Otterbein’s Department of Theatre and Dance will be performing “The Importance of Being Earnest”, a comedy and satire written by Oscar Wilde. Since the play is set in the Victorian Era of England, the actors are required to work harder than usual to get into character. From vocal exercises to pre-show rituals, this is in inside look into what actors do to ready themselves for performing.
All of the actors must speak with a British accent because of the time and place the show is set in. To perfect the dialect needed for the show, theatre and dance professor Melissa Lusher worked with the actors.
The accent used is a high British pronunciation accent. To become more acquainted with the accent, the actors listened to native speakers, but first had to learn the sounds with an American dialect and then had to change those sounds to a high British accent.
Lusher helped the actors rewrite their scripts with symbols that act as keys for remembering how certain words sound.
“You have to physically go through the sentences and mark all the sound changes in all your words, and then you can go through and play with the pitch and melody,” sophomore BFA acting major Afton Welch said. “Then it comes kind of naturally and doesn’t take very long to catch on to it.”
However, preparing for “The Importance of Being Earnest” takes more than learning a British accent. On top of vocal coaching, each actor has an independent way of getting ready for the show, from physical and vocal warm-ups to signature rituals.
Music is a common theme for most of the actors. Welch listens to music and dances to get into character: “I like to dance in the style that I think Miss Prism would dance in, which is not very rhythmically, but she’s kind of a stout old lady.”
Freshman BFA acting major Evan Moore-Coll likes to listen to songs like “Back in Black” by ACDC and “All-Star” by Smash Mouth that get him in the zone where he gains focus.
Junior BFA acting major Haley Jones creates a playlist with songs that are specifically designed for her character.
When entering into character, all that sophomore BFA musical theater major Jordan Donica needs before the show is his costume.
“I take my time to put on the clothes and do the hair and really come into what it feels like to be so upper class,” Donica said. “It’s about getting out of my clothes and getting into the character’s clothes that pretty much puts me where I need to be.”
Fourth year junior acting major Kyle Hansen has a lucky pair of opening-night boxers that he only wears for shows. Hansen also does Tai Chi as an act of centering and focusing before each show.
As a cast, the actors have a shared tradition called the “rump-rump”, during which they warm-up vocally using the vowel ladder. This entails going through each of the vowels in the alphabet to loosen their vocal ranges.
Theater and dance professor and director Christina Kirk said, “Each vowel is attached to a nonsense word and lives in a particular part of the body and in a specific part of the actor’s vocal range. The actors go from a low ‘zoo’ sound that lives in their knees and legs to a very high ‘ree’ sound that pops out of the crown of their head.”
To prepare for their roles, the actors must find a way to enter their characters. For Hansen, getting into character is an emotional preparation, allowing himself to relax enough to become someone new.
Junior musical theater major James Sanders takes a more physical approach in preparing for his role. The character has gestures and postures that are unusual maneuvers for Sanders to do.
As the director, Kirk has focused on helping the actors understand their characters and pushing them to discover other dimensions of their characters.
“I believe that the truth of the character lives in their needs and wants,” Kirk said. “So everything we’ve done in rehearsal has focused on trying to get the actors to understand and commit fully to what they need from the other characters.”
“The Importance of Being Earnest” runs March 6-9 and March 13-15 in Cowan Hall.
