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Stop mumbling, Peter Hall tells young actors
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 22.01.08
Speaking-up: Sir Peter Hall says actors under the age of 40 are struggling to be heard
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Two of theatre's leading figures have told young actors to speak up on stage because audiences cannot hear what they are saying.
Director Sir Peter Hall and actor Edward Fox hit out at stars more accustomed to appearing on film and television for mumbling their lines and having poor diction.
They blamed the decline on the demise of repertory theatre and actors concentrating on TV and commercials rather than the stage.
Sir Peter, who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and headed the National Theatre, said "most actors under the age of 40 are struggling to be heard".
Speaking at the opening of the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames, he said: "It is the most regular complaint. Most theatre directors will tell you the same. Actors now think that if they raise their voice, they're being 'unrealistic'. I tell them: 'What you do is unreal. You're wearing someone else's clothes and speaking someone else's words.'"
Screen and stage actor Fox, best known for appearing in Day Of The Jackal, agreed, saying actors mistakenly thought being quiet made them more realistic.
"They think they're being clever. Someone should disabuse them of that fact," he said.
The poor conditions of Britain's theatres were also blamed for audiences being unable to hear actors, with the Rose's new artistic associate Stephen Unwin saying that 60 per cent of the country's playhouses have "awful" acoustics.
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The actor’s struggle to be heard and understood goes back well over a century and the answer to the problem is more than simply ‘Speaking Up’, as news headlines would have us believe. The William Poel Fund has worked to encourage ‘good theatre speech’ since Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndyke and others first set it up with the Society for Theatre Research in 1952.
Originally ‘the Poel was an event for drama schools but there have been such great changes in the business of acting that we decided we might have more effect working with those already in the profession. As a result the first new Poel Event of the 21st century was a free training day held last October in the National Theatre for actors (and directors) in their early working years. 24 professionals, average age 31, spent an intensive day working on text and voice with their peers and other speech experts, trying to solve problems like ‘How do I speak Shakespeare and not sound like a Luvvie’?.
Perhaps uniquely, Poel Events has set itself the task of helping find a way for actors in the theatre to be heard and understood, especially in our classics.
Currently I am planning this year’s event so this debate is well timed. Should anyone wish to give us their views on the difficulties and remedies to this situation we are more than ready to hear and try to act on them.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Tozer, Organiser, STR-Poel Events.
28 Antrim Mansions, London NW3 4XT
str.poel.events@btinternet.com
- Norman Tozer, London
