From the King (Blog #3)September 30th 2007 |
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POGUE HAMLET BLOG THREE
As a writer, I know how long I labour to get just the right words in the right order for hopefully the right effect. I think even before my acting career took its detour into writing, I was, as an actor, pretty respectful of my playwright’s choices. But now having returned to acting after so long an absence, I am very aware that, as an actor, am a servant to the playwright’s vision and it behooves me to judiciously ferret out what he is saying and how best to say it. This is especially true with a genius like Shakespeare.
Claudius has a line to Hamlet that includes the phrase, “impious stubbornness.” At first glance, given the word’s root, one might think it is pronounced “im-pie’-ous.” It is, in fact, pronounced “im’-pea-ous”. It will be the first and preferred pronunciation in the dictionary…though I suspect, through the corruption of usage (or rather mis-usage), the other might now be listed as being acceptable.
I have only ever heard it pronounced “im’-pea-ous” in any good production of Hamlet I’ve seen. It is the way I am pronouncing the word in our production.
In a private moment off-stage, a fellow cast member idly wondered if “im-pie’-ous” might be better since “there’s already enough stuff the audience isn’t going to understand.” Hmmm… As Hamlet says, “that must be scanned…” But not for very long. Because I’m still saying “im’-pea-ous”.
Oddly enough, this debate on this very word recently came up when I attended a small invited dress rehearsal of a friend’s play to give her feedback. She had used the word, her actress pronounced it correctly, but the playwright asked the four of us in attendance what we thought. Happily, we were a unanimous consensus. “Im’-pea-ous”.
Why? Because it’s the pronunciation of the word! I don’t pretend to be a Shakespearean expert and I’m sure I’ve mispronounced words in my time and I will again in the future (At all times, I hope I have directors who will correct me when I go awry to keep me looking the fool). But this is not one of those odd Shakespearean things where the stress and pronunciation change to serve the verse. Nor is it a case of British English vs. American English. In both countries, the word is pronounced the same way.
The last thing I want to look like is some sloppy actor who didn’t do his homework by deliberately mispronouncing a word in order to pander to the lowest common denominator. And if we suddenly went that route, what kind of Pandora’s Box would we open? Are we going to change “fardels”? “Bare bodkin”? “Orisions”? If we decided to alter every obscure word and difficult phrase that populates this complex play which might zip uncomprehendingly over the head of some audience member, would we even be doing Hamlet? Probably not Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Where does one draw the line?
During my Hollywood years, there was a frequent phrase used by studio executives when speaking about the script. They always asked, most benignly, if one could make it more “accessible”. “Accessible”…code for “dumb it down.”
While I respect Shakespeare, I don’t think he’s sacred. Much in his plays can be cut… not necessarily because it is too difficult for an audience to grasp, but because certain sections no longer have the same dramatic relevance or resonance for an audience today. But to “dumb down” his soaring language defeats the point of why theatres continue to do Shakespeare and why audiences come to see him. I mean, after all, if it were only his stories that were the draw, they’re in public domain. Anyone could take them and paraphrase them into much less elevating, unpoetic, and more “accessible” dialogue.
I believe audiences can grasp meaning in general without knowing every specific. They may not know certain details nor understand a particular word, but they gather the sense of things from the overall context of the language, the delivery of the actor, and staging.
As a writer, I have four rules of writing. My rules #3 and #4 could as easily apply to the performers’ art. They are: 3) Never go down to where you think your audience is, try to bring them up to where you want them to be and where you yourself aspire to be. And 4) If you write (substitute: perform) for the stupidest person in the room, crawl in your coffin; you’re dead already.
If one is going to play everything down for the benefit for the dimmest bulb in the house one might as well be doing “Getting Gertie’s Garter” or Natalie Needs A Nightie” and forgo Hamlet altogether. Forget reaching the lowest common denominator; we need to perform to the highest common denominator…and we should always have a few bon mots for the smart ones in the crowd. Anything else is “im’-pea-ous stubbornness.”
More anon.
Charles Edward Pogue
“Claudius”
Mr. Pogue appears courtesy of Actor's Equity Association
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