Helping Actors to do Their Best Work
From my early years I have been a gifted linguist: language and communication have always been second nature to me. Not all of us, I appreciate, are in love with the English language — but any language which can communicate so much by use of pitch/accent/era and to the last nuance of meaning desired by the speaker is a wonderful thing.
Theatre
I worked on Carmen Jones at the Royal Festival Hall — 35 opera singers had to sound American and some of them, although they had often sung in public, had never spoken on stage before and now they were doing so in an American accent.
Overheard in the interval at the dress rehearsal, "Well, it's very good but why did they have to get in a load of Americans to do it?" The singers were really good.
When Spamalot was first starting in London, Alison Pearson, the Resident Director, asked me to work with an actor who had recently transferred from the Broadway production of Spamalot to the West End opening of the production. The actor had been performing nightly (and knightly) in an accent of his own invention.
The London production needed something completely different — three new accents, in fact. This is a very hard thing for a performer to do: changing an accent which has been in use for quite a long time but we managed it. One year on, Alison Pearson asked me to do more for "Spamalot," this time working with the finalists in a Swedish programme, very similar to the X Factor where the Swedish public voted one potential "Lady of the Lake" out of the running until only Nina emerged victorious.
Films
I do enjoy working in the movie industry which is where I spend most of my working life. For one thing, the evidence of our efforts is there for ever, or as long as the soundtrack lasts.
Getting the accent right is all part of the suspension of disbelief: the cast and crew do their best and with luck and a fair wind the finished piece comes together as a triumph.
One of my most challenging and interesting projects to date was working with Youssou N'Dour — a singer of international renown who had never acted in a film before. Pre-production work happened around the timing of Youssou's concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York and this lovely man who speaks Woluf and French fluently and had English as his third language, started to explore the English dialogue in "Amazing Grace." We both worked hard to make his dialogue a success.
The Director is on set very much like the Managing Director of a company. The Director's way of working and attitude to other people on set affects the work of each and every individual on that set. On "Amazing Grace," Michael Apted made life straightforward by communicating exactly what he wanted to each actor or member of the crew and then expecting everyone to do their job well. This positive approach to management of a disparate group of people is .....amazing.
I feel strongly that anyone who deserves the job title of "Dialect Coach" should be able to produce the accent themselves. Tape recordings of native speakers can have a small place in some stages of coaching but unless the coach can feel in their own mouths how the sounds are produced and explain and demonstrate this to an actor then, it's a cop-out.
I am married to an actor and work with actors at all stages and ages of their careers. I have a deep understanding of and empathy with actors and performers: I feel I know how much courage/chutspa is needed to do their job and admire them for doing it. All actors are different, no two jobs are the same for me, there is no "one size fits all."