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From Issue #Xx, Seasonl
200X
A
History of Readers Theatre
ORAL
INTERPRETATION+READERS THEATRE=PERFORMANCE
by
Walter Ray Stump
First
of two parts.
Several
years ago a production moved from London's West End to Broadway to become
a hit. The fact that this production was so successful in the United
States was remarkable for several reasons: First, it was not a dramatic
script in the traditional sense of the word; second, it was based on
a Nineteenth century novel; third, the production was divided into two
parts requiring an audience to leave the theatre; forth, the entire
performance of the two parts ran just slightly under eight hours and
finally, good seats cost a little over one-hundred dollars apiece. Most
ardent theatre goers will recognize that this production was none other
than the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation of Charles Dickens'
NICHOLAS NICKELBY directed by Trevor Nunn. Nunn and the RSC company
fashioned the production directly from the novel. Although theatrical
adaptations from novels are not by any means unusual, the way in which
this production was fashioned made it unique. Normally an adaptation
attempts to create a play out of another literary genre. The RSC, however,
attempted to dramatize the novel without destroying its literary values.
Long and beautifully written descriptive passages were woven into the
production and were delivered by individual characters as narration.
This technique is called Story Theatre.
Story
Theatre was developed or at least made famous in the United States by
the Second City company of Chicago. The company was founded by Paul
Sills in 1959. Sills, son of Viola Spolin who wrote the well respected
IMPROVISATION FOR THE THEATRE, created a group of actors who improvised
theatre pieces sometimes from famous works of literature. Story theatre
is aptly named because stories have long been a part of the total theatre
experience.
The
art of story telling is probably as old as the human race. Stories in
the form of myths existed long before a methodology for transcribing
them was formulated. We also know that members of various primitive
groups became known as story tellers. In Greece for example, evidence
shows that long before 534 B.C. the date generally respected as the
beginning of dramatic literature, oral storytellers or rhapsodes were
reciting the ILIAD and ODYSSEY. Later the first professional acting
organization called the Artists of Dionysus (c.277 B.C.) included both
poets and interpreters as well as actors among their ranks.
The
medieval period by the nature of its educational system disseminated
news and epics primarily through artist interpreters in the form of
minstrels, jongleurs, troubadours, scops or gleemen. In many ways these
individuals were the historians and educators of their time. Being able
to entertain an audience was considered a virtue by contemporaries.
The very format of Geoffrey Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES is a group of
storytellers trying to ease the tedium of a long journey.
The
Renaissance with Dante's DIVINE COMEDY and Boccaccio's DECAMERON had
the interpreter as chief disseminate. With the advent of the printing
press oral presentations no longer were chief method in the dissemination
of stories. During the Elizabethan period, the theatre as an institution
began to replace the story teller as the most accessible method of making
words come alive. The art of expression was still debated openly as
one would gather from Shakespeare's gentle admonition to the artist
interpreter in HAMLET.
Speak
the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly of the
tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief
the towncrier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your
hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and,
as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul
to hear a robustious periwigpated fellow tear a passion to tatters,
to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most
part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
While
storytellers were still plying their trade, little was written on the
subject until the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many of these
works were concerned primarily with the art of speaking. John Bulwer,
François Delsart, and James Rush attempted to establish procedures
of speaking. Delsart's work was translated for Americans by actor, playwright,
inventor Steele MacKaye (1842-1894). This work formed the basis for
what is now called the elocutionist school. Delsart postulated a series
of performative gestures that were to reinforce emotional moments. One
such gesture was clasped hands for praying, another hand behind the
ear to represent a significant sound and still another was a hand on
the forehead to indicate a distant vision.
Schools
of expression were opened up in the United States by two of MacKaye's
students S.S. Curry and Charles Wesley Emerson, in Boston. Still another
school was opened in New York by Leland Powers. Later WERNER'S MAGAZINE
became the first journal devoted to articles on vocal and bodily expression.
Beginning in 1915 with S. H. Clark's INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE,
Rollo Anson Tallcott's THE ART OF ACTING AND PUBLIC READING published
in 1922, the art of story telling or the public reading of literature
was explored. The most important of these new works was the publication
of Cornelius Carman Cunningham's monumental LITERATURE AS A FINE ART,
in which a new and exciting performance art form reached full formulation.
Cunningham called the new form Oral Interpretation.
Cunningham
postulated a methodology, different from any previous analytical theory,
by which literature could be analyzed both for its intellectual and
its emotional content. He felt that the artist interpreter must first
intellectually understand the text as literature before the material
can be analyzed as to its connotative powers. LITERATURE AS A FINE ART(1941)
and a later text book called MAKING WORDS COME ALIVE (1951) outlined
his techniques. Dr. Cunningham identified ten sense stimuli appealed
to through the process of association. Cunningham defined the oral interpreter
as the "sentient instrument through whom words are given vividness
and fullness of meaning." He wanted the interpreter to be aware
of certain sensory appeals so that words could be given their full connotations.
Noting that Psychologists differ as to definition, classification, and
relationship of the sense as perceptual mediums, Cunningham formulated
a list of senses which he postulated as being important in the process
interpretation. His list follows:
1.
Sight--the VISUAL sense
2. Hearing--the AUDITORY, aural, or auditive sense.
3. Muscular effort or strain of any kind, skeletal, affecting the outer
parts of the
body the KINAESTHETIC sense.
4. Stimulation of inner organs, the visceral as distinguished from skeletal--the
ORGANIC sense.
5. Motion, involving little or no muscle participation--the KINETIC
sense.
6. Balance or loss of balance--the sense of EQUILIBRIUM.
7. Touch--the tactual or TACTILE sense.
8. Smell--the OLFACTORY sense.
9. Taste--the GUSTATORY or gustive sense.
10. Temperature, cold or heat--the THERMAL or
thermic sense.
The key to the Cunningham methodology, then, was for the artist interpreter
to understand the connotative power of words and phrases in a piece
of literature being prepared for performance through a thorough analysis
of the senses appealed to through the process of association. Dr. Cunningham
established one of the first departments of interpretation at Northwestern
University. His pupils included such leaders in the field as Charlotte
Lee, Robert Breen, and William J. Adams to name but a few.
The late Charlotte Lee is considered Cunningham's champion in the field
with her excellent Oral Interpretation texts. Breen was famous for his
work in reader's theatre and his many texts on the subject. The most
important Cunningham student to bridge the gap into Readers Theatre
was William J. Adams. After Cunningham left Northwestern he taught at
Stanford University before accepting his final position at San Diego
State University. Cunningham, who had already retired once, wanted to
provide for the continuation of his theories. He therefore insisted
that he be allowed to hand-pick his successor, Professor Adams. The
Department of Speech and Theatre acquiesced to this demand. Adams, who
had been Cunningham's student at Stanford, was hired.
The late William J. Adams not only perpetuated the Cunningham methodology,
but initiated several new contributions in the field of interpretation
and Reader's Theatre. Adams directed over one-hundred Reader's Theatre
productions in educational, community and professional levels. He adapted
and directed Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH, staring Carolyn Jones
and John Carradine. Afer retiring from the university, Adams director
and founder of Institute for Reader's Theatre which sponsors workshops
every year in cities throughout the world. The International Institute
has been highly successful and is open to all students regardless of
theatrical experience. Adams brought in a distinguished faculty and
guest lecturers including Ray Bradbury, Sir John Gielgud, Michael Halifax,
Mary Martin, Eva Marie Saint, Paul Sils, Tom Stoppard and John Updike.
He created a board of directors which included Robert Breen, Charlotte
Lee, Norman Corwin and Joanna Maclay. He created the highly respected
Reader's Theatre Script Service out of his San Diego California office.
Adams died in 2005
The institute still exists and is now run by faculty who were trained
by Adams and who are dedicated in perpetuating his work.
While
Adams freely acknowledged the contributions of Cunningham and others
to his conception of Readers Theatre, he evolved a distinctive style
of his own. Adams classifies Readers Theatre into four major styles:
simple, staged, chamber, and story.
Part Two will appear in the next
issue (#13) of the Readers Theatre Digest
The Institute for
Readers Theatre web site may be viewed at:
http://www.readerstheatreinstitute.com
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