Listening in the Theater: A Mini-Ethnography of Love's Labors Lost at Ohio University

Daniel C. Dennis

School of Interdisciplinary Arts

Ohio University

For IART 751

Ethnography of Performance

Professor Marina Peterson

Spring 2010

This project interrogates the uses of sound, music, and voice in the theater.

This is a mini-ethnography and final project for Professor Marina Peterson’s Ethnography of Performance class, a graduate seminar in my home department, the School of Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University. I call it a “mini” ethnography because the quarter is only ten weeks long – too brief a time to complete the participant-observations, interviewing, analysis, and presentation of results in a satisfactory way. But the point of the course is to do the work and not simply to read about the work of other ethnographers. I expect that in the doing I may encounter new situations or come to see my object of study in a fresh and unexpected light. Although, I am writing for my professor and myself, throughout this essay I will contextualize the particularities of the class and the setting for a wider audience in hopes that at some point I may have readers the will require this context. Finally, as a researcher new to this method and as a scholar with a long-term commitment to pursuing the following questions, I recognize that this project is a work-in-progress.

My position here is an insider’s. I have been working in the theater, in contemporary, classic, and experimental plays, musical theater, and opera in the United States since 1995. I’ve been an actor, a director, a writer, a sound designer, a composer, a conductor, and a musician, as well as a participating audience member for many performances since then. What I have not been before is an ethnographer. The method is a new avenue of research for me. Perhaps by relying on the ears and understandings of other theater-goers and makers, I will be able to hear what I may have grown less sensitive to – the theater as more than its ancient Greek name implies, a “seeing place” – the theater as an event that “re-sounds” through our bodies and subjectivities.

I have lately been disturbed by a growing feeling that the sounds I create or experience when I go to the theater do certain things for which I have not previously accounted. What exactly do these sounds do? How is what they are doing different from what they are understood to do? I want to better understand the roles music and sound play in generating meaning in the theatrical event. I want to know how music and sound affects the audience’s engagement with the play or performance. Does music and sound change the experience of acting? How does music and sound signify, and how does it have an embodied effect in everyone experiencing the theatrical performance? What is the difference between the use of live and recorded sound? What about sounds with indeterminate sources? Overall, what is the experience of sound in the theater, and why and how do we use it?

These are the guiding questions of my research. My larger project seeks to theorize sound design in theatrical performance. (I think an even larger and more interesting question is what happens when we move outside of the theater. Do the ways in which sound generates meaning and effects change in the theater pertain to the world at large? What is the relation of sounds in the theater to those same sounds in everyday life? These questions will not be addressed here. I bring them up to note what I see as a very long-term trajectory.) By using ethnographic research, I seek to ground these questions in artistic practice. How are these questions being dealt with in production with performers, technicians, and audience members? Though I may not be able to definitively answer any of the theoretical questions with this project, I can see what practical choices were made and question the intentions behind them and the reception of them. By seeking answers in the varied experiences many people had with one theater production, this study acknowledges that people experiencing art together is the ground upon which my theoretical analysis will stand.

THE PROJECT

Ohio University’s School of Theater presented William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labors Lost (LLL) in the Radio/TV Building’s Forum Theater the first and second weeks in May 2010. Shelley Delaney, Associate Professor and Head of Acting in the School of Theater, directed the show – her first time directing Shakespeare. In March, when the academic quarter began, Shelley was just beginning rehearsal with actors and by then had been in meetings with designers for months. I had hoped to make the production my project for the ethnography seminar, and when I suggested it to Shelley, she immediately agreed to have me in the rehearsal room at any time. Throughout the process, she was extremely generous of her time, and I am grateful to her and her collaborators in the production for making this research possible.

As an attempt to focus my research questions and apply them to this production of LLL, my analysis here will address three basic questions:

· What is the difference between live and recorded sounds?

· How does music and sound affect the experience of acting?

· How does music and sound affect the audience’s understanding of and engagement with the performance?

Shelley and I first began discussing the show last autumn, and already at that time she was thinking of music, imagining a grand piano, center stage, with a player who would double as an actor in the show. Shelley knew that I had a particular interest in sound and music in what is often thought of as non-musical theater, and was interested in talking about the project. Rather than just one player, the musicians eventually numbered four. Shelley connected with Mike Evans, who had played music for a production of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage that had inaugurated the School of Theater’s 2009-10 season, and he agreed to compose a score for LLL. In performance, Mike played electric piano and accordion and was joined by an oboe player, a cellist, and a third musician, who played viola, violin, and trumpet for the show. For Shelley, it was particularly important that the music be performed live:

“I chose live music because I wanted a sense of spontaneous improvisation with the actors/characters… I wanted [the musicians] on stage because I believe that the play exists in a theatrical world – or at least that this production existed in a theatrical world – and I wanted to point out that this orchestra was integral to that world… I also didn't want to add an element that wasn't acknowledged.”

Shelley brings up three interesting points here. First, liveness seems to offer the potential for “spontaneous improvisation,” a moment in which neither the audience, nor the performers, are sure what will happen next. While this possibility is potentially dangerous or even destructive to the crafted artistic moment, it can be magnetic, pulling the audience’s attention toward the imagined theatrical event. In text-based, Western theater, especially in the canonical repertoire in which Shakespeare certainly resides, there is often a slavish worship of the author as the final arbiter of what is worthy of presentation on the stage. While Shakespeare does lend itself to wild re-imaginings and re-contextualizations, as evidenced by the work of directors such as Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Tadashi Suzuki, and others, spontaneous improvisation in conventional productions of Shakespeare is often relegated to clown scenes and, even then, to what can be squeezed between the lines of dialogue. If there is to be improvisation, it often occurs in rehearsal, where it is used as a technique for generating the “performance score.” Only rarely are audiences witness to actual improvisation, in which the performers really do not know what will happen next. Perhaps it is useful to draw a distinction between spontaneity and improvisation. While the latter may be most frequently used as a rehearsal technique in the conventional theater, the former is acknowledged as a goal for actors, an important aspect of the Meisner-based actor training of Ohio University's School of Theater, and the very thing that actors attempt to "show" to an audience. If they can appear to react spontaneously, their performances are often judged as "authentic." The theater event's supposed authenticity, measured by the yardstick of spontaneity, is the degree to which performers can make the audience believe the events of the performance are occurring for the first time - that they are, in effect, "real."

In tension with this understanding of authenticity, is Shelley's second point - the "theatrical" nature of the event. The presence of live musicians seems to heighten the inherent theatricality of the production. But what is this thing we call theatrical? Is the theatrical that which refers back to the actual setting or the occurrence of the theater, not the imagined events, but the theater as such? Is the theatrical a self-referential jab? Don't forget, you are in a theater, where anything can happen. Nothing here is "real." Shelley points out that the production "exists within a theatrical world." Perhaps the live aspect of the music - the fact that people on stage perform with their bodies in a time and space that is shared with witnesses - perhaps this creates an "authentic theatricality."

This brings us to Shelley's third point - she "didn't want to add an element that wasn't acknowledged." By acknowledging the pieces, the layers that comprise the moment onstage, by seeing live musicians on stage with actors, perhaps we are led to understand the theatrical as "authentic." A moment of Brechtian verfremsdungsefekt for the audience? Perhaps - but if so, one that privileges the theater event over everyday life by showing that the conventional theater - a complete fabrication - can be both "unreal" and "real" at the same time.

Before going further, I want to acknowledge that my use of the terms "authenticity" and "the real" are intended to highlight their problematic nature. My research found that these terms are used in different and sometimes conflicting ways to represent an experience of living (which includes the theater). In large part, my research questions intend to interrogate the notion of authenticity as we understand its aural constitution. But, in order to move forward into the details of my ethnographic research, I will assert that authenticity exists as neither one thing, nor as anything at all. This is a paradox, but one that anyone can experience simply by considering the differences between the body as the source of one's subjectivity and the social experience of living (Eagleton). What is commonly thought of as authentic is merely convention. And the conventional is precisely the problem of understanding what is going on in the theater.

Assistant Professor of Voice and Movement Brian Evans, who played the “fantastical Spaniard” Don Armado in the production, echoed Shelley’s words in an interview we shared. In an audio clip, which can be accessed by clicking on the following highlighted text, he describes the live aspect of theater or music as making the event “more special.”

What is it exactly that makes the live event more special than the not-live, the less-than-live event? "Special" is a very interesting choice of words. It gets at the "authentic" or the "real," without defining them. Brian is noting something about the live performance event that recognizes the paradox mentioned above.

For actors, the problem of being "real" on stage and the negotiations of style that take place when the actor moves from theater that is described as realism or naturalism to "stylized" theater, non-realism, or perhaps even musical theater (which is somehow a negotiation of realism and non-realism via music and dance), have everything to do with belief. Does the actor believe in what he or she is doing on stage? Does the audience believe the action taking place before them? It seems music and sound can be an aid to the challenge of belief - or, to use common theater-speak, the suspension of disbelief.

In my interview with Brian, he made the case that, because nearly all theater audiences are also film-going audiences, sound is essential to our understanding of what is believable in performance. But, he argued, the significance of sound comes not just from film, but, through film, from the Western theater that preceded it: melodrama. Even if we think of melodramatic acting simply as "bad," we seem to have inherited and largely accepted its aural vocabulary.

As Brian notes in the previous sound clip, the "dun, dun, dun" of the villain in melodrama is a sign. But what does the sign signify? Has this signal been repeated so many times that its meanings have accumulated to the point of confusion? This overdetermination is what we call a cliché, and, as Brian describes, the musical phrase used in this way can become "comedic commentary." Its meanings accumulate and are re-inscribed through reiteration. As it was used in the beginning of this production of LLL, the effect was light-hearted and parodic.

But if musical comments inserted within the dialogue as accents or punctuation are overdetermined, then what about underscoring? In the following sound clip, Brian draws a distinction between these two different kinds of music used in LLL. However, the difference between the two is less than clear. Brian calls the melodramatic musical comments and "announcement of character," especially of stock character types, a cliché. But, he implies that underscoring is not clichéd and goes on to note that underscoring works because "audiences are used to it and accept it." This familiarity and acceptance occurs through repetition.

Composer Mike Evans, currently a graduate student in history, also met with me to talk about his score and his experience of the show. We discussed the themes he used for the different characters and significant ideas in the show, musical motifs that he acknowledged were intended to be used over and over again. His theme for Don Armado was especially interesting regarding this discussion of the connotations that musical signs carry. In this audio file from our conversation, Mike notes two significant things: that he wasn't sure how Spanish he wanted it to sound and that his score was built on the repetition and manipulation of a few musical themes.

I believe this theme does sound Spanish, especially in comparison to the rest of the score. The open intervals of the fifth and the trills used in this theme remind me of the Spanish guitar music of Fernando Sor or guitar transcriptions of the piano music of Isaac Albéniz. The fact that it was played on the cello reminded me of an old vinyl 78 I listened to over and over as a kid - Andrés Segovia playing the Bach Cello Suites. Perhaps Segovia's emotional and dramatic style of playing is an appropriate place from which to explore the effects of this theme for the actor playing Armado. Though the performance of Armado's theme by cellist Colin Lambert was not in Segovia's late Romantic style, Brian Evans notes that the music heightened the passion that Don Armado embodies in the play.

If Armado's theme sounds Spanish, then it seems to be a particular kind of Spanish, a schooled, classical Spanish having little to do with Spanish folk music. It is a nostalgic, fantasy of Spain referring to a Don Quixote-like character who pines for his Dulcinella, or in this case, Jacquenetta. It was this fanciful connotation that led Mike Evans to choose the cello for Armado's theme. For him the connection was Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, which uses the cello.

Armado's representation as an "other" in the play is clear from his description as a "fantastical Spaniard." He is defined as much by his passionate declarations of love as he is by his waxed moustache. He is marked as different musically, visually, and behaviorally. (The entire play is a fantasy on a peculiarly male English need to resist passion and repress desire as long as possible. Armado does not share these particular neuroses.) The final marker of Armado's difference is his accent. This is a provocative issue because, though Armado is Spanish and wealthy, the sound that is chosen for Don Armado's speech is not Spanish but Mexican. As Brian explains, the choice of accent had to do with assumptions about how the audience would read the signs and understand Armado's function within the production.

Armado is made legible by differentiating him from Europe. Because he used a Mexican sound, the primarily rural or suburban, white, Southern Ohio audience may have associated Armado with a common American stereotype of the Mexican, the illegal immigrant. Though I do not think this reading is obvious or even easily articulable, nor do I believe there was a conscious effort to play a Mexican stereotype, I think the choice more easily puts Armado in the same category - the box marked "other" - as the lower class characters in the play, each of whom uses a humorous dialect that does not serve to make geographic sense, but only to clarify who is to be read as an "authentic" person with the ability to make choices and grow. Jacquenetta, the voluptuous dairy maid used a strong Southern Appalachian dialect. Dull, the police constable, spoke in a bland, somewhat benign cockney dialect. Costard, the clown, used a combination of playful verbal affectations that varied from a general Southern American to his French reading of the word "remuneration." These lower class characters were in contrast to the leading characters, the courts of Navarre (the men - the King, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville) and France (the women - the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, and Katherine). The actors playing these roles used what is referred to as "standard speech," shorthand for the respectable yet geographically unplaceable way of talking in the United States that best describes the speech used in the national media today.

I hope by now I have made clear that really listening to this production (and to any performance) was and is a very complex and difficult endeavor. When we use sound in theater, I think we often don't have a sense for how those sonic vibrations re-sound in our thoughts, memories, and imaginations. We hear things that we recognize, and we grab them in order to understand our experience, to make sense of things. This cognitive process was expressed by many students in my Introduction to the Arts course this quarter. I asked them to attend the production and to write a brief paper addressing the questions I'm exploring here. Many of them wrote that sounds were used to help the audience understand the story. They noted that sounds indicated time, location, and mood. It illustrated action, accented words, "portrayed emotions the audience was supposed to feel." One student wrote that recorded sounds were authentic and life-like, indicating a realistic sense of place. Another wrote that the music's purpose was "to make the audience less uncomfortable with transitions" between scenes. One confided that he appreciated the music because it made sitting for three hours bearable. Another wrote simply that it would have been odd without sound. In one very succinct statement of the sonic experience of theater, a student wrote that the sounds and music offered "something to hold on to." For many students, the language was difficult if not nearly impossible to follow. They sought anything to help them understand what was happening and to try to enjoy the experience.

Shelley recognized this play's intense focus on language and the role that music could play in re-directing the audience's attention toward the story. She wrote to me that:

"From the moment I started exploring the play in earnest, I understood that the characters were defined by their use of language, more so even than in other Shakespeare plays. I liked the idea that music could heighten and illuminate that notion. So a musical accent or underscore in a speech could help be a 'guide' or make a point, typically about character."

In the following audio clip, Brian describes the process that Shelley describes above in terms of his challenge as an actor. He found that Mike's music further accentuated the choices he had already made and helped him to believe in the reality of the moment on stage. Perhaps it allowed the audience to do the same.

Music guides the auditor in the theater, often helping to ensure that a specific meaning is communicated. Music aids the actor, as well as the audience member, toward a cogent and collective understanding. Just as language can have performative effects, so to can other means of communication. What is referred to as a cliché, is something that carries a definite and constraining meaning through the constant reiteration and citation of itself. Illustrating this point, Brian describes certain sounds used in performance as "signatures." As Derrida moved from the spoken performative to the written in "Signature Event Context," I wonder if we might find the performative at work outside of language in other forms of communication.

This case deserves more attention than I have time for now. So, I will let this suffice for the time being. But I do intend to return to my notes, recordings, and thoughts on this production of Love's Labors Lost and update this post in the future. I have discovered through this study and this quarter's seminar that ethnography is a very useful method of research for me - one that I intend to utilize in my dissertation. I believe the research assembled and sifted through here is a good model with which to begin working on other cases.

My field recordings, including many more than those linked above, are available on soundcloud.com under "intertext number nine."

Bibliography

Delaney, Shelley. "Re: Interview." Message to the author. 29 May 2010. E-mail.

Derrida, Jacques. "Signature Event Context." Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1988. 1-23.

Eagleton, Terry. “Self-Undoing Subjects.” Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present. Ed. Roy Porter. London: Routledge, 1996. 262-9.

Evans, Brian. Personal interview. 28 May 2010.

Evans, Mike. Personal interview. 27 May 2010.

Love's Labors Lost. By William Shakespeare. Dir. Shelley Delaney. Comp. Mike Evans. Perf. Brian Evans. Forum Theater, Radio/TV Building, Ohio University. 4 May 2010. Performance.

All text, images, and audio recordings are copyright 2010 Daniel C. Dennis.