Letters from Listbot

I recently attended a show where everyone was miked for sound. Although I was fairly close to the stage, the only voices I could hear came from the speaker system, and not from the stage. Without doubt, a body mike is an asset to the actor in situations where background noise is at an all-time high, or where great distances need to be covered. But are we really doing a service to the profession?

Do body mikes make us lazy about projection? Perhaps we do not spend enough time training actors in vocal techniques. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

There are venues, such as Starlight, that are too large to expect anyone short of a Merman (and even Merman might have been daunted by that venue, since its outdoor locale offers no acoustical assistance whatsoever), and some performers who may not have the lung power to reach the balconies.

I remember ushering for Theater League's production of Master Class which starred Faye Dunaway and was performed at the Music Hall, without mikes. The most common complaint by the customers was that nobody could hear Ms. Dunaway's performance. I do not know Faye Dunaway's projection capacity or her feelings on how her performance would have been affected by shouting louder or applying a body mike, but I do know that there were a lot of unsatisfied customers for that show.

I am not calling for the elimination of body mikes on stage. There are certainly venues that benefit from having them, specifically large amphitheatres, musicals (especially with live orchestras), and jousts. What I am most concerned about is that actors seem to rely on either microphones or acts of God to be heard. I have seen both professional and amateur actors who play to the other actors on stage, and not pay any attention to whether or not they can be heard by the audience.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but it cannot and should not be relied on to carry the actor through the performance. What happens when the mike goes dead? Do we stop the show because the actor was not trained to project?… We need to be prepared to do things the old-fashioned way when the technology fails us. I'm not sure that each successive generation of actors is adequately prepared for that task.

I get really frustrated watching shows where everyone is miked and all the sound comes from one source (the nearest bank of speakers) instead of from the actor's location on stage. Another frustrating thing is mikes that pick up more footstep noise than voice.

Sound amplification makes audiences less adept at listening, too. I think sound systems have become the epitome of a two-edged sword. We use them to project in less than ideal locations or over less than ideal audiences. But the mikes make us less able to truly project and just makes rude or inattentive audiences louder and lazier because they don't have to work to pay attention. Or they can just continue whispering and rattling programs because they think the sound will compensate.

Man, could we open a can of worms about the tragedy film and television has wrought upon the world of the stage and the perceptions of the craft of acting.

Students don't get enough training in breathing and fine tuning their vocal instrument. And when they get into a performance situation that requires significant vocal power, they lose their voice or encounter difficulties.

I recently saw the Broadway production of Death of a Salesman, and of course, Broadway productions have been miked for years. The only cast member who consistently projected, and therefore consistently portrayed her character, was Elizabeth Franz. Even with mikes the other characters did not project, and Brian Dennehy is in danger of losing his voice.

Vocal technique and projection is, in my opinion, at the heart of acting. That is the only thing the actor brings to the stage to distinguish him- or herself from the scenery. I'm glad there are others who are concerned about this.

CHLHOOD@aol.com