Voice and Text Philosophy and Approach
Are you breathing to live, or are you breathing merely to survive?
This is the question I ask my students and the actors I coach. As a voice and text coach, I’ve studied several approaches to voice and text: Linklater, Fitzmaurice, Alexander Technique, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Rodenburg, and am, currently, working on my Knight-Thompson Speechwork Certification to help actors activate text and release thought in ways that feel meaningful, economical, definite, and dynamic. Above all, I want clarity of thought so that there is specificity of the story we are trying to tell. Cicely Berry says, “Voice is the muscle of the soul,” and I return to that line often. “Muscularizing the text” is a phrase my students and professional actors, that I work with, hear all the time.
Speaking text or ‘Speaking the Speech’ is a complex choreography of muscles of every size working together to shape language, simple and/or intricate.
I often ask actors to consider this: ‘If I close my eyes, is the play still happening?’
We can see with our ears: colors, textures, temperatures, stories, and ‘thought-packages’, as I like to call them. We can also hear with our eyes: body language, physical shifts, and the movement of the eyes that shapes how we respond.
My goal is always to help the actor find their character’s voice by inhabiting the character’s circumstances with their own unique physical life. Asking the question: ‘how would my character say this or what does their voice sound like?’ is something I try to steer the speaker away from as I remind them that there is no ‘character’s voice’ there is only the actors voice navigating the character’s circumstances. Through active listening and close observation, the actor can discover the character’s truth and respond with a voice that is free and connected to ‘vocal truths’ and the voice that is inspired by the life of the story.
Sweeney’s Four Rules for Speaking a Speech
The speech must arise out of a situation.
The speech must have a story.
The speech must be spontaneous. Avoid premeditating so you can “fresh mint” the words. Are you examining the script to decide, or are you exploring the language to discover? Work towards always exploring and you will always have something to discover.
The Speech must be real.
Words, Words, Words
I love words. I love consonants, vowels, diphthongs, triphthongs, and elisions. A single word; fully expressed, shaped with clear posture and intention, can tell a bigger story than an emotionally loaded delivery. The edges of words, the tails of consonants, the roundness of vowels, the elongation of a vibrational sound that access one or all of the ‘Four P’s’ (Pitch, Power, Pace, and Placement’), can act like small subplots inside the larger narrative.
Letters can hold emotional life if we allow them the space. I encourage actors to notice the words that hit us in the gut, the words that paint images, the sounds that give a visceral sense of truth. Every word was chosen by the playwright for a reason, so we dig in and discover how much power each one holds from moment to moment.
Words have flavor. They have color. They have the power to transform, inspire, destroy, lift, or ground. I believe the actor and the coach/instructor must work together to locate those words and understand how they connect to the character’s inner life and the shared world of the stage. Words can rise from different parts of the actor’s physical instrument, always connected to breath.
Breath gives life, and life is full of stories waiting to be voiced through the actor’s instrument; serving as the story’s vessel.
Approaches to Mind, Breath, Body, and Voice
The mind informs the voice.
The voice follows the body.
The body follows the voice.
First: The actor must release physical tension. Become a blank vessel for the text and the story.
Second: Breath support is everything. When the actor breathes in the thought and exhales the sound that shapes the words, communicating need, desire, struggle, intention, the voice can travel clearly to its destination. This allows new, unexpected moments to appear. Thinking and speaking on the line, through breath, keeps the actor honest and open.
Third: Physicality matters. Supported, resonant, open sound depends on a grounded, connected body. Ground yourself in the space and let the text rise through you. Disconnected physicality often creates disconnected text. Economy of movement and specific gesture require freedom from tension.
Fourth: Because emotions are not playable actions, I encourage actors to play actions, moments, and the text with clarity of voice and definitive sounds for clarity and specificity. This allows the emotional life to surface on its own without forcing anything. The needed vocal expression will reveal itself without premeditation.
Fifth: Aristotle lays out five components of action that I also believe can be applied to vocal and textual expression:
Astonishment – an impulse or trigger strong enough to shift you from where you were to someplace new.
Philosophize – reflect on what you’ve experienced.
Evaluate – argue with yourself about what it means.
Decide – gather everything you discovered to choose what must happen next.
Astonishment – new impulses and triggers arise after the cycle completes.