It's all about the voice...

Someone saw a preview of the performance of, “Blackout,” I’m directing at CAPA this week and commented on how engaging the voices of the actors were. She described them as haunting. She also wondered what it is I do that makes this a feature of the performances I direct as she noticed it in “I draw this circle,” and “Shooting Truth.” This made me contemplate if there is anything I do and this musing was compounded in our final rehearsals for the YTYT, “Blackout.” In our final run I noticed how so many of the voices really impressed the story upon the audience, they made me want to listen, they carried the importance of the story in the richness of their vocal quality, they made sure that I knew that it mattered, that it was important, that I needed to listen.

So then back to the question of what it is that I do as a director that facilitates this richness. After some consideration I have decided all I do is point out that as an actor your voice needs to be a focus and it occurs to me that the possibility that this might not be the case is ridiculous. I endeavour to consistently remind you to be aware of how you use this vital part of your self, I give you techniques and ideas as to how to develop your voice and I put it at the front of your head before a performance by insisting that you warm it up before you perform. The actual employment of all of these techniques and awareness is all down to you.

Voice work involves the development of an immensely complex system that takes in everything from posture to breathing to facial articulation to projection and all the bits in between and if you can harness this system the impact on your acting is immeasurable. Although the system is complex a lot of the actual techniques are relatively simple they just need the persistence and investment to do them often enough to make them pay off. Those that do what I demand in terms of vocal training in workshops and rehearsals can see the difference that investing in your voice makes. Its easy as an outside eye to identify the ones that have made this realisation and act upon it. So if this is something you still don’t give that much thought to I’ve just highlighted something you can do that will really improve your ability as an actor. The next step if you have ambitions to take acting really seriously is to take these foundations and start to build a regime of regular, self managed, individual voice training. If you think about the difference a little work makes consider the transformation that can occur if you really make an effort.