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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
The characters of TWELFTH NIGHT
Notes for Americans performing ANY British plays
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Oh come on ! This is supposed to be one of the best comedies ever written, but - if we are honest - it gets few really big laughs from modern audiences. So . . . well - something must be going wrong.
Either the play means little to modern audiences, - or - actors don’t know how to perform it any more !
The second answer is the truth - and it’s because modern actors rarely know how to realistically act ‘upper class’, (even modern-day UK actors), and it is useful for all actors to know how to perform these ‘classy’ characters as they also appear in many other plays, films and tv series. So how can American actors play British upper-class?
British upper-class people don’t simply have a funny accent. They are real people with genuine feelings of love, fear, loneliness, loss, pride and greed, like characters in any American play or film.
But there is one big difference between this British ‘upper-class’ and the ‘High Society’ which exists in America. The difference is that the upper-class which exists in America is made up of people who have power because they are rich, so it is possible for them to lose their power if they lose their money. But British aristocrats can never lose their power because they have ‘titles’ which never disappear. - If a ‘Lord’ or a ‘Duchess’ ever loses their money they still have their ‘title’, so there will be millionaires queuing up to marry them to inherit the ‘title’ for their children! (- most titles being inherited.)
This means that being a ‘Lord’ is better than winning the lottery, it is like winning the lottery every day! And - even better than that - people who have a ‘title’ know that their own children will carry on winning this ‘lottery’ after they themselves die! Their valuable ‘titles’ of being a Lord, or a Duke or a Prince will stay in their family for ever.
So titled people can have a confidence greater than even American billionaires. And if some ‘Countess’ or ‘Baron’ does suddenly need extra money there are companies willing to pay them millions just to have that ‘titled’ person’s name listed on their board of directors, - and the Countess or Baron may not have to do any work for this money! They just need to have a title.
So the British upper-classes are very confident indeed.
If Americans think that having a title is ridiculous and out-dated, then they need to understand that these upper-class Brits cannot change. If the British Royal Family and others gave up their ‘titles’ it would throw the thousands whom they employ out of work. In fact the British Tourist industry would probably collapse, because most tourists visit London to see Buckingham Palace where the ‘Royal Family’ live.
So these ‘aristocrats’ have confidence in themselves, not in money. And before exploring how American actors can ‘act’ this, let us examine the comedy of these characters. Why, in fact, do we find these upper-class British so amusing? It is not just when - as in Monty Python, for example - they are exaggerated, for there must be something ‘realistic’ in them which makes us laugh. And the answer - which applies to the characters in this play and many others - is that these characters may have the confidence of giants, but they can have intelligence of flies. They have power, and may even run the UK government, but they may know very little about ‘real life’!
Of course there are some highly intelligent Dukes and Duchesses, but not in comedies, and let us look at how the characters in this play actually live. The stage-directions which start the play show this clearly : -
Scene: A morning room in Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street.
A piano is heard from an adjoining room.
The “flat”, (‘apartment’ of course,) is in Half Moon Street, a street which still exists round the corner from Buckingham Palace. It is therefore close to where the Queen lives now, and to where Queen Victoria lived at the time of this play. The surrounding houses are -and always have been - owned by Lords, Bishops and even exiled Kings and Queens from other countries. It is like a mafia of the upper-class, with a real King or a Queen as the godfather.
The apartment would sell for fifteen million dollars today, because of its location, so when American actors perform this play on what may seem to be a very simple set, they should remember that their characters are living in the luxury of a top A-list film- star.
The second stage-direction (above) states that “a piano is heard” from another room. This means there must be a second sitting-room because a piano would not be in a bedroom. So this apartment must be quite large, and may have more rooms in the basement where a butler and other servants live. This would add even more millions to the value of the property. It is like owning a building round the corner from the White House. The picture shown above gives some idea of how the living-room would have been looked.
Now let us now examine the characters of the play.
LADY BRACKNELL:
The contrast between her huge confidence and her lack of intelligence is shown in every line that she speaks. Unfortunately this role has become a kind of ‘comic turn’ for some actresses, who often play her as a kind of dragon-lady, droning every line in the same pompous note, and relying on a British accent to get a few small laughs.
Another problem comes from the modern practice of her sometimes being played by a male actor. This robs Lady Bracknell of her most important characteristic: that she is a mother. She is a terrible mother, but she thinks she is the best one in the world! She is powerful and, in her own way, loving. She just knows very little about real life.
There are two ways in which her lines can be understood. One is that her humorous remarks are deliberate, the other is that they are accidental. It is much funnier if she has no idea of what she is saying. To show both ways let us examine the following lines. She is here interviewing JACK to help her decide if he will be a suitable husband for her daughter, and she asks him:
LADY BRACKNELL: Do you smoke?
JACK: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.
LADY BRACKNELL: I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.
It may seem as if she is being deliberately sarcastic, mocking men for having no better occupation than smoking. But such a remark is not very amusing, and can only raise a small laugh from an audience. But the real point of the line is not that she might be clever, for she is in fact being rude and silly. She is not capable of being deliberately funny about men because she knows nothing about them! Even her husband spends his time in an upstairs room of the house. She does not like any men much, and cannot even remember the name of her brother at the end of the play. She has probably forgotten the night with her husband when she conceived her daughter, an event which her husband may never have repeated! She has next to no knowledge of men, and what makes her lines amusing is that she thinks she is an expert about them! She is extremely pleased when she hears that Jack smokes because she imagines this may be a sign of talent, so that he would be a fantastic husband for her daughter. She is delighted to learn he can smoke - because she has no idea that men can do anything else!
Her ignorance is logical. She has few - if any - male friends, and those whom she has do no actual jobs. The ‘Lords’ whom she meets may be important politicians, but she no idea whatsoever of what that involves. When she expresses an opinion it is probably because she has overheard somebody else say it. She has social importance but no intelligence, she is confident but she is blind. All that matters to her in the whole, wide world - is that her daughter marries the ‘right’ man. And that means the one whom she thinks is is the right one!
Another example of Lady Bracknell’s empty-headedness comes when her daughter tells her that she has become engaged. Lady Bracknell replies “You will be informed when you are engaged,” and some actresses misunderstand the humor involved. Many say this line with a note of cruelty, like a headmistress of a school threatening a child. But Lady Bracknell, in her own strange way, loves her daughter, and simply thinks her daughter has made a mistake! Lady Bracknell thinks her daughter has just forgotten the ‘rule’ that a mother decides when and to whom a daughter gets engaged! And Lady Bracknell is not seriously worried, for she is sure that her daughter, Gwendolen, will terminate the engagement now that she has been reminded of the ‘rule’. So the scene is of some importance, showing an innocent girl not being allowed to marry the man she adores. What makes it humorous and absurd and ridiculous and funny is that Lady Bracknell has no clue that her daughter is serious. Lady Bracknell thinks the whole scene is about her daughter being absent-minded.
Lady Bracknell has the confidence of Malvolio, with the authority of a general, the clarity of a Shakespearean actor, and the wealth of Donald Trump, - but the brain of fly.
There is one more element involved here, which I confess holds little interest for most modern audiences, but which I should mention because some think is vital to an understanding of Oscar Wilde. It is that Wilde was an ‘aesthete’, - to have appreciated art for no other reason than that is was beautiful. It did not need to be intelligent or clever, and - for example - poetry and music did not need to help people be ‘better’, it simply needed to be beautiful. As an example, the music of Mozart does not need to be ‘understood’ and it does not have to make people ‘better’, - it is simple beauty.Similarly, in this play, Wilde has created some brief conversations whose logic seems elusive, but which simply ‘sound’ beautiful. Personally I think all of Wilde’s lines can be explained and fully understood, but I admit that there is a kind of frivolousness in his characters, and some actors may find it helpful to be aware of this ‘aesthetism’ - even if I myself believe the word is often just a sign that people have not understood Wilde’s lines.
Notes on two characters in HAMLET
These very brief notes on OPHELIA and HORATIO are to encourage actors to make their own discoveries about other Shakespearean characters.
OPHELIA: The name ‘Ophelia’ means ‘help’. She never gets any. By the end of the play she has lost her mind. She commits suicide like Romeo’s lover, Juliet.
Ophelia may seem the sanest person in this play at first. She may seem an angel. She listens politely to her father’s insults, she is patient when her brother is insensitive, and she loves Hamlet without concern for her own safety. The play is called a ‘tragedy’ not only because Hamlet dies, but because Ophelia does. She should have had a happy life, married a future king, lived in the King’s castle, with a successful father. And in fact she would have been content living in a simple home like the one shown here, (- sorry - it’s disappeared from the site, I’ll get it back here soon !! - ), believed to have been Shakespeare’s own in Stratford.
It is little exaggeration to call her a saint. Her brother and Hamlet both leap into her grave at her funeral! ‘Love’ is a word rarely used in modern times in the way Ophelia feels it, for her love lasts for ever. Like Juliet, she cannot bear to live when she believes that her soul-mate is dead.
Her death, like Cordelia’s in King Lear, happens offstage, because we do not need to see her die to believe it has happened. We always feared it wold be part of the play.
But Ophelia is not a quiet victim, for every line she speaks (and every line she hears) has variety and depth. It is tempting to think there is something tragic about her from the start, but at the start she has hope and she has love.
HORATIO: - Hamlet calls Horatio his “best friend”. He is the ‘brother’ any of us would love. Even when Hamlet fails to recognize him, after they have been apart for a year, Horatio is accepting, trusting and supportive.
When Hamlet calls him “the best of men”, Horatio quietly responds -
HORATIO: Oh my Lord.
He asks for nothing from Hamlet, nor from anyone else. He accepts anything that Hamlet tells him. He is that slightly strange figure -“a quiet man”. He agrees to join Hamlet’s scheme to catch Claudius with a ‘play’, never worrying about his own safety. He accepts Hamlet’s right to send Rozencrantz and Guidenstern to their deaths without question. When Hamlet shows concern about having a duel with Laertes, Horatio asks him not to fight, but, when Hamlet tells him not to worry, Horatio instantly gives in
.
When Horatio meets the gravediggers he does not interrupt Hamlet’s fun. Some actors imagine Horatio has an unexpressed homosexual love for Hamlet, but very close friendship between males was more common in Shakespeare’s day than in some countries today.
Horatio may be what Hamlet would like to be.
Horatio gives us what may be the only moment of comfort in the play, when, in the final minutes of the play, Hamlet lies dying, Horatio nurses his head in his arms. He is truly his best friend. Friendship for him is not a part of life, it is life itself.
Please remember I write these brief notes to show how easy it can be to find elements about other characters. There are long days and nights of further thoughts one could give to these glorious people. These notes are meant only to be a useful start.
Notes on three villains in King Lear
If a character feels ‘right’ for an actor, if it seems ‘easy’ to play, then the actor may only need to follow instincts to make the character realistic. But long and hard study is usually needed with Shakespeare’s characters, - very long and very hard - their stories and depths being often difficult to explore even with several weeks of rehearsal. The questions which need to be asked about roles role are not always clear, and the demands of the text and the emotional understanding of situations has proved too much for the most famous of actors at times! One thing that actors certainly need, whether they are hugely experienced or new and rather scared, is conversation about their character with other actors, or with friends, hopefully with the director, and possibly with an acting coach, (I certainly don’t mean you should come to me, you just need a coach whom you truly talk with. ) - Actors should certainly not work on Shakespeare roles on their own.
The three villains in this plays are good examples of roles which need a lot of discussion. EDMUND, REGAN and GONERIL can only be realistic if they do not seem to be villains at all. In fact - the more decent they can appear to be the more their actual lines make sense.
The actor playing Edmund must not make it obvious that the character he is playing is psychotic. Like the seemingly normal serial killer ‘J. Bundy’ it must be clear that Edmund himself does not believe he is in the slightest bit evil. He has good reason for everything he does, and as his private soliloquies to the audience show his inner secrets, the actor does not need to make his evil apparent at any other point.
If Edmund seems dislikeable or dishonest to the audience then they will think that characters around him are idiotic for not noticing! The audience is only able to spot the ‘darkness’ in Edmund because they hear him express his private thoughts. To the other characters he must appear to be vulnerable, decent and completely genuine!
Of course many actors will try to guess what cause there may be for Edmund’s cruelty and cheating, but it is important to realize that he may have very good reasons for being the way that he is.
REGAN and GONERIL, King Lear’s two older daughters, are also often performed as very obviously evil. They may even seem like the ugly step-sisters in ‘Cinderella’! But there is nothing in the lines to suggest this duplicity. The actresses playing them are making a huge mistake if they show the slightest unkindness in their voices or expressions. The two should sound as gentle and sweet as Cordelia. This makes their subsequent behaviour more shocking, whereas if Regan’s dishonesty is clear from the start then Lear appears stupid for not noticing and the youngest sister seems ridiculous for not challenging them. Lear must be astonished when he realizes his two elder daughters’ cruelty. Lear is totally deceived by two daughters who are - in their own way - extremely good actors!
Frighteningly, - but wonderfully - they can seem genuinely loving when they first speak to their father. The third sister, Cordelia, may even sound unkind when she is unable to play up to her father’s nervous needs.
They may have a hidden sadism, which - like the extremities throughout Shakespeare - (as described in the video on this site “The most important thing about Shakespeare”) - is not easy for an actor to find. Actors and actresses may need to tear their hearts apart to understand the cruelty involved, but it only shows itself for the briefest of moments.
The comedies of Noël Coward may not seem very deep, but beneath the apparent frivolousness there is a brilliance which rivals the great comedy-playwrights of history. There is a depth behind each line, - in fact behind each word - which need to be understood for the plays to shine as they should. Modern audiences often view Coward as no rival of Stoppard and Sheridan, but he is their equal if not their superior.
The depth behind each play is too complex to examine fully here, but the following short scene from HAYFEVER shows the detail to be found in his simplest lines. This short scene may seem to show only a housekeeper coming into a room and opening the front-door for some guests to enter, but each phrase is the brick of a masterpiece.
The situation looks simple. Judith Bliss is sitting at home with her teenage son and daughter. They are expecting four guests to arrive, and the doorbell has just rung. But before the housekeeper, Clara, even enters to answer the doorbell, there is already trouble in the air. Nobody has told the housekeeper that four guests are coming, until she has entered and is about to pass Judith, her employer, on her way to open the front door. Judith tells says suddenly:
JUDITH: Clara - before you open the door, - we shall be eight for dinner.
CLARA: My God!
SIMON: (Judith’s son) And for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner tomorrow.
JUDITH: Will you get various rooms ready?
CLARA: I shall have to.
SOREL: (Judith’s daughter) Now we’ve upset Clara!
JUDITH: It can’t be helped - nothing can be helped. It’s Fate. Everything that happens is fate. That’s always been a great comfort for me.
CLARA: More like arrant selfishness.
JUDITH: You mustn’t be pert, Clara.
CLARA: Pert I may be, but I ‘ave got some thought for others. Eight for dinner - Amy going home early! It’s nothing more or less than an imposition.
(Doorbell rings again)
SIMON: Hadn’t you better let them in?
These ten lines appear to be no more than a small row, but every word is a sign of how selfish the characters are - the mother, the children, the guests, the father and the housekeeper as well - everybody in the room is thinks they are the most important one there! . . . . . . . .
Judith, the mother, was once a successful actress, and usually speaks with a note of drama in her voice. But if she is played as too much of a diva the audience may dislike her, which will stop them from finding her funny, (and this is a comedy - ! - ) . . . but the audience knows that she secretly lacks self-confidence, because they have heard before that she fears her career as an actress is over, because of her age, so nobody takes her arrogance seriously.
Judith has a good reason for not telling Clara, the housekeeper - until now - that four guests are about to arrive. She is only telling her because it is now too late to turn the guests away!
There is also a special tone of voice used between Judith and her housekeeper, which makes their bad temper less serious. They are openly rude to each other, unlike most employers and servants,because they have an unusual history together. Clara has been Judith’s ‘dresser’ throughout her long career as an actress, making them more like ‘stage-sisters’ than housekeeper and boss.
This gives Clara the right to take charge sometimes. She has every right to feel angry. The girl who sometimes helps her in the kitchen has a cold and has not come to work, so Clara already knows she has to cook dinner for the family on her own before being told now that four guests are arriving. She is further irritated because Judith and her son and daughter could have answered the door by themselves. She feels - like the housekeeper in the tv series Two and a Half Men - that she has earned the right to speak her mind.
But these two senior women are not the only ones wanting to be in charge. Judith’s innocent-looking son, Simon, makes the mood worse by explaining that not only are four guests arriving but that they are staying for the whole weekend. He does not mean to upset Clara, but thinks he is clever to give all of the bad news in one go. He also feels in charge because he is the only male in the room.
So three people in the room are each trying to take charge. Clara, the housekeeper, out-ranks Simon because of her age, and Judith, anticipating an explosion from her, tries to take charge again herself, quickly asking Clara “Will you get various rooms ready?” - casually slipping in the word ”various” as if the actual number of guests was irrelevant, but manages only to make the conversation more awkward.
Clara, tries to take charge again, rebuking Judith, saying “I shall have to – they can’t sleep in the passage”, making it clear that this is not the first time the family has treated her this way, and that without her the guests would indeed be sleeping on the hallway floor. But mother, son and daughter continue smiling, as if everything were normal.
Now the daughter of the family, Sorel, takes the chance to be in charge by criticizing her mother’s bad manners, saying “Now we’ve upset Clara!”, speaking as if Clara were no longer present, or unable to speak up for herself.
This selfish wish to be in charge is important, for the four of them do not want to go to any trouble for the guests. Judith tries to distract everyone’s attention by slipping into a dramatic speech from a play she has performed in the past, hoping the desperate words will calm everyone down: “It can’t be helped – nothing can be helped. It’s Fate. Everything that happens is Fate. That’s always been a great comfort to me.”
The audience should believe, for a few seconds, that Judith is genuinely upset about the ‘cruelty of Fate’. It is only when the audience notices her children pay no attention that the audience should guess that their mother is ‘putting on an act’ from one of her plays. If Judith’s lines do not seem completely genuine, (if the actress playing her says them in a too exaggerated-actressy way,) then she may get a small laugh from the audience but will lose the audience’s interest when she continues to be ‘actressy’ all the time.
The housekeeper, Clara, who knows that Judith is putting on an act, responds pompously: “More like arrant selfishness,” because she is trying to take over the role of ‘Diva’ for herself.
And Judith does not object to Clara’s speaking her mind, but dislikes being upstaged. When she turns and says “You mustn’t be pert, Clara.” she is not telling Clara off for speaking, but criticizing the quality of the housekeeper’s Diva-performance!
When all of these details are played at a calm speed, the play is like a Rolls Royce engine.
Clara wants the last word, and says firmly: “Pert I may be, but I ‘ave got some thought for others. Eight for dinner – Amy going home early! It’s nothing more or less than an imposition”. Her protest sounds weak, for Clara cannot match the authority of Judith’s ‘professional act’, and sounds for a moment like a Cockney version of Mrs Malaprop*, for she has learned words like ‘imposition’ and ‘pert’ from Judith, and may not fully know what they mean.
Clara hovers for a tiny moment, trying think of a biting reply, but is interrupted by the doorbell.
*(The eccentric character from Sheridan’s play THE RIVALS.)
The doorbell gives Simon another chance to assert his ‘Lord-of-the-manor’ tone, by asking “Hadn’t you better let them in?”
Clara marches briskly to the front door, as if she had been going to anyway, not paying any attention to Simon’s request. Her concern is to get back to her kitchen, where she can take fuller charge, and she probably swings the door open abruptly to reveal the first guest, and may turn away allowing the door to close back on his or her face.
These brief lines establish the battling hierarchy of the family, building a tension before the first guest appears, reveal Judith Bliss as a diva, clarify that Clara is (in a way) her best friend, and make the audience feel sorry for the guests before they have even come onstage!
It is possible for the lines to be delivered calmly and casually, once they are understood, as the characters can pretend to be innocent of anything behind behind what they say. A family’s weekend journey to hell has begun.
The lines must be understood in this detail or Noel Coward’s plays will not be seen to have the depth of Chekhov, and to have much Chekhov’s misunderstood humour.
TWELFTH NIGHT
This is supposed to be Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, but rarely has audiences laughing loudly. Some say this is because the humor is ‘subtle’, but maybe the play needs to be better understood . . .
There are many parts of the play which do not need ‘understanding’ for they are not meant to be serious. Viola, for example, does not worry much when her brother seems to have drowned! She asks briefly if he might have survived the shipwreck, but is more interested in meeting a man whom her father once mentioned whom she thinks lives nearby. And she makes no effort to get news to her father that she has survived the shipwreck. None of this can be serious. It is not a play about a selfish, man-obsessed girl, - it is simply a comedy!
Another example of the ridiculousness of the play comes at the end when Olivia decides to marry Viola’s brother after meeting him for only five seconds. She is not insane, or making a mistake, Shakespeare is simply showing that people just can behave very strangely in very unusual situations. Understanding the play requires a sense of humour!
OLIVIA’s own brother has died a year before the start of the play, but she is not simply ‘sad’, for she has over-reacted, staying in mourning for a whole year, refusing to see visitors, and wearing nothing but black. She is a disaster waiting to happen!
MALVOLIO is also not to be taken too seriously. He may seem cruel when he says in his first scene that Feste should be fired from his job, but nobody around him pays it any attention because Malvolio talks like a fool. Nothing he ever says matters very much to anyone. His pomposity does nobody real harm. Olivia, his employer, is too polite to fire him, and he does generally manage to do whatever she asks.
What is needed is actors who are real comedians, who see that death can be a part of love, that torture may be no more than horse-play, that despair is a part of loneliness, and that opportunism is a battle with fate.
When Olivia, just once, accepts a male visitor, he is, of course, a woman dressed as a man! This may seem unlikely, but the scene is truthful and realistic. She is genuinely frustrated, and jealous, and hopeful.
At the end of the play, Malvolio may seem seriously tragic, having been teased until he shouts his final line, -“I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” But this is not the ‘dark’ ending to the play some people imagine it to be. Yes, Malvolio has been ridiculed by all those around him, and failed to marry his employer, but his last line is only an example of his huge, pompous confidence, his conviction that everything he says must be right, that he will - somehow - be revenged on them all! However he will have forgotten about the bad treatment, and his plans for revenge, minutes after his exit, for he loves himself too much to be sad for very long.
Malvolio’s stupidity is a blueprint for a comedian. It is deep. It is extreme. When he realizes that the letter ‘M’ on an envelope might be the start of his name he reacts as if his brain is equal to Sherlock Holmes or Einstein! He is not in ecstasy because he thinks he has found a love-letter, but because he thinks he is smart! He has remembered that his name begins with ‘M’! He thinks he deserves a Nobel prize. If he had believed the letter was meant for him beforehand he would have torn it open at once and read it already. The comedy lies in the fact that he only vaguely guesses the letter MIGHT be for him. He has remembered how to spell his own name!
FESTE, the clown, can often seem the least amusing character in the play, but he is a professional clown, a genuine comedian, and his lines must be put under a microscope if an actor can’t see it at first. Feste switches between different ‘characters’ in the middle of the briefest lines. When Olivia tells her servants to “take the fool away” , pointing at Feste, he responds with “Do you not hear - take away the lady” - and his remark might seem more rude than amusing, but Feste is pretending to be silly, pretending to believe that this is what Olivia meant, possibly mimicking Olivia’s father, or speaking in a pompous tone exactly like Malvolio, but must definitely not seem to be insulting Olivia. He is brilliantly managing to amuse her. Actors who do not think Feste is funny are only actors who do not ‘get’ his jokes!
SIR TOBY must be ‘likable’, not a mere fool t be laughed at. If he is just a loud alcoholic he can be boring for his scenes are all similar. But Sir Toby loves life, and drinks only for fun - not to overcome a serious problem. He is lovable, and means no serous harm when he teases money from his friend Sir Andrew, and Toby’s love for Maria is genuine. He is unaware of how perfect she is for him until the end of the play, but unless he is likable, Sir Toby is a problem character, and not a true part of a comedy.
SIR ANDREW, one of the finest small roles in Shakespeare, is vulnerable and needy, but he is both in the extreme! He hardly knows what the word love really means, is barely noticed by Olivia, and is too hopelessly foolish for an audience to take seriously. He has no genuine love for Olivia, for he forgets her in an instant when Sir Toby suggests he might look at Maria instead. He is a thin , shiny blade of straw, blowing in the wind.
The duel scene confirms how pathetic he is, although the opponent is equally terrified of him. The humour behind his loneliness comes because he has an attention span of less than a minute, and within seconds of any bad luck happening has forgotten about it. If he were to marry, just possibly attracting a woman - because of his ‘title’ of being SIR Andrew - he would have no clue what to do with his wife. We love him because he trusts everyone and is obviously basically kind, and is therefore invariably happy!
General notes for Americans performing British plays and worrying about the ‘accent’. . .
When American actors try to perform any British play, whether it be Stoppard or Pinter, Agatha Christie or Ayckbourn, Shaw or Wilde, - (of course these last two were Irish but they wrote about England) - it may help to watch the first of my three videos about a British accent. They can be seen on this website’s Free Videos page, and they explain to some extent how it ‘feels’ to be a Brit.
But if actors are conscious of their British accent while they say every line - it will be boring (anything done all the time is boring). They risk saying every line in the same ‘tone’.
Absolutely perfect accents are far less important than what a character says and feels and needs. And obviously an actor has to make a British accent part of a real person. When I myself play American roles, even if my accent was perfect I hope you would not care if my character was not convincing! If, on the the other hand, I play an American character with emotional truth, then my accent will hardly be noticed. So American actors in British plays need to concentrate on being ‘real’ , on understanding what a character is truly about, his or her hopes, what is hidden and what is revealed. A perfect British accent on its own means nothing.
A FEW NOTES ABOUT SHAKESPEARE’S VERSE
The rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse can show us what the lines mean.
Here are two examples:
When Hamlet is asked by his mother and Claudius to stay at home, and not to go to university, he replies:
“I shall in all my best obey you, Madam”
- the ‘beat’ of the line is simple: -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ -
I SHALL in ALL my BEST obEY you, MAdam”
- but some actors think they should emphasize the word “you” - so that it said as :
“I shall in all my best obey YOU Madam”
- and by doing so suggest that Hamlet only obeys “YOU” - his mother, the ‘Madam’ of the line, and not his new father. This might seem sensible, as Hamlet hates Claudius, and is only staying because his Mother has asked him to. But this is not what the line means, for if Hamlet shows he is not obeying his Father then his father would notice get angry, but Claudius says “It is a fair reply”, as if Hamlet has politely agreed to obey both of them, him and his Mother. Hamlet may want to be rude to his new father, but he cannot stand up for himself, and cannot make his feelings obvious. He has made his feelings clear by saying “you madam” - he does not need to risk emphasizing the word ‘you’ . The verse proves that Shakespeare meant Hamlet to seem polite.
Another example of verse showing what a line means comes when Polonius asks his daughter, Ophelia, what she thinks about Hamlet, and Ophelia replies:
“I do not know my Lord what I should think”
and the beat of the line is clear: -/ -/ -/ -/ -/
I DO not KNOW my LORD what I should THINK“
- but some actors prefer to emphasize the word “what” - like this :
“I do not know my Lord WHAT I should think”
which is not following the verse, and makes it sound as if Ophelia does not know ‘what‘ her opinion is, and needs to be told what to think by her father. But by sticking to the verse, - and NOT hitting the word ‘what’ , but hitting the word ‘THINK’- as Shakespeare clearly intends, we see that the poor girl does not even know what she should “THINK“! It makes clear from this early line that she is already afraid of what she might want, a fact which leads to her death. By understanding this line we may even notice the start of her sad path to suicide.
NOISES OFF - a British farce about life backstage!
NOISES OFF is a ‘very British’ comedy, often produced in the USA, and includes elements which may help Americans perform other British comedies.
As in many American comedies most of the characters are ‘innocent’ people, who are simply ‘laughable’, meaning that it is easy to laugh ‘at’ them. The play deals with various sexual misunderstandings, and some Americans think of Brits as being up-tight about sex, but they should remember that bands like Oasis, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and the Sex Pistols and the Rolling Stones are all British, and realize that Brits are as wild as any Americans when it comes to sex. Or - in short - that characters in British plays are three dimensional!
But there is a special ‘innocence’ about the characters in some British plays, which Americans mistakenly think is a sign of them being ‘reserved’ or having a ‘stiff upper-lip’, yet the basic characteristic of these British characters is that they are simply, extremely polite! As one example, in this play, as in many other British farces, at one point a male character finds his trousers falling down. This always happens to the shyest male in the play, perhaps to a vicar, and always in front of somebody which makes the loss of trousers more embarrassing. He is also now seen to be wearing ill-chosen, bright underwear, making his near-nudity more ridiculous. The comedy of this lies in the fact that there is a small number of very old-fashioned British ‘gentlemen’ who are scared about anything to do with sex, as if to eclipse the fact that England is the birthplace of Punk.
When Michael Douglas’s trousers fall to his ankles in the film FATAL ATTRACTION, forcing him to waddle across the floor like a penguin towards the inviting arms of Glen Close, Michael’s clinging trousers impede his steps like leg-irons, losing him all of his dignity when he and Glen are about to make love. But in this British farce no actual sex is likely to happen, (this is not like the wicked comedies of modern British writers like Joe Orton), and at least one of the male characters behaves like a shy, nervous teenager.
Philip in NOISES OFF has a good reason for removing his trousers. He has spilled super-glue all over his hands, causing a tax-demand to stick to one and a plate of sardines to the other. He has taken his wife’s advice and used a chemical cleaner to remove the adhesive, but found that the chemical is burning through his trousers. However he is not worried about possible chemical castration, but concerned about looking undignified - even to his wife. He politely tells her that the chemical is not helping, waving his hands still stuck with a plate of flapping sardines in one hand and the letter from the Tax Office in the other. He is careful to call his wife “Darling” several times before gently inquiring if she has any alternative to the chemical, even though it seems about to ruin his manhood. His aim is not so much to stop it burning into him, as to stop his wife from thinking that he has done anything stupid.
In an American farce he would scream, rip off his trousers, and throw himself in a swimming-pool. But British comedies are more about self-control, - about keeping up appearances.
Another difference between much British and USA comedy is that Americans do not have British “stiff upper-lips”. Even though it may sound similar - Americans have ‘gritted teeth’ . . . .
To give a dramatic example, we can easily imagine Clint Eastwood in a war film “gritting his teeth” if he has been shot. He grits his teeth in order to hide his pain, and insists that doctors look after his wounded comrades before himself. But his ‘gritted teeth’ show his bravery as well as his pain. A British hero - like James Bond - is different, for he aims to hide his pain completely and appear completely calm. Like Clint Eastwood he also tells the doctors to look after his comrades before him, but not because he is brave, but because it is one of the ‘rules’ of being a gentleman. It is as if the need to be brave was set in a book of rules which had existed for the UK ruling-class for centuries. For British people it be ‘impolite’ to show that he is in pain!!
For those readers who do not know NOISES OFF, it is a play about a group of inexperienced actors trying to rehearse a play called “NOTHING ON”. They are rehearsing it very badly on its ‘set’ which is a living-room with several doors leading to other rooms. A flight of stairs leads up to a balcony where more doors lead to more rooms, and the number of doors makes it easy for the characters - and the actors playing them rather badly - to get lost!
The beauty of NOISES OFF is that - during the intermission - the entire ‘set’ of “Nothing On” is turned round, so that during the second half the audience can see all that is happening backstage.
Here, in this scene from the first act, a young man called ROGER is trying to get Vicki, a young local beauty, to go upstairs “to have some champagne”. She seems very willing because she is - what in less politically correct days we were allowed to call - a very ‘dumb blonde’, and she is certainly very innocent despite being extremely attractive. No sex will occur between Roger and Vicki, because this is an old-fashioned British farce, even though Vicki seems willing to go upstairs with Roger, whom she has just met. In fact she is just being polite in following him where he asks he to go, and he is showing her the whole house in order to impress her. He has told her that he owns the place, but in fact he is a realtor employed to rent the house out while its owners are abroad. Because of this he has no idea which of 9 doors leads to the bedroom, where he aims to lead VICKI, and here has mistakenly sent Vicki into a bathroom.
VICKI. (coming out of doorway) It’s another -
ROGER. No, no, no.
VICKI. Always trying to get me into bathrooms.
ROGER. I mean in here.
(He nods at the next door – the first along the gallery. VICKI leads the way in, ROGER follows.)
VICKI. Oh, black sheets!
ROGER. (Pulling her out) It’s the airing cupboard. This one, this one.
(He drops the bag he has been carrying, and struggles nervously to open the second door along the gallery, - the bedroom)
VICKI. Oh, you’re in a real state! You can’t even get the door open.
Vicki is not exactly a modern feminist. She wears a pink miniskirt, fluffy top, high heels, but her head is not as empty as might appear. It is true that she trusts Roger too easily, and is too easily impressed that this young man seems to own a huge house, but she is simply very good natured, and if by any chance she did end up in bed with Roger, he would probably be worn out by her energy in five minutes!
“NOTHING ON” (the play which this group of terrible actors is trying to rehearse) is full of awkward situations like the one above, but the character of ‘VICKY’ remains calm. When she calls out - “It’s another bathroom” - she is not complaining to Roger for making a mistake, she is excited and happy because she thinks that having two bathrooms is wonderful! Everything is going perfectly well in her view! She won’t seriously complain because it might sound impolite, and that is something avoided in most British comedies!
Roger’s desperate cry - “No, no, no!”- when he realizes he can’t find the bedroom, is not shouted in anger at Vicki. He is also desperate to stay calm and polite, and is only crying out at fate for being so unfair when Vicki seems willing to do whatever he asks! Whatever the situation everyone is expected to be ‘ well-mannered’. What concerns ROGER is that VICKY must not notice that he is going to pieces. He needs, like the characters in the Noel Coward play discussed above, to appear totally in charge!
There are other stereotypes in this play, even though their feelings must be acted realistically. BELINDA, Philip’s long-suffering wife - is almost identical the great role of Claire, the wife in Ayckbourn’s INTIMATE EXCHANGES, discussed below here. DOTTY, the patient and hard-working maid in NOISES OFF is like Clara in Coward’s HAY FEVER. LLOYD, the director of the ‘play’ being rehearsed in NOISES OFF assumes he is in charge all the time with the same blindness that Lady Bracknell has in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. POPPY, the young, vulnerable stage manager in NOISES OFF, is like the sweet,helpless Sandy in HAY FEVER .
The plays of ALAN AYCKBOURN
Alan Ayckbourn has had more plays produced in major theaters than any other writer in the world, including more than forty on Broadway and thirty in London’s West End. Yet many Americans hardly know his work, because his plays take place in what may seem to them a rather private British world.
His plays are mostly comedies, and often about married couples arguing! The speech below is an example which needs only a little study for American actors to grasp that it is not so different to the opinions of some irate Americans!
One special reason for the popularity of his plays is that he often plays a ‘trick’ on his audience which helps them enjoy a play before it even starts - !
The ‘trick’ in the play from which this next speech comes - INTIMATE EXCHANGES - is that there are four male and four female characters in it, BUT there is never more than one man and one woman onstage at the same time, and - AS A RESULT - it is possible for one actor to play all four men and one actress to play all four women, if they do dozens of quick costume changes!
But let us examine just one of these four men, - TOBY, the headmaster of a classy but small provincial school. - Here he has just been asked, by his long suffering wife, to explain why he keeps getting drunk!
He answers:
TOBY: Number one: I think the whole of life has become one long losing battle, all right? That’s the first reason I’m drinking. Number two: I find myself hemmed in by an increasing number of quite appalling people all flying under the flags of various breeds of socialism, all of whom so far as I can gather are hell-bent on courses of self-reward and self-remuneration that make the biggest capitalist look like Trotsky’s Aunt Mildred. Number three: on the other hand we have the rest of the country who don’t even have the decency to pretend that they’re doing it for the benefit of their fellow men.
He continues listing the people he dislikes, which is more or less everyone, with the possible exception of his wife! He mocks them all with the speed and arrogance of Christopher Hitchens, though not quite with Hitchens’s intelligence! From his opening two words - “Number One” – we know he will have a list of complaints, and that he expects his wife to remember them all, - his opinions on youth, cricket, foreigners, health, and anything ‘modern’! He is not really an unkind man, and is certainly not unfaithful to his wife, and he manages to hide much of his drinking, and unconsciously appreciates his wife for staying with him. It might even be said that they have a good marriage!
His sarcasm is understandable, but his impatience makes him ridiculous. He is a fool, but harmless. He is a verbal bully, but not capable of physical violence. The world of Ayckbourn’s characters is, in a word, comfortable. Arguing couples don’t actually get divorced, heavy drinkers don’t get seriously depressed, accidents don’t cause lasting injuries. It’s a wonderful life!
The plays of AGATHA CHRISTIE
Still performed all over the USA, the plots of her plays must not be taken very seriously, usually centered around an unlikely murder. The characters are innocent-looking, and the hunt to discover who is guilty never involves serious violence. It is the characters who make the plays watchable, and simply because they are so very, very unlikely to be involved in anything to do with a murder. All of them are real, they are not cartoon characters, but they are simple innocent people, - except for the murderer!
Audiences will not be exposed to bloodshed, nudity, rough language or even much shouting. Instead Agatha Christie shows the calm, simple, comfortable life which middle-class British people are imagined to lead by Americans, and which Brits themselves are amused to imagine.
Violence is different in British plays - until very recently. The UK has nearly always been a more peaceful country than the USA. British policemen rarely carry guns, very few British criminals do, and there is no death penalty. Public bars close at 11pm, making late evenings peaceful and the center of large towns peaceful at night. People eat at home more than they do in the USA, and many other aspects of life help to make England a gentle and calm place, of which Agatha Christie’s plays are a romantic snapshot. Healthcare is free, as is travel for people aged over 60, and politeness has been taught to them all from an early age - or was at the time when Agatha Christie was writing these plays!
British people are not as anxious to get rich as Americans, another reason for crime to be less serious, and while the horrors of modern life do sometimes appear in the UK, they do not do so in the plays of Agatha Christie.
Her characters are polite, naïve, probably church-going without being very serious about it, a little conservative (i.e. Republican), and have no wish for their world to change. The comfortable life of Agatha Christie’s characters is such that they can regard a murder as simply ‘not being their business’, and something which does no more than interrupt their nice game of cards!