Monday, February 08, 1999
'Midsummer Night's' a dream for Festival
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Rocco Dal Vera leans forward, empathy oozing from every pore. His eyes crinkle in understanding as he looks deep into the eyes of a troubled actor.
“So which speech do you hate the most?” he asks. “What lines fill you with fear and dread?”
This isn't a therapy session. Mr. Dal Vera is a vocal coach.
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IF YOU GO
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• What: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through March 28.
• Where: Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, 719 Race St.
• Tickets: $13-$16; $10-$13 students and senior citizens.
• Information: 381-2273.
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He's in his first year on faculty at University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, and this season he's been consulting at Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival thanks to a grant from Fidelity Investments.
Using a lot of dramatic license, here's how a session might go:
Khris Lewin plays Puck, the mischievous sprite of A Midsummer Night's Dream, opening Thursday at the festival.
“Gee, doc,” Mr. Lewin might say. “This "Through the forest have I gone...' speech. It's plodding. It's rhymed couplets and it's hard to keep it from sounding like nursery rhymes.”
Ah-hah, responds the coach. “You're taking a muscular approach to the dialogue. Lighten it. Lean on the consonants, lighten the vowels. Trip lightly across the speech.” And then they'd check Mr. Lewin's movements as Puck, to make sure his vocal and physical choices match.
Mr. Dal Vera, 42, learned his vocal and dialect coaching craft at the Denver Center Theater Co., The program requires courses including socio-linguistics (lots of socio-linguistics), speech pathology, voice science, poetry, yoga, tai chi, movement, directing, acting, singing.
He started his life in the theater as a boy soprano and his career has included singing in Broadway road companies, dancing in a ballet, doing improv in Los Angeles and teaching at Wright State.
A vocal coach, says Mr. Lewin, is invaluable. “When you get tied up, there's one more person there to help untie the knot.”
A vocal coach, says director Drew Fracher, is invaluable when you're playing Shakespeare “in a sound-bite world.”
In America in the 1990s, Mr. Fracher observes, “A full sentence is a rarity. That's true in film, it's true in television.”
“We've fallen away from the notion that words are precious. Today, non-verbal communication is more powerful,” adds Mr. Dal Vera. He has his theories as to why. “Advertising and political speech,” he says. “They've made us deeply distrustful of language and words.”
So where does that leave language-driven Shakespeare and indeed the world of classic theater for contemporary American audiences not trained and not necessarily inclined to listen?
“Audiences won't listen unless you make them,” says Mr. Dal Vera.
So, director and coach agree, you find ways to make them.
“You play the verbs,” says Mr. Fracher. “"I know a bank where the wild thyme grows,'” he quotes. “It makes my ear more actively involved.”
You sweat the small stuff because nothing's too small not to make a difference, including punctuation.
Last week, Mr. Fracher and Mr. Dal Vera were pondering colons and semicolons. “Does it connote a pause,” ruminates Mr. Fracher, “is it the continuation of an old thought, or are we going on to a new thought?”
You don't let audiences know you're sweating the small stuff so you keep things moving. This Dream, says Mr. Fracher, will last a mere two hours.
The consulting services of a vocal coach are included in next year's budget and Mr. Dal Vera is delighted to be working with the festival.
“I like their approach. A lot of people treat Shakespeare as if it were delicate, fragile. Maybe it's because (the festival ensemble) all play multiple roles, but this company makes bold character and text choices.
“This company is ... not afraid to take chances.”
These are good times for Shakespeare, with the Bard doing big box office in movies like Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare in Love. A screen version of Dream (with Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Calista Flockhart and Rupert Everett among the ensemble) is waiting in the wings.
Audiences are more inclined than ever to give live Shakespeare a try, Mr. Dal Vera says. “And if we can get them in the door, we can get them.”
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