"You learn how to listen." Voice Director at the Abbey Theatre since 1995, Andrea Ainsworth describes her role as Every Brilliant Thing, which she also directs, returns to the national theatre for the summer season.
When I do a voice session with an actor, I am trying to open up choices for them. So the work is both technical and imaginative. I ask them to focus on how they are doing what they are doing. So the exercises never feel like mindless repetition.
It's very much about understanding the language of each rehearsal room, as well as the vision of the director – what is it that they want – and then finding a way to work with the actor so that they are meeting the requirements of the role.
How I work depends on the director and the particular demands of the production. For example, when I work with Artistic Director at the Abbey, Caitríona McLaughlin, we often do a 'class’ during the morning of rehearsals that gets the body and the voice of the actor ready. Because, although I work with the voice, what I do is inextricably linked to the body.
The joy of the role is watching the growth of a performance and seeing an actor go to places they may not have gone to before.
That pre rehearsal work is about getting the actor into their body. As people, we are all quite stuck in our heads. We carry around all this excess tension from our lives that gets in the way of expression. So, I encourage the actor to become present in their body and that’s the place they start the work from. What we’re always after on the stage is that ‘feeling of ease’, an active ease, so nothing is ever pushed or forced. Because anyone can stand on a stage and shout! In fact, often the reason you work on your voice is so you can play an intimate or quiet scene and have it feel ‘live’ for an audience.
Nowadays, actors are not necessarily on stage four or five times a year in big plays. It might only be once, and they’re doing film and television, so they’re moving back and forth. It’s about checking back in with that speaking muscle so that the voice is flexible, alive and available to the actor.
Andrea Ainsworth worked on as Voice Coach
The challenge in my line of work is how to find the right thing to say to the person that you’re talking to. Sometimes, I’ll see something and want to give them a note but often you have to wait and see how the performance is evolving before you do. One thing I have learned is that just because you see it, doesn’t mean you should say it to an actor. You learn to listen. Not to analyse but to be present in listening, rather than pre-supposing a problem. You have to trust that there is such an intelligence going on in the actor.
What is a real privilege is being in the room with wonderful playwrights – Marina Carr, Tom Murphy, Seamus Heaney, Mark O’Rowe and many others – and hearing these extraordinary and fascinating insights about the world of the play and the characters,– and Ireland. You learn a huge amount.
The joy of the role is watching the growth of a performance and seeing an actor go to places they may not have gone to before. It’s getting to see that wonderful moment of people being alive on stage, capturing attention and really holding an audience. It’s like everything – the character, the actor and the play – has come together. It’s in those moments that things feel like they’re incredibly alive and they’re only alive in that way, in that moment, on that night, in that particular way. It’s very ephemeral and it’s what we’re aiming for. It’s the reason why live theatre is still exciting.
Every Brilliant Thing is on the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin from 9th June – 1st July - find out more here.
