The
Next Frontier
By Janie Tamarkin, Harmony on the Sound Chorus, Region 1
The Place: A rehearsal hall
The Cast: The chorus, the director
The Scene: A month before contest.
“… But wrong or right tonight, just hold me tight —
I never meant to fall, didn’t want to fall in love.”
Director: It sounds good, but I need more real
emotion. Show us how you feel! Connect with the lyrics so we can
go beyond the footlights!
Singer #1: More? How do I make the song seem real
if it isn’t?
Singer #2: I’ve had relationships, but not
like this…
Singer #3: Never meant to fall in love? Only every
day of my life!
Singer #4: These lyrics are too personal.
Director: She loves him! Give me heart, feeling!
Just give me some emotion!
How do you sing with authentic emotion? It’s a good question!
Unfortunately, emotions cannot simply be plucked out of thin air
and artistically expressed on demand, particularly since ballads
are chosen by directors for reasons that have more to do with our
vocal abilities than our personal connection to the lyrics. Nevertheless,
as the director charges, the song must be sung with real emotion.
One school of thought suggests that you start with a past experience
in order to get in touch with an emotion. For example, if a ballad
needs to be about rejection, you would recall a time in your life
when you felt rejected and identify with that emotion. But therein
lies a problem. Like the women in the example above, because of
the diversity in our ages and life experience there will be as many
interpretations of a song as there are singers. The result will
be a lack of emotional unity when we sing. Our Judging Expression
Category book calls for “meaningful delivery of lyrics
and sincere emotions,” yet this is compromised when everyone
interprets the emotions in the song differently.
So, the question is, how can we reach artistic heights in expression,
singing with unified genuine instead of mimicked emotion? And simultaneously
keep songs fresh through months of repetition? The answer is in
the development of the character-driven song. Sanford Meisner, author
of On Acting defines character as “the development
of a real person living truthfully, in imaginary circumstances.”
The character-driven song is not a new idea. In the 1927 musical,
Show Boat, for the first time “musical numbers sprang directly
from the plot, sung when emotions were so great, or the situation
so poignant that words would no longer suffice.”* We do not
have to be struggling against racial discrimination to empathize
with Joe’s Ole Man River from Show Boat, nor must we be homeless
to identify with Cosette’s Castle On A Cloud from
Les Miserables — not if the singers touch something
relevant in us with the authenticity of their performance. Similarly,
we don’t have to be living the circumstances in I Never
Meant To Fall In Love to believe the conflict that lies beneath
the words. But, and this is an important “but,” we do
have to put the lyrics in an emotional context and imagine the person
for whom the lyrics are motivated and true. Then we will respond
because we believe the character.
The skill of performing with character is like our other singing
skills. It must be taught and it takes time to learn. Here are some
examples of how the work on character begins:
1. Read aloud the words of your song as prose. Ask for what person
would the circumstances and words fit? Who is she? Where is she?
What does she want? To whom does she sing?
2. Consider movies for finding characters. Good movies are evocative
and ageless, the characters real. Their action and dialogue will
free us from performing our songs as soliloquies. Choices for I
Never Meant To Fall In Love might be Meryl Streep as Francesca
in The Bridges Of Madison County, Angela Bassett as Stella
in How Stella Got Her Groove Back or Cher as Loretta in
Moonstruck.
3. Schedule a chorus movie night. Look for the scene in which the
song could be sung. In The Bridges Of Madison County, for
example, the scene with Francesca and Robert dancing in her kitchen
is an almost perfect setting for I Never Meant To Fall In Love.
As you work on the song, continue to reinforce emotional skills
by keeping Francesca and the events that build to the ballad sharply
in focus. Watching movies unfold gives the chorus all the same character,
images, circumstances and dialogue, which opens the door to expressing
unified emotion. Since our songs are about love and loss, endings,
beginnings and the “one that got away,” we need to sing
them with all the passion that accompanies that kind of upheaval.
No director would say, “Just give me some vocal production!”
Yet emotional production is often viewed as an add-on to performance
at the end of preparation. On the contrary, it is not a last-minute
fix, but must begin at the start of the rehearsal process, before
the song even goes out to the chorus. Why? Because developing a
character with which the chorus can identify is essential in the
interpretation of a song. Headed in the same direction from the
start, our acting skill, like our other singing skills, bears directly
upon all four judging categories. Character will add depth and power
to the music, influence phrasing, inflexion, unity, forward motion
and expression.
Meticulous vocal technique without emotion can be compared to the
compulsories in Olympic figure skating. We admire the mastery of
the technique, but not until the free-skate performance, steeped
in character and story, does the performance transcend the technical
and pull us in emotionally. It is in the details of developing a
multi-dimensional character that we create performances that become
universal. As the pitch pipe sounds, we are in our character’s
shoes, eager to tell her story. When we sing, as if words no longer
suffice, we create performances that reflect our own complexity
and humanity.
* Barron’s Musicals, Rudiger Bering
Janie Tamarkin is a member of Actor’s Equity Association.
Has performed off-Broadway, New York, also at The Long Wharf Theatre
in Connecticut and in summer stock. She has taught acting and has
directed musical theater for 25 years. Janie is the founder and
director of The Heyday Theatre, a non-profit theater for teenagers.
