This week at drama practice some of the students were struggling with accents for the One Act play we are rehearsing. The play is set in upstate New York in the early 1900’s, and many of the characters are immigrants. Though they are still working through the blocking and learning lines, many of the students are concerned about the accents that are called for. In response many of them began speaking in silly accents while they were rehearsing. Stereotypical accents of Sean Connery and the Monty Python boys crept into rehearsal. I think this was a way for the students to relieve the tension they felt about performing in accents that were not the comfortable British accent we have become accustomed to.
When I got home, I began reviewing the script. It has some very moving speeches in it. One in particular, is spoken by an Eastern European woman whose daughter is one of many who has died tragically in a factory fire. The speech of this character is different than any other speech in the play because the playwright breaks from the standard prose and writes a poem. The mother’s cries for justice become poetic in the last scenes. It is a beautifully written piece; however, when it is spoken, with just the right amount of emotion, it will bring tears to the audience. This speech, this poem might make or break the play. It all depends on performance.
Poetry. Drama. They are two stylistic choices writers may use in different ways; however, both forms have one thing in common. It all boils down to presentation. Dialect, meter, rhythm, rhyme all contribute to how these different types of literature are read. In silence, there is only the reader’s interpretation. The reader forms the meaning. In performance meaning is constructed from the actor’s point of view. The most beautiful words ever written can be turned upside down and inside out by a performance.
As teachers, I think it is our duty to not just have our students read poetry but to hear it spoken aloud. In our voice. In their voice. In another student’s voice. In voices unlike ones they are used to. They should be watching dramatic interpretations and clips of poems being read aloud. They should see a poetry reading. If we are able to expose them not just to the words, but to the performance of those words, then perhaps, we can truly begin facilitating their unique interpretations of the literature they are exposed to.
I agree. That is why you all must attend a poetry reading. Also, I usually have my classes memorize poems, both creative and critical classes dealing with poetry. It's the best way to get inside a poem very quickly, understand it more thoroughly. You live with it in your head, at least for a week. And, really, isn't having an O'Hara poem in your head much more fun than a MacDonald's jingle?
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