Vocal Use and Variety

3. What are the aspects of voice production that an actor needs to keep in mind when he acts? How does voice help in characterisation? (Read up on the works of Cicely Berry and Patsy Rodenburg for reference.)

The main things that an actor has to keep in mind are the awareness of his voice, his breathing, and his posture. The first step to for the actor to have an awareness of his own voice; he should listen and be aware while he speaks, to determine if his tone, pitch and volume is suitable for the role he is playing. Quoting Cicely Berry in her work Voice and the Actor, some actors “have an overbalance of head resonance”. This means that the sound they are producing is mainly placed in the head area, without reinforcement from the chest notes. In this case, the actor hears his voice in his head and it sounds fine to him, but to a listener the voice is thin and lacking in warmth, thus actor has also to collect feedback from a test audience. Being aware of his own voice is the key to an actor identifying problems with his voice production and hence taking steps to rectify them.
The correct breathing technique is crucial to better volume, which is important in acting if the audience is to hear any of the dialogue at all. Adequate breath is required to vibrate the vocal folds to produce voice, hence deep and controlled breathing contributes greatly to an actor’s voice. An actor that has mastered control over his breathing is also able to reach a wider vocal range, hence his tone is free and uninhibited.
Both Rodenburg and Berry preach the importance of posture in voice production, and agree that a large part of speech and projection problems lie in tensions in various parts of the body. An actor’s body is hence supposed to be relaxed, supported, and with a straight back so the rib cage is able to expand unconstrained. A bad posture would greatly affect the volume, pitch and resonance of the actor’s voice, as more often than not a hunched posture hindered the airways and the sloping inwards of the shoulders also served to compress the ribcage.
Voice helps characterization in portraying emotions, personality and thoughts. A change in the character’s emotion is also mainly picked up by the audience as a change in the tone of the voice. Due to the nature of the stage, the most accessible quality of the actors to the audience is his voice, and it is the voice that tells the story in most cases.

In She’s Dead by Paul Abelman, there is a complete lack of stage directions, and even character names, as they are labeled 1 and 2. However, one is able to discern several distinct sections of the script where the characters suddenly “switch personalities” and run through the same scenario. Due to the flowing nature of the script, the actor’s voice is hence crucial in projecting this distinct change to the audience. With the voice, the actor may employ different techniques such as varied intonation, speed, and even a change in accent to suggest this difference in character.

Sources:
http://www.drwag.com/963.html
http://atgbcentral.com/actorspeaks.html
http://www.amazon.com/Voice-Actor-Cicely-Berry/dp/0020415559


4. Is voice the most important ‘tool’ for an actor? Why or why not?

The voice is the most important ‘tool’ for an actor, in my opinion.

The nature of theatre is such that the ‘live’ quality means the actor’s projection of the character to the audience is hampered by distance. As such, it is more difficult for audience members that are further away to pick up details such as facial expressions of the actors. Unless these physical aspects are magnified by use of multimedia, it is sound or rather, the voice of the actor that reaches the furthest. After all, it is the voice that tells the story in the play, hence the need for a script in the first place.

As mentioned, since the voice is most accessible, it is thus the most important ‘tool’ for an actor when is comes to characterization. A key trait of plays is that they are substantiated by dialogue, it rarely seen that actors do not speak for most of the play in conventional drama. Hence, the continued dialogue is also the vehicle by which the actor is able to capture and define the character he is playing.

Granted, actors do also employ other methods to achieve this end, however they do not work independent of the other methods. All of them are employed to create a wholesome, realistic character. Other ‘tools’ that the actor may hence employ are body language, facial expression, costume and props. Where all of these play a part in creating a character on stage, I feel that a large percentage of it relies on the actor’s voice.


- Hui Yi