tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post6446607809742756427..comments2024-01-07T06:59:04.212-05:00Comments on The Playgoer: Spoken Drama in the Age of the Body MicPlaygoerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02994724588504353485noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-20540084227505106002009-11-07T12:26:41.451-05:002009-11-07T12:26:41.451-05:00Thank you all for these scintillating comments. E...Thank you all for these scintillating comments. Especially from our expert sound designers. I'm learning a lot!<br /><br />To answer/echo a couple of points: Totally right that mic's have their place in the modern theatre, especially when used to deliberate effect as part of an overall stage & sound design. Transparency in the use of them helps assimilate them into the world of the event. (Even if that's the visible headset-mic's in Rent.)<br /><br />Good point about the Greeks. Yes, that's the theory about those masks. Still, I'd rather listen to an actor bellow through basically an acoustic megaphone than to an electronic recreation of the voice. <br /><br />Nick's caution against nostalgia for the art of projection is very, very well taken. There are those of course who believe ALL the problems in the theatre come from actors not knowing how to project any more, apparently. And excellent point, Nick, about the history of the theatre constantly evolving as technology and spaces change, throwing new challenges at the art of acting. The training and expectations for "vocal production" cannot simply stay stagnant as society changes.<br /><br />For instance, I have a hunch that in the early days of modern realism (late 19th/early 20th cent) there was a LOT more "cheating out" then we'd expect in such "realist" plays as Doll's House. It's really hard (no matter what your training) to play a dramatic scene in a 1000-seat house quietly, only facing your scene partner. So audiences probably didn't expect it. Only with the ascendancy of film & tv as new standards of realism should look and sound like did theatre acting begin to look "fake" by comparison. That, and the prevalence of "the method" discouraged cheating out, facing front, and all the other tricks actors used to "put over" naturalism in Broadway houses. And, lucky for them, the technology of mic-ing was right there to help them.<br /><br />Just a theory.<br /><br />On another note, I hope smaller black-box venues begin to capitalize more on their more intimate and UNamplified features. Call it, "theatre unplugged"??? "In your face?" (Oh yeah that's taken by the Brits)Playgoerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02994724588504353485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-69563297329210486082009-11-07T02:18:06.411-05:002009-11-07T02:18:06.411-05:00C.L.J. is right about good sound design vs. incomp...C.L.J. is right about good sound design vs. incompetent sound design - as a sound engineer and designer myself, I am caught up in this discussion on a daily basis. On the one side is CLJ's "good" or transparent sound - sound that is properly delayed and sourced to the actor using the principle known as the Haas effect - (look it up). It is truly convincing, so much so that we as engineers often get asked why we're not amplifying the actors - when we are. On the other hand is over-amplified sound that makes actors sound like they're breathing like walruses hanging from the giant center cluster in the grid. That's not helping anyone push the art forward. And there are gradients in between, and times when over-amplification is the aesthetic goal.<br /><br />The biggest question for me is sustainability. Both transparent and non-transparent sound have a problem - it's horrendously expensive to body mic people, and I'm worried that the format of the 1,000 seat theatre is getting less popular. I've seen shows easily spend around a half-million to a million dollars to get that sound right - and they need to hire one of the probably a couple dozen sound designers who can effectively design on that scale in a transparent way. I'm talking in the united states. How is that ever going to work?<br /><br />I wonder if the solution here isn't an embracing of theatricality. The audience often thinks they want loudness when they actually want clarity. I'm coming from an environment (Chicago) where our best selling theatre is in an increasing number of smaller and smaller houses. The intimacy helps clarity of both sound and performance, and not at a great expense. The quality of the experience improves.<br /><br />It's very true - the old methods of vocal projection were born out of necessity, required skill and craft, and we miss those things, and we shouldn't forget them. Nor should we mistake them for better days. Large houses and big voices engendered a style of acting that clearly communicated to the audience - but became outmoded as technology changed. Look at the difference in acting styles between the silent movie era and the talkies - huge differences brought on by a slight shift in technology. We're seeing that shift again as the technology has lept forward in the last ten years, but I think our response isn't as creative - we're somehow still pursuing the naturalistic realism of what - Miller? nah, that'd be fooling ourselves- when we could be using sound in the theater to further illuminate the human condition. And again, louder does not necessarily equal more illuminating.<br /><br />The question isn't how to hang on to old methodologies - it's how to embrace new capabilities in pursuit of a human truth.Nick Keenanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06616166732562821631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-12418091108784003302009-11-05T08:42:14.380-05:002009-11-05T08:42:14.380-05:00Great post. Fascinating topic. Disagree on one poi...Great post. Fascinating topic. Disagree on one point, though. My sense is that young folks don't find theater fake because of amplification. On the contrary, having grown up as we all have listening to so much acting through speakers in tvs and at movie theaters, we all expect a level of relaxed speech that is impossible in a 300-seat (let alone the 3,000-seat) house. People hate hearing people shout ... young people especially. <br /><br />Of course, I'm talking about so-called realistic theater primarily. But even when listening to Shakespeare, expectations are very different - and I have to say, guiltily, having rehearsed and directed a fair amount of Shakespeare, it's almost never as good or effective on stage as it is in the tiny rehearsal room ... <br /><br />Oh, and I completely agree that a good sound designer can render the entire discussion moot. Along with a lot of other Shakespeare lovers, I enjoyed last season's Winter's Tale at BAM ... you think there was no micing involved there?MinBKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-43654847940256423942009-11-04T18:54:02.296-05:002009-11-04T18:54:02.296-05:00No claim to the Greeks being "real" -- a...No claim to the Greeks being "real" -- and no intention to suggest that. Still, the history books say that the masks did amplify the actors so that the back rows of those big theaters, albeit with excellent acoustics, could hear their non-naturalistic poetry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-16120111710962605342009-11-04T18:18:08.789-05:002009-11-04T18:18:08.789-05:00A microphone bumped you out of the illusion? Not t...A <i>microphone</i> bumped you out of the illusion? Not the fact that every single piece of scenery is unreal? That it was performed under artificial lighting? In a climate controlled room full of people?<br /><br />"The willing suspension of disbelief." It's mandatory for theatre patrons, and should extend to artifacts such as microphones, too. It's not reality, and it's not supposed to be reality. It's a <i>play</i>, for gods' sake. <br /><br />The issue isn't "mics" versus "no mics." The real issue is "competent sound design" versus "incompetent sound design." There are very few competent sound designers, and a lot of pretenders who like to play with sound gear.<br /><br />If the sound design is properly executed, you should not be aware of speaker placement; it should sound like it's coming from the person speaking. And if it doesn't, it's not because microphones and a sound system were used, it's because microphones and a sound system were used very poorly.<br /><br />I say this as a classically trained actor who sneered at microphones until moving over to the production end, and seeing just what they can do, properly utilized.<br /><br />And anonymous? Those masks didn't amplify anything; they didn't need to. The Greeks were not performing in the naturalized style so popular in the last fifty years or so. Greek plays were delivered via highly affected speech, with the emphasis on words being heard and understood over sounding "realistic." They knew it wasn't real.C.L.J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01734352657431970430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-39655137883703931982009-11-03T22:56:59.255-05:002009-11-03T22:56:59.255-05:00uh, the Greek actors WERE amplified. Apparently th...uh, the Greek actors WERE amplified. Apparently there was some device in their masks.<br />But I hate mics in the theater, too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com