Vocal Expression: A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation

by Katherine Jewell Everts

TO DEVELOP DRAMATIC INSTINCT

Our final study in interpretation has for its concern the development of dramatic instinct. The work just finished should have left no doubt in your mind as to the nature or value of this final step in the training, since it has anticipated both. Development of imaginative vigor should arouse a latent dramatic instinct and release histrionic power. The choice of place in these studies for this phase of the training was made to insure cumulative evolution resulting in balanced expression. As imagination needs to safeguard her freedom with sympathetic thought and intelligent emotion, so dramatic instinct needs the guidance of a vigorous but trained imagination. Dramatic instinct so directed should achieve skill in interpreting drama and lead to distinction in the art of acting. The immediate evolution should be a clarified vision of life. Your final attainment from this theory should be distinction in the art of living.

With dramatic instinct capable of such achievement, let us proceed to exercise it in the material chosen for this study,—dramatic literature. The natural transition from story to play, from narrative to drama, is by way of the monologue. Some discussion with suggestive analysis of this form is necessary in order to impress upon you the difference between suggestive impersonation and actual impersonation or characterization, leading to a clear understanding of the difference between reading a play and acting in one; but the final evolution of interpretative power must come through acted drama,—through taking part in a play.

The dictionary in defining the monologue authorizes three forms: (1) when the actor tells a continuous story in which he is the chief character, referring to the others as absent; (2) when he assumes the voice or manner of several characters successively; (3) more recently, when he implies that the others are present, leading the audience to imagine what they say by his replies. Browning created this more recent form, which is the most vital of the three. I have chosen for your study of the monologue examples from Browning alone. To interpret effectively any one of the Browning monologues will call into play every element of power in voice and expression which you have gained in your study of previous forms. You must think vividly, feel intelligently, realize and suggest an atmosphere, sustain a situation, and keep the beauty of the poetic form. And you must do all this in the person of another. The new demand which the monologue makes is impersonation. Let us see just what we mean by impersonation. It is the art of identifying one's self with the character to be portrayed. It is the art of losing one's self in the character and the situation the dramatist has created. This means that the spirit of the character must take possession of the impersonator, and inform his every thought and feeling, and so his every motion and tone. Remember, it is the spirit of the character that must determine the nature of the tone and gesture. The great danger in entering upon the study of impersonation lies in emphasizing the outward manifestation instead of the inward spirit of the character to be portrayed. If you really sense the soul, mind, heart quality of the character you are to present, and have made your voice and body free agents for the manifestation of those qualities, your impersonation will be convincing. If the spirit of the Patriot or Andrea del Sarto or Fra Lippo Lippi or Pompilia or Caponsacchi or Guido obsesses you, the outward manifestation will take care of itself—always provided your instruments are responsive. Don't begin with the outward manifestation. Don't say I think this man would frown a great deal, or fold his arms over his breast, or use an eyeglass, or strut, or stoop, or do any one of a hundred things which, if repeated a half-dozen times during an impersonation, may become a mannerism and get between the audience and the spirit of the character. When you are studying a character for the purpose of impersonation determine first to what type it belongs. Then study that type, wherever you are. Daily life becomes your teacher and studio. When you enter upon this art there are no longer dull moments in railroad stations or trains, in shops or in the social whirl. Everywhere and always you are the student seeking to know and understand types of people better, that you may use your knowledge in presenting to an audience an individual. When you have caught the spirit of the individual you must realize the situation out of which this particular individual speaks.

Let us make a special study of the Tale (Browning's epilogue to The Two Poets of Croisic). It is perhaps the most exquisite of the poet's creations in this field. The situation reveals a young girl recalling to her poet lover an old Greek tale he had once told her. There is a suggestion from some critics that Browning has drawn his wife in this portrait, and through it pays his tribute to her. This immediately affords us a clue to the type of character to which the speaker belongs. We cannot hope (nor do we wish) to impersonate Mrs. Browning, but a knowledge of Mrs. Browning and her relation to her poet lover, gained through a study of her Letters and Sonnets, will lead us more quickly to a comprehension of the speaker and situation in the Tale.

Obsessed by the spirit of the character and fully realizing the situation, our next step is, in imagination, to set the stage. This is an important point in presenting a monologue. The impersonator must have a clear idea of his position on his imaginary stage relative to his imaginary interlocutor. But he must remember that imaginary stage-setting admits of only delicately suggestive use. This is true of the handling of a monologue at every point. It must be suggestive. The actor carries to completion the action which the monologuist suggests. The art of interpreting a monologue depends upon the discrimination of the impersonator in drawing his line between suggestion and actualization in gesture. The business of the monologuist is to make an appeal to the imagination of the audience so vivid that the imagination of the audience can actualize the suggestion. And the illusion is complete. What are the relative positions of the girl and her lover in the Tale? There is nothing in the lines to make our choice arbitrary. It is only important that we determine a relation and keep it consistently throughout the reading. Here is a possible "setting." They are in the poet's study; he is working at his desk; she is sitting in a great chair before the fire, a book in her hand, which she does not read; she is gazing into the flames. She begins dreamily, more to herself than to him—"What a pretty tale you told me." At what point does her tone lose its reflective quality and become more personal? Where does she turn to him? How do we know that he leaves his chair and comes over to sit on the arm of her chair? What calls him to her? What two qualities of feeling run through her mood and determine the color of her tone and the character of her movements. If your study of Mrs. Browning has been intelligent, this interplay of the whimsical and serious in her nature cannot have escaped you, and it will illumine now your impersonation of this girl. It is the secret of the peculiar charm of this creation. The story she tells is an old and well-known one. It is the manner of the telling through which we come in touch with an exquisite woman's soul that holds us spellbound. Unless the interpreter catches this secret and reveals it to his audience, he will miss the distinctive feature of the monologue and reduce it to a narrative poem.

A TALE

I

What a pretty tale you told me
Once upon a time
—Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)
Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,
While your shoulder propped my head.

II

Anyhow there's no forgetting
This much if no more,
That a poet (pray, no petting!)
Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,
Went where such like used to go,
Singing for a prize, you know.

III

Well, he had to sing, nor merely
Sing but play the lyre;
Playing was important clearly
Quite as singing: I desire,
Sir, you keep the fact in mind
For a purpose that's behind.

IV

There stood he, while deep attention
Held the judges round,
—Judges able, I should mention,
To detect the slightest sound
Sung or played amiss: such ears
Had old judges, it appears!

V

None the less he sang out boldly,
Played in time and tune,
Till the judges, weighing coldly
Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon,
Sure to smile 'In vain one tries
Picking faults out: take the prize!'

VI

When, a mischief! Were they seven
Strings the lyre possessed?
Oh, and afterward eleven,
Thank you! Well, sir—who had guessed
Such ill luck in store?—it happed
One of those same seven strings snapped.

VII

All was lost, then! No! a cricket
(What 'cicada'? Pooh!)
—Some mad thing that left its thicket
For mere love of music—flew
With its little heart on fire,
Lighted on the crippled lyre.

VIII

So that when (Ah, joy!) our singer
For his truant string
Feels with disconcerted finger,
What does cricket else but fling
Fiery heart forth, sound the note
Wanted by the throbbing throat?

IX

Ay and, ever to the ending,
Cricket chirps at need,
Executes the hands intending,
Promptly, perfectly,—indeed
Saves the singer from defeat
With her chirrup low and sweet.

X

Till, at ending, all the judges
Cry with one assent
'Take the prize—a prize who grudges
Such a voice and instrument?
Why, we took your lyre for harp,
So it shrilled us forth F sharp!'

XI

Did the conqueror spurn the creature,
Once its service done?
That's no such uncommon feature
In the case when Music's son
Finds his Lotte's power too spent
For aiding soul-development.

XII

No! This other, on returning
Homeward, prize in hand,
Satisfied his bosom's yearning:
(Sir, I hope you understand!)
—Said 'Some record there must be
Of this cricket's help to me!'

XIII

So, he made himself a statue:
Marble stood, life-size;
On the lyre, he pointed at you,
Perched his partner in the prize;
Never more apart you found
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

XIV

That's the tale: its application?
Somebody I know
Hopes one day for reputation
Thro' his poetry that's—oh,
All so learned and so wise
And deserving of a prize!

XV

If he gains one, will some ticket,
When his statue's built,
Tell the gazer ''Twas a cricket
Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt
Sweet and low, when strength usurped
Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

XVI

For as victory was nighest,
While I sang and played—
With my lyre at lowest, highest,
Right alike,—one string that made
"Love" sound soft was snapt in twain,
Never to be heard again,—

XVII

Had not a kind cricket fluttered,
Perched upon the place
Vacant left, and duly uttered
"Love, Love, Love," whene'er the bass
Asked the treble to atone
For its somewhat somber drone.'

XVIII

But you don't know music! Wherefore
Keep on casting pearls
To a—poet? All I care for
Is—to tell him that a girl's
'Love' comes aptly in when gruff
Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

I

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

II

Just as perhaps he mused 'My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,'—
Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.

III

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect—
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

IV

'Well,' cried he, 'Emperor, by God's grace
We've got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart's desire,
Perched him!' The chief's eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.

V

The chief's eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle's eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes;
'You're wounded!' 'Nay,' the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
'I'm killed, Sire!' And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.

MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
'Frà Pandolf' by design; for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, t'was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat': such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark'—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

—Browning.

Our last form for interpretative vocal study is the play. We shall discover that the presentation of the play makes the same demands upon the interpreter as the monologue with the new element of transition. We are still studying the monologue, because we are to read, not act, the play. It is still suggestive, not actualized impersonation. But instead of one character to suggestively set forth we have two, three, a dozen to present. The transition from character to character becomes our one new problem. As we have said before, in making the transition from character to character, voice, mind, and body must be so volatile that the action of the play shall not be interrupted. I know of no better way to enter upon the study of a play for reading (or acting) than to treat each character as the speaker in a monologue of the Browning type. The danger in transition from character to character centers in the instant's pause when one speaker yields to another. The unskilful reader loses both characters at this point and becomes conscious of himself; the action of the play stops; and the illusion of scene and situation is lost. The great reader of the play (in that instant's pause), as he utters the last word of one character, becomes the interlocutor listening to the words which he as the other character has just uttered. In that instant he must show the effect of the speech he has just uttered upon the character he has just become. Which is the greater art: to read a play, or to act in it?

Use for your study of the play the Shakespearian drama. Begin with scenes from As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice; but begin with actualized impersonation of the characters. No discussion more! No analysis more! The play—the "play's the thing" through which to complete this evolution in Vocal Expression.

A FINAL WORD ON INTERPRETATION

Looking back over these studies in interpretation, let us review in true scholastic fashion the main points thus far discovered. We say looking back, but as far as the arrangement of our text goes this review involves looking forward too. The division of the book into three parts is purely a matter of a necessary separation in discussing the three activities involved in vocal expression. If your use of this book has been intelligent, each study in interpretation has revealed your need to strengthen your vocal vocabulary or to perfect your vocal technique, and you have turned at once for the required help to the studies in [Part II] and the exercises in [Part III].

Omitting a review of the preliminary plunge, which was intended to "show up" all your peculiar powers and all your especial needs at once, and so furnish a basis for the main work, let us see what happened in the five following studies. It will simplify our statement in each case to base the analysis of our discoveries on the form of literature employed in each study.

You found then (or ought to have found) in Study One: that the essay and didactic poem make a fundamental appeal to the mind; that the demand upon the interpreter of this form is for clear, concise thinking; that your need is for a command of unerring emphasis and purposeful inflection. You turned to the studies in pause, change of pitch, and inflection to meet that need. Returning to the main study, you tested your vocal skill on the essay to find the essay so read might persuade an auditor to some readjustment of his ideas, values, discriminations, or strengthen him in convictions already held.

Study Two revealed that in lyric poetry the primary appeal is to emotion; that its vocal demand upon the interpreter is for a mastery of tone-color, a sense of rhythm, and the power to suggest a background of musical sound. Having supplied as far as possible any lack in your vocabulary or technique by supplementary work in Parts II and III, returning you found that a lyric rightly read could release in the auditor pity, forgiveness, forbearance, endurance, understanding, love.

The Third Study should have convinced you that a sense of good humor is a safe and desirable thing to cultivate; that the whimsical tone in interpretation will leaven almost any lump of sheer learning and counteract a serious overdose of sentiment; that fable, fairy tale, and nonsense rhyme depend too for successful interpretation upon this element of whimsicality in the reader; that the secret of the whimsical element in vocal expression lies in a use of pause and inflection.

Study Four should have discovered to you that the three elements of the short story can only be realized through imagination; that imaginative vigor dealing with action requires sustained vitality of tone. Such discovery should have resulted in many hours of work on the exercises for support and freedom of tone.

When you reached the Fifth and last Study, the work in monologue and drama should have easily awakened your dramatic instinct and quickly released your histrionic power. You should have learned through monologue and drama to understand various types of persons; to see more clearly the relations of men and events; to more intelligently comprehend life itself.

Finally, we have discovered that to become a true interpreter of literature means to become a lucid channel for the message of an author to the mind of an auditor,—nay, that it means more than that. In final evolution the interpreter of literature becomes a revealer of life. The final effect of literature worth interpreting is to enlarge the world's knowledge of life's beauty, truth, or power. Your final concern as an interpreter is to let life find through you uninterrupted revelation on one of these planes; to become a pure medium between the beauty, truth, and power of life and the seeking soul. The author need not be considered in this final analysis, because you, the interpreter, first became identified with the author, and then both of you are lost in the vision, save only as either personality may enlarge or clarify the revelation.

A personal experience may help you to realize this ideal of the interpreter's art.

With a sense of protest, I had presented a play I loved to an audience with which I felt little sympathy. By chance there was in that audience one of our best teachers and critics. After my recital I sought his criticism. Beginning, as the true critic always should, with a noting of some point of power, he said, "I congratulate you upon your illumined moments, but—they are too infrequent. You must multiply them." "What do you mean by my illumined moments?" I asked. "The moments when you do not get between your audience and the thought you are uttering—the moments when you become a revealer of life to them. Your attitude toward your audience is not sustained in the simplicity and clearness of some of its moments. You suddenly ring down the curtain in the middle of the scene. That spoils the scene, you know. You seem to feel a revolt against the giving of your confidence to the audience, and thereupon you immediately shut them away. You become conscious of yourself, and we, the audience, lose the vision and become conscious of you and the way you are reading or reciting or acting." Then he added, "Adelaide Neilson, at first, had illumined moments in her playing of Juliet, but finally her impersonation became one piece of illumination." That delightful teacher, reader, and critic, the late Mr. Howard Ticknor, suggested the same ideal in comparing a Juliet of to-day with Miss Neilson's Juliet. "When Miss —— is on the balcony," he said, "you hear all around you: 'How lovely she looks!' 'Isn't that robe dear?' 'How beautiful her voice is!' When Miss Neilson lived that little minute, a breathless people prayed with Juliet, 'I would not for the world they found thee here,' and sighed with Romeo—'O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard, being in night, all this is but a dream.'" Miss Neilson was Juliet. They, the audience, lived with these lovers one hour of lyric rapture, and could never again be quite so commonplace in their attitude toward the "deathless passion." They may not now remember Adelaide Neilson, but they remember that story, and forever carry a new vision of life and love, because the actress lost herself in the life of the play. She did not exploit her personality and let it stand between the audience and the drama. When some one says to you—the reader or actress, "I shall never forget the way you raised your eyebrow at that point," don't stop to reply, but fly to your study and read the lines "at that point" over and over, with level brows, until you understand the meaning, and can express the thought so effectively by a lift of your voice that you no longer need the help of your eyebrow. Every gesture, every tone, must call attention, not to itself, but to the hidden meaning of the author. It must illumine the text of the character portrayed. That is it: if we would be artists (and there is not one among us who would not be an artist) we must cease to put our little selves in front of our messages. In the home, in the office, in the houses of our friends, in the school-room, on the platform, on the stage, let us be simple, natural, sincere. Let us lay aside our mannerisms. Let us seek to know and reveal life. Then shall we be remembered—not, for a queer way of combing our hair, or lifting our eyes, or using our hands, or shrugging our shoulders, but for some revelation of truth or of beauty which we have brought to a community.

---

PART II