Miss Pronunciation II

Miss Pronunciation vs. Miss Chəf

Mischievous - mɪstʃəvəs

Now we all know that  our language is a tricky customer, and using spelling for guidelines can be a dangerous thing. However, I hear people everywhere (including the ABC....shock horror!) pop an entire extra syllable in the middle of this naughty little adjective:

Mis-chee-VI-ous - mɪstʃiːvɪˌəs

Crazy! I was brought up on the latter - my world crumbled when I  discovered the truth of the matter..........but there you are.

Miss Pronunciation I

In honour of my 4 year old offspring, Miss Pronunciation, this is the first in a weekly series of pronunciation mishaps. If you have suggestions or queries, please send them in!

To premiere:


PRONUNCIATION - prənʌntsɪˌeɪʃ^ən

Every week without fail someone asks

- So, you teach pro-noun-ciation?

I politely smile.

- No. That's a very small part of my work......and it's pro-nun-ciation

That's right folks. ProNUNciation.  As in ladies, living in a convent, wearing habits.

Listening

 

     When I was pregnant I had ears in my belly. I laid in front of my stereo, belly button near the speaker playing the soundtrack to Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, hoping that those growing bones would be nourished by listening to the glorious music of Yann Tiersen. 

I think it worked.

Listening is nourishment.


                 'All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening' - Alan Rickman

     As I explore voice in performance, the more I realise that being a good actor is more about actively listening than anything else. Listening and hearing. My good friend and colleague, Speech Pathologist Sarah Wilmot reminded me of a Kristen Linklater image just recently. That of the giant ear in the belly. I’d forgotten this little gem and have only just recently reintroduced into my practice.

     The concept of the ear in the belly: this is where you listen from. I’m constantly reminding my actors that this place, this pelvic bowl, this gut is where we genuinely hear things. We might verbally express grief or love as being affairs the heart, but it is in the belly that we really interact with that wrenching agony of despair or those thrilling butterflies of fresh love.

     If we put our ears, our giant ears in this place, we might just have a chance of bypassing the brain, that thing that I’m all too often asking actors to put out of the way.


                                             'Listen to many, speak to a few' - William Shakespeare

The aforementioned Sarah Wilmot exclaimed recently “Wouldn’t it be great if being well listened was held in as high esteem as being well read?”.

And it is not just voices we are listening for.

As a rule of thumb, I train my actors to listen to their space. Outside the space. The immediate space. Their bodies in the space. They have to be re-trained, as I had to. Generations of artists, so busy putting their goods out there that they forgot to listen. Imposing instead of resonating.

Listening allows us to welcome our space inside. In past our skin, in past the barriers we put up to protect ourselves. Right into our bellies. The core of oneself. With our space inside us, we are able to become the space. Resonating with instead of imposing upon. 


'If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day.  For there would be an intolerable hunger'  - Muriel Rukeyser

I take the concept of the ear in my belly into my life.  I devour rich, open, resonant voices. The symphonic orchestra is a provocative dégustation menu. I develop indigestion from the cheap fast food of television noise.

Encouraged, my gut reaction becomes stronger. It prevails over my finely trained and long instilled set of manners and habitual reactions. Listening through my belly, I can more easily ‘speak my mind’  - but it’s not my mind; it is my gut, my impulse........


I recently had another little set of ears in my belly. They were tiny, probably not even existent. I laid in front of my stereo, belly button near the speaker playing the soundtrack to Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. I hoped that tiny soul would find nourishment in listening. Listening was the finest gift I could think of to give this tiny, helpless being before saying goodbye.

I think it worked.

Intention

                                Intention:  noun. f. volonté, désir. Avoir l’intention de. Projeter de.

    THE FIRST TIME I met my French husband’s family was daunting to say the least. I had to negotiate not only a language barrier, but an entire cultural barrier. A whole month of awkward dinners, lunches and (gulp!) petite-déjeuners.

    The first meal of the day was the most difficult. My sleeping log of a husband would wake at 10, whilst I was bright eyed and raring for a brioche by 6.30. This left me alone with his father, Hubert. He spoke no English.

    A humorous man, Hubert endeavored to tell me about the ducks outside the kitchen door. He quacked and pointed. And quacked again.

    From that moment on, our relationship consisted of a series of ‘quacks’. On the stairs as a form of ‘hello’. As ‘cheers!’ over a drink. It was our joke, our only verbal communication and the start of a wonderful relationship with mon Beau Père.

                           Intention: (usually plural) the goal with respect to a marriage proposal.

    MORE THAN SIX YEARS LATER, shift to Hungary for a wedding celebration, my four-year old daughter, Miss Pronunciation, decided she would play in French with her fellow bridesmaid. It was obvious the other children had no language in common with her and maybe she thought she’d play the part of United Nations.

    The adults at the wedding had a mixture of French, Hungarian, English, Italian, Spanish and (one scholar, Father of the groom) a smattering of Esperanto. We watched from small, linguistically distinct groups.

    The two small girls, with no verbal language in common, played and danced and shared the pride of being flower girls. Each spoke in their own tongue, gestured, joked, re-assured, laughed, constructed, role-played - developed their own version of ‘quacking’. It was joyful to watch.

                  Intention: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.

    LANGUAGE WITHIN ITSELF can accessorise thought, create intriguing patterns, hypnotise us, drive us forward; but it is not the words themselves that communicate the most important aspects of our relationships and our lives. It is the intention behind them. This is why so many actors who train their voices simply in terms of muscularity are the stage’s poor men. A connection is required. Intention. At all times. It is this intention that provides us with the impulse to speak, to kick the diaphragm into action.

    Working in this fashion does not lessen the physical aspect of the training - it enhances it. I have been training my actors now for two years in this method which is vastly different from what I was taught. From the very beginning. Train the body to connect with intention through every muscular movement, and you will train an actor who never fails to connect in performance.

    Dropping an intention into a released and open body and receiving a response is magic.

    This is what keeps me engaged when I watch an amazing Opera performed in Italian, subtitled in German - neither of which I understand. Performers so connected to their intention and need to communicate that their actions transcend all language barriers. I may not always know the small details, but I am absolutely fixated, connected for three hours.


    MY FRENCH is now conversational. I discuss complex issues in a very simple manner - probably a good habit to maintain. Needless to say, Hubert and I still have a good ‘quack’ every now and then for old times’ sake.

    ..........AND MISS PRONUNCIATION? As we prepared to depart the small Hungarian town for the capital the morning after the wedding, a phone call:

- Who’s that?

- Miss Pronunciation’s friend. She is crying that Miss P. is leaving.

Miss Pronunciation has made a friend for life through nothing else but playing her intentions.