David
yes, i agree with Alison, i read word by word slowly as if i had to study
your review, i wish i could read in this way in front of an audience! the
description is excellent, you took us there, thank you, all to be learned
from my side - i will save your mail and try to get to those passages you
highlighted,
> Thanks very much, David, that sounds like an event I wish I had seen.
> It's a very good description of what real acting can do with spoken
> language.
>
> Best
>
> A
>
> >Here is an account of a felicitous match between poet (Goran Simic) and
> >actor (Alan Rickman); it is authored by one Michelle - no further details
> >available - and comes from her attendance on 12th December 2001 at the
> >Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London:
> >
> >"As part of The Word Festival held in London recently, Alan Rickman was
> >asked to read a selection of Goran Simic's poems during an evening
dedicated
> >to war poetry. Goran Simic is a Bosnian writer currently living in Canada
> >who has written harrowing and bitter poetry about his experiences in
> >Sarajevo. Not having copies, I can't now remember all the poems' horrors
> >(though the title of one, Sprinting from the Graveyard, makes me shiver),
> >but they were stories of burying friends, dogs running wild and canny in
the
> >streets, the terror of opening your eyes in case you saw anything, and
the
> >utterly numbing yet howlingly painful sense of despair caused by war and
the
> >direct experience of war.
> >Mr Rickman was the first actor to read and, after being introduced by the
> >Festival's Director Peter Florence, he strode across the stage to the
> >microphone and our applause, all dressed in black, a solemn, almost
sultry
> >expression on his face. Well, he was about to give us some pretty serious
> >stuff. He announced the title of the first poem and then started to read.
> >And totally disappeared.
> >
> >It's the only way I can describe it. As soon as he began to read, I was
no
> >longer aware of Alan Rickman standing on stage, reading, acting,
performing.
> >All I was aware of was the power of words that seemed not to have been
> >crafted to perfection years previously, but that were being spoken
freshly
> >here for the first time. There was nothing else to be aware of. If I had
> >been seated alone in a tiny room with the person who had experienced
these
> >terrible things, listening to him as he felt his way into an expression
of
> >his raw-meat memories, the impact could not have been greater. The voice
was
> >so full of passion, yet so empty and flat, so angry and violent and yet
so
> >despairing and hopeless, that after just some 7 minutes, we were
emotionally
> >limp and drained and wrung out.
> >
> >And then, after three poems, Mr Rickman smiled (very briefly), said
"thank
> >you" very quietly, and came back to us just in time to leave the stage to
> >absolute and stunned applause. It was a most bizarre experience, yet a
very
> >profound one, and its power resulted not only from the actual force of
the
> >words themselves, but from this actor's ability to be so entirely 'there'
> >when performing that he is not 'there' at all. He became, as it were, a
> >transparency for what the poet wanted to say, rather than a performer of
it.
> >He let his mouth be shaped by the words, rather than shaping them
himself.
> >
> >Only the very finest actors could dare to do such a thing: to surrender
> >themselves completely and still retain command of the situation (which,
of
> >course, he did at all times). He allowed us to lose our sense of him, but
at
> >no time did he lose his sense of himself. I've heard a lot of poetry read
> >over the years, but never like that."
> >
> >As a congenitally shy writer who dislikes public readings I envy Goran
Simic
> >the services of Alan Rickman.
> >
> >David Howard
>
> --
>
>
>
> Alison Croggon
> Home page
> http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
>
> Masthead Online
> http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
>
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