.” But the Ghost doesn’t –
and Horatio has to try again. And try harder. This “build”
is not merely an escalation of pitches, of course, it is a build
in intensity, in desire, in emotion; it is an escalation of the
fear that the “country’s fate” is in peril,
and in the fervent hope that foreknowledge – and consequent
action - can save the nation. It is, in other words, captivating
drama, and it captures not merely the audience’s attention,
but their sympathy and participation.
Pitch
changes here are a mini-concerto of in-line and between-line builds.
The slight intralinear pitch build from sound to use of voice
dramatizes Horatio’s growing hope that while it would be
wonderful if the Ghost could make sound, it would be far better
if he could actually speak. The more multifaceted interlinear
builds from “Stay” to “Speak” to a second
“Speak” to a final “O speak!” shows Horatio
trying harder with each request. Similarly the interlinear build
from “use of voice” to “good thing” to
“privy” to “fate” to “foreknowing”
and “avoid” accelerates those arguments with which
Horatio supports his request.
SO
WHY IS LEARNING THIS SO HARD?
Making
these everyday inflections part of everyday acting is, however,
a tougher task than one might expect. One might reasonably ask
that, if inflections are simply a part of ordinary speaking, why
must actors be taught to make them? Why don’t they
just do this naturally?
Well,
they do, but only if they are fully committed to pursuing
their character’s goal with the other people onstage.
Let’s
make no mistake about it: actors who are truly “experiencing”
their roles onstage, as Stanislavsky proposed, will be speaking
from their character’s mind (or heart) as well as through
their character’s mouth, and their inflections will always
be natural. And therefore perfect.
But
that’s much easier said than done. For the fact is that
actors normally must speak words they don’t themselves think
up, but have in fact memorized out of a book written by someone
else.
Moreover,
they often in accents or linguistic styles (verse, for example)
that don’t come naturally to them in their daily lives.
It
is therefore inescapable that in many cases actors - including
veteran professionals - will find themselves, at least in early
rehearsals, essentially reciting memorized lines rather than speaking
words derived solely from their character’s situation. For
the fact is that acting a scripted and memorized role is a fundamentally
unnatural way to initiate speech. And unnatural inflections often
result. And worse, through constant repetition in rehearsals,
these unnatural (and decidedly non-interactive and undramatic)
inflections often find their way into actual productions.
As
an example of recitational inflections, consider the first words
of the pledge of allegiance recited by schoolchildren throughout
the United States.
I
pledge allegiance\
To the flag\
Of the United\ States\ of America\\...
The
inflections fall (one might say “die”) because they
are not addressed to anyone, and they are not uttered in response
to any situation. As an exercise makes clear, when someone truly
imagines a situation from which such an utterance could logically
derive (as someone actually pledging his allegiance to the flag
of an adopted new country, in his own words, at the moment he
first sets eyes on it), the inflections would be more like
“I
pledge al^legiance
To the ^^flag
Of the United States of Am^^^erica!\”
Thus
in order to make the shift from unnatural to natural (and thereby
dramatic) inflecting, actors must learn to make the transition
from reciting memorized texts - whether the pledge of allegiance
or the part of Hedda Gabler - to speaking such texts as though
the words had sprung spontaneously from their own minds, and for
the purpose of winning their characters’ goals. Whether
to address this directly, by calling attention to inflections
and such “technical” aspects of vocal delivery, or
indirectly, simply by working on the goals and tactics of each
character, remains an open question, but I think it is useful
to proceed with the tentative answer of “some of each,”
depending, certainly, on the text and persons (and time) involved.
And, in any case, the subject should certainly be addressed, or
at least discussed, during any period of serious actor training.
INFLECTIONS
AND ACTOR TRAINING
The
actor’s use of pitch inflections has been discussed –
at least in England - for at least two and a half centuries. As
early as 1750, the Englishman John Hill wrote of “monotonous
actors” who have “too frequent repetitions of the
same inflections. When they have blank verse put into their mouths,
[they]... seem to think it a duty to close every sentence an octave
below.”
But
we shouldn’t relegate Hill’s remarks on inflections
merely to a purely external acting technique; Hill was actually
an early advocate of “natural” acting (the actor “must
feel every thing strongly that he would have his audience feel.”).
And Konstantin Stanislavsky, the patron saint of “internal”
acting, spoke eloquently about the external importance of inflections
to produce not just clarity but also feelings:
The
external word, by means of intonation, affects one’s emotion,
memory, feelings. ...Intonations and pauses, in themselves, possess
the power to produce a powerful emotional effect on the listener.
Just
what did Stanislavsky mean by “intonation?” It was
his term (or rather his translator’s term) for an “upward
twist to the sound of the last syllable.” He particularly
prized the upward inflection for its ability to create suspense
and sustain an idea through a breathing pause:
Give
an upward twist to the sound of the last syllable of the last
word before the comma.... [and] leave the high note hanging in
the air for a bit. ...Almost like the warning lift of a hand,
[it] causes listeners to wait patiently for the end of the unfinished
sentence. Do you realize how important this is? [It provides]
the satisfaction of lifting your phonetic line before a comma
and waiting confidently, because you know surely that no one will
interrupt or hurry you.
Stanislavsky
made clear that this was not merely a single upward twist, but
a complex scoring of syllables, which he could only describe in
musical terms: “This rising melodic line can take on all
kinds of twists and go to all kinds of heights: in intervals of
thirds, fifths, octaves, with a short steep rise, or a broad,
smooth, small swing and so on.” To an actor who, while storming
through Othello’s great “Pontic Sea” speech,
did not know how to build his argument, Stanislavsky advised,
“Not so flat… put some design in! ...See that the
second measure is stronger than the first, the third stronger
than the second, the fourth than the third. But no shouting! Noise
is not power! Power lies in heightening.” To an actor who
was merely shouting, Stanislavsky leveled a particularly trenchant
attack: “Don’t you know that the power lies in the
logic, the coherence of what you are saying? And you destroy it.
When you need power, pattern your voice and your inflections in
a varied phonetic line, from top to bottom. When you need real
power in your speech, forget about volume, and remember your rising
and falling inflections.”
But
in our time, it has been not the Russians, and certainly not the
Americans, but the English who have taken the lead on this matter.
Cicely Berry, the distinguished long-time voice coach for the
Royal Shakespeare Company, is a major advocate: “Where there
is a break within the line... [usually] it is simply a poise on
a word - i.e., the word holds and lifts for a fraction of a moment
before it plunges into the second half of the line. This poise
is necessary for the ear of the listener in that it allows a space,
a still moment, for us to clock the key word in the line, and
so be ready for the information in the second half of the line...
Very often, when we do not understand a speech, it is because
this shaping has not been attended to.”
English
director Michael Langham, formerly artistic director of the Guthrie
Theatre and the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival, waxes
more poetical but to the same end: “If we take a downward
inflection, we finish the journey. Keep the journey going, keep
the inflection buoyantly up, until we reach the end of the trip.”
None
of this was ever mentioned – much less discussed and/or
taught – during my studies at the Yale Drama School the
60s, nor by Lee Strasberg when I attended the Actors Studio in
the same period, nor was the subject brought up in the major American
acting books of the 60s and 70s – certainly not by Hagen,
Benedetti, or McGaw. Nor did I broach the subject in my first
acting book (Acting Power) of 1978. Indeed, it would
take a brave American in the heyday of the Actors Studio –
the 50s, 60s, or 70s - to even mention such seemingly technical
aspects of acting performance as inflections and vocal pitch,
which were addressed, if at all, by directors giving line readings
to actors (e.g. “No, Janet, it’s not ‘wherefore
^art thou, Romeo,’ it’s ‘wherefore art thou
^^Romeo’”!)
And
so I first learned about the importance of pitch inflections from
a British actor: Brewster Mason, a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare
Company who spent several of his last years teaching on my campus
during the early 1970s. “American actors don’t know
how to give the feed!” Brewster would complain
to me, referring specifically to that upward inflection at the
end of a line that sets up a cue in such a way that the actor
who speaks the next line can knock it out of the park. I, and
most of my American colleagues, considered Mason’s complaint
absurdly old-fashioned at the time; even demeaning: as if the
actor’s goal was really to be a restaurant waiter. But I’ve
changed my views: “Feeding” your acting partner with
charged, upwardly-inflecting cues (“Are you going ^^out?),
and being aggressively fed by your partner in return, creates
drama that is powerfully interactive. I’m not always sure
whether this is best addressed from the inside (by helping the
actor live the part fully) or from the outside (“try lifting
that last syllable a bit, OK?”), but it’s clear to
me that an actor’s awareness of inflections in life, and
their importance in creating the dynamics and momentum of a great
a stage production, leads to enhanced performances wherever the
process originates.
Mastery
of inflections is not the most important skill an actor must employ,
of course. It’s probably not even in the top ten. But in
a field as competitive as professional stage acting, where only
one in a thousand succeed, and only one in a thousand of those
(rising inflection there too!) will get succeed sufficiently to
have a lifetime career, the extra margin of excellence will make
all the difference. At minimum, an awareness of the nature of
inflections in normal conversation can key a director or coach
as to when an actor is not fully experiencing (or thinking)
the part, and what work needs be done to correct this. At maximum,
inflectional mastery can help an actor deliver five things absolutely
crucial for professional success: clear articulation of ideas,
dramatic momentum and suspense, excitement and charisma, brimming
confidence, and (yes!) believability.
For that’s the only secret of the English secret: Inflecting
is Believing.
Speaking:
From Intention to Articulation, MIT Press: 1989), p. 307
Ibid, pp. 316/17
technically a caesura here, since this is a verse line
perezhivanie, often translated as “living the part”
see Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus; Amsterdam: Harwood
Academic Publishers, 1998,
See
the video, Acting One: Day One with Robert Cohen, Mayfield
Publishing Company, 1998, or, for a written description, my Acting
One, Fourth edition, Mayfield Publishing Company, 2001.
The
Actor, A Treatise on the Art of Playing, London: R. Griffiths,
pp. 199, 198.
Ibid, p. 106
Ibid, p. 132, 137
Building a Character,
Ibid, p. 126
Ibid, pp. 160-61
Ibid, p. 138
Cicely Berry, Voice and the Actor, London, Harrap, 1973
Journal for Stage Directors and Choreographers, Spring/Summer
2000, p. 10
Uta
Hagen (Respect For Acting, Macmillan 1973) correctly
argues against “delivering the words mechanically with set,
intellectualized intonations” (p. 71) and advises that to
“memorize the words and mechanize the inflections”
in advance of rehearsals “can be fatal,” but she never
otherwise addresses how non-mechanically approached inflections
can prove useful. Robert L. Benedetti (The Actor At Work,
Third edition, Prentice-Hall, 1981) discusses the actor’s
use of “vocal melody” as a “physical manifestation
of appropriate connotations,” (pp. 160-61) and says that
“when we fully revitalize the melody of a speech, we find
that the sounds help to make the feelings and meaning more vivid
and immediate,” (p. 163) and that “structural figures”
such as antitheses demand “the utmost skill from the actor
in the use of inflection, emphasis, pitch, and supportive gesture,”
but doesn’t go into what these inflections or pitches might
be. In early editions, Charles McGaw (Acting Is Believing,
Rinehart & Company, 1955), says little more than “the
basis for effective interpretation of lines is a good voice,”
(Second edition, p.96); in later editions he added a chapter on
“Speaking the Lines” which discussed emphasizing “operative
words” (fifth edition, 1986, p. 198) and, paraphrasing Grotowski,
“keeping the sentence moving towards its epicentrum,”
but, like the others, does not specifically discuss how pitch
inflection achieves this.
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