With the British and Irish theatrical "invasions" seeming to have the permanence of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings in the New York landscape, it would seem that American actors should carefully think about developing an invasion response strategy, as it were. But is it really worth all the effort of going through tapes, taking classes, and working your jaw, when so many British and Irish actors are ready to claim these roles? Should the American actress honestly be led to believe that she can actually be cast in "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," especially if she is more comfortable in Canarsie than in Cork?
Back Stage's interviews with theatre professionals, including several prominent casting directors, lead us to believe that the answer is one of hope for performers. "Directors are on the whole more flexible than actors might imagine," says Heidi Griffiths, a casting director for the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival who cast Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan," among other foreign-tinged plays.
Actors also may not quite realize that a rather navigable accent is quite attainable, even for the most tongue-tied, provided they are ready for a smattering of work, dedication and persistence. And provided they have the perspective that accent is just part of the soup of audition, albeit a particularly hearty ingredient.
How to prepare, then? Take a class? Go it alone? Find an English pal? According to Sarah Felder, a dialect coach who has worked with the Papp Public Theater/NYSF, audio tapes can provide a good start for actors, who certainly "need a basic knowledge" before attempting to pursue a foreign role. "You might want to go to the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts and get dialect tapes; they have the good ones that are available now," says Felder, who has also worked with the Shakespeare Theatre and Arena Stage, both in Washington, D.C. "Often, problems can be overcome by repeated exposure to the sound. Then, if it's not a facility, you might have to seek professional guidance to gain confidence."
Professionals counsel that self-teaching is not limited to merely listening to tapes on your own-a process that might be laborious and lacking in context for most. Griffiths, who happens to be of English descent, makes a point of suggesting that professional actors view various feature films. She believes this process can be especially helpful in preparing the actor for the cultural framework an accent fits within.
Griffiths recalls her work on "The Skriker," a Caryl Churchill play set in Manchester, England-an industrial city quite far away from London in terms dialect, and culture, and most everything else: "The play had a very specific demand, as two of the lead roles were both from Manchester, which is like asking an American actor to do a Boston accent. We were able to suggest different films for people, set in, say, the Northwest of England-it was an incredibly useful tool and the actors were able to get a sense of the culture."
Relaxing With a Dialect
Other tips for would-be foreigners might be to thoroughly investigate the world of the play by listening to music specific to the region, meeting various people from the region, or even traveling to the region itself to truly get a sense of the rhythm of the place. Louis Colaianni is a dialect coach who teaches at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the author of several books on voice and speech, including "The Joy of Phonetics and Accent" (Drama Publishers). He says, "People overlook how accents vibrate in the body-strange accents sometimes can be awkwardly put on, the way a mask is put on." Colaianni teaches his students to "go out into the world and meet people with the accent-an accent donor, as it were. This helps them to be more physical and relaxed with the words."
Many of the professionals who spoke to Back Stage emphasize that, regardless of approach, it's always important not to worry about going too far and being hyper-correct. "You don't have to be perfect; if a person can come up with an accent that's fairly credible, we can work with them," says Ilene Starger, a casting director in theatre and film who cast Broadway's "Closer," Patrick Marber's currently running cyberplay. More important than accent is to be an interesting performer: "We pick the actor who is "most right for the role, who is going to make the part come alive-one could do an impeccable accent, his physicality, could give us a sense that something is wrong," says Starger.
Of course, for those who have a hard time with dialects, or for those who want to be thoroughly trained so that they are truly prepared when a fine opportunity comes along, professional guidance is certainly recommended, whether one-on-one or in a class. With the latter, "you get to see other people struggle; it's heartening," observes Patricia Fletcher, a dialect coach with a private practice. Fletcher, who also teaches at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at New Jersey's Rutgers University, points to the beneficial effect that might come with listening to others being corrected. Since actors tend to make the same kind of mistakes when attempting dialects, "[hearing] others being corrected can be helpful to your own particular dialect issue," says Fletcher. She adds that lack of initial success might not be a sign of ultimate failure if a person is persistent: "Everyone is capable of learning an accent; you just may not be as good at it, or you just might have to spend more time at it. I've never worked with anyone I thought just couldn't do it," she adds.
The dialect coaches we spoke to mostly seemed loathe to provide old-fashioned instruction specifically directing actors to do such things as, "Put your jaw here," or, "Keep your lips like this." Rather, explains dialect coach Ralph Zito, those in his profession "help you tailor the dialect to your own abilities and needs. People learn dialects differently," he continues. "And even within the dialect, people gravitate toward certain aspects of the dialect. The dialect coaches will give a person confidence by allowing them to focus on the part of the accent that they can do," concludes Zito, who has worked with New York Theater Workshop, the Papp Public Theater/NYSF, and Houston's Alley Theatre, among others.
Dialect coaches will also try to break down the accent by identifying specific features of the dialect. Zito, for instance, will identify the sound substitution patterns of a manner of speech, and then talk about the rhythms and melodies of a particular dialect and even reflect on how these sounds evolved, by way of climate or even through the influence of other cultures. Explaining, Zito points to the Northern Irish dialect, which is considerably different from the dialect spoken in the Republic of Ireland-a fact which may not be widely known to Americans. Zito explains that "Northern Irish is actually related to Scottish, since some settlers of Ulster came from Scotland." This fact might help the actor understand context, and makes the accent a bit easier to fit in the mouth.
Selecting Your Dialects
Regardless of approach, it's important not to be overwhelmed by the great number of "sub-dialects" prevalent in each region, although it is obviously helpful to know as much about the region as possible before an audition. Most professionals indicate that it is enough, generally, to know "upper class" British, "working class" British, and standard Irish: "I'm from England, but most audiences are American; they won't be able to tell," says Griffiths. Will Cantler, a casting director for Bernard Telsey Casting, who has worked on Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and "Lonesome West," adds, bluntly: "People don't have to have 20 accents at their fingertips-if they do, they have too much time on their hands."
It may, of course, be useful for actors to take into account their personal history in selecting accents to work on. Cantler says, "When casting a British or Irish play, I do try to find people with background because they have more insight into the world of the play. Whether a person is from Ireland or has spent time there can really inform how somebody acts." Stuart Howard, a casting director who has worked on such productions as Alan Ayckbourn's "Communicating Doors" and Patrick Marber's "Dealer's Choice," notes wryly that "I heard Yiddish growing up; there's something inside me that would make it easier than if I had to learn Japanese."
In addition, when selecting accents to perfect, it is always helpful to take a hard look at yourself and understand that your physical appearance may make certain accents attractive, and other accents not worth thinking about. As Fletcher says, "If you've got red hair, freckles, and light skin, try Irish or British; if you have dark hair and dark skin, better to try Italian, Spanish, French."
It's important to note that, in regard to accents, Shakespeare is virtually an idiom by itself, and the rules of engagement for British and Irish plays cannot be assumed to apply to Shakespearean productions. According to Griffiths, it is, indeed, a mistake for an actor to try and "do British" when auditioning for Shakespeare, which does not necessarily require a British sound at all. "We feel incredibly strongly that this is the New York Shakespeare Festival; the last thing we want is for an actor to affect a British pronunciation of the text," says Griffiths. "In fact, the most exciting auditions are where New York accents are reflected; Raul Julia is one of the greatest actors ever to grace these stages and he had a fairly strong Puerto Rican accent-in the last decade, only a few British actors have performed Shakespeare here."
Which, we should add, is a point that casting directors repeatedly made in the context of all British and Irish shows: American actors do have a chance at being cast, even when pitted against British and Irish competitors. Says Griffiths about casting "The Cripple of Inishmaan," "The interesting thing about Martin's [McDonagh's] work was understanding a new rhythm, not the accent so much. As a result, we were completely open to casting American actors."
Cantler goes further in this regard, emphatically stating that accent alone should never get a person cast: "Too much gets made of accent, people get obsessed with it-the kind of directors who look at accent, and accent alone, are really not good directors."
All in all, Stuart Howard seems to put it in perspective for every American interested in performing in British or Irish productions: "They do have to show they can at least learn the dialect, and people who are trained properly do have a better chance of doing dialects properly." He adds, however, with a bit of glee, "On the whole-there are too many British actors."