KU Theatre - Students perform Shakespeare in original pronunciation

[creamyfilling102]

listening to this without reading the captions is like a forign language

[muskndusk]

In Shakespeare's time "on the ground/I see no wound" the words ground/wound would have rhymed. The actress fails in her rendition of OP, imho. 

[EsraRanter]

David and Ben Crystal and Paul Meir are to be applauded for their this project, as should be the Globe Theatre . I am a character role playing historical re-enactor and find for playing my more serious characters I attempt C17 accents, though not as profficently as those KU students and Professional Actors. I find it liberating and more expressive, it removes the polite Victorian cultural cleansing and lets the character be their more earthy selves.

[dennisjiewenliu]

Irish/Pirate accent!!! The ansere to meh prairs! xDD

[potpie921]

Amazing!!

[noamben2]

YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LYSANDER!!

[16MattC]

How do we know that this is what people sounded like? There were no recordings to know for sure so we are only guessing?

[stigler30]

People NEVER talked like this. Elizabethan English was more like the King James Bible.

Shakespeare made up this way of talking.

[evilmick66]

@stigler30 Who's to say the King James Bible wasn't pronounced like this?

[wissam24]

@stigler30 Do you have a pronunciation guide for the King James Bible, it being a many editioned work itself? Or any source to back that claim up?

[EsraRanter]

@stigler30 Great English Bibles of the Time, the Geneva and the King James, would most probably heve been read and preached upon in very similar accents (speech was more regionally variant then) with those Tudor Promnounciacions common to all. David Crystal. Paul Meir and KU drama students have made the language of the Globe Theatre, Drake's Sailors, Elizabth's Court and Jamestown and New England live again. Brilliant.

[ReiSilver]

... does this really need subtitles?

[Mazdak1]

this would be much better if they were actually.. dressed the part. people today are such slobs :(

[KU]

@Mazdak1 This is from a rehearsal session. You can see some examples of the costumes from the performance itself at lawrence.com/news/2010/nov/18/­review-midsummer-nights-dream/

[scottydu81]

ugh, i hate shakespeare. he is so overrated.  take away the funny talking and all you get is a half-assed story that is barely good enough for sitcoms.

[gransasso22]

@scottydu81 Is he overrated, or just over your head?

[FinishTheNewLine]

@scottydu81 Bless you, you poor philistine.

[arethnaar45]

@scottydu81 Is he overrated or are you stupid?

[wissam24]

@scottydu81 Shakespeare's writing of course being one of the pinnacles of English (and by extension American) literature. Good enough for sitcoms? That's because the sitcoms are copying him, badly.

[CaenAshlar]

"It sounds Irish to me."(Horrors). "This performance's probably a bit too Irish." Hilarious. To the Irish it sounds like an assortment of endangered country English accents. Attempts at Original Pronunciation are far superior to the Received Pronunciation because it has the right rhythm, the right speed (r.p. is too fast - I'm looking at you Emma Thomson). It’s the difference between prose and poetry, consommé and stew. It just fits and sounds so much better.

[luminescentish]

I can't believe no one has mentioned this: The accent it most closely resembles--to me, at least--is a Newfoundland accent. This makes sense, considering the period when Newfoundland was settled and the fact that it was very isolated for such a long time.

[Gweinman]

Either it was a great job by the makeup/hair people or she is a little old to be a college student.

[widjan]

@Gweinman or she's a grad student or you're just a horrible douchebag :/

[buzzlikeyear]

It's true that it doesn't sound exactly Irish, but can we all agree that it kind of does? There's no harm in saying that modern Irish (or at least some variety of it) is the closest to the way English was pronounced in London at the time of Shakespeare. There will always be dialects which are conservative.

[vonNaaat]

What's the difference? It sounds exactly the same as the last time I went to the RSC in Stratford... 

[shakespeareontoast]

Hi all, David Crystal's blog response to the "sounds like Irish" discussion is up... david-crystal.blogspot.com

[louisevowels]

Op is a wash of all of Europe's dialects. You can hear hints of many different accents all in one. When the Globe Theatre performed in the Original Pronunciation, people from all over Europe said it sounds like their accent that they speak at home. That is the beauty of the accent. It marries all different accents into one Earthy Accent, which is op.

Many rhymes make a lot more sense when you perform in Op.

I suggest the uneducated read David Crystal's compelling research. Become enlightened.

[bennysully]

Man. This whole argument thing is great.

[plongofono]

People, please READ about OP before you comment blindly. That's all I ask. Of course it "sounds like Irish," that's the point. Certain traits are preserved, and certain traits aren't. That's how language works...that's how it's always worked.

[boogerie]

@plongofono but...but...it doesn't sound like Olivier!!! WHAAAA!!! I'm a traditionialist! I want my Shakespeare in period costumes, spoken in BBC english, preferably from a proscenium stage! JUST LIKE THE BARD INTENDED!!! A-WHA A-WHA A-WHAAAAA!!! If i can't have it I won't renew my season subscription!!! I'll direct my complaints to the board of regents. WHAAAAA!!! Oh and BTW it doesn't sound Irish, it sounds Warwickshire.

[plongofono]

@boogerie

No, that's not what I was saying. You misread my comment. I don't have a linguistic bias. I think this is interesting, and because of that, I feel compelled to address misinformed commentary. No dramatic value-judgments here. Also, note the quotes, they're there for a reason.

[BrokenBjartur]

I was gonna comment about how off this sounded. As their inherent accents were heard all too well. Reading the comments, it appears it is spot on. Little do I know I guess.

[HarryHook]

"This performance's probably a bit too Irish." Forgive them Lord for they know not what they say... oh the irony LOL.

[HarryHook]

"Evolved" Ye gods, not into the accent on display in the Muppets Christmas Carol I hope. Mind you, this probably explains why Russell Crowerecently played Robin Hood with an Irish brogue, when we all know yer man in green really sounded like Kevin Costner. For the record, there are still parts of England were people still speak in a similar way to when Shakespeare was a lad... and if you venture into the West Country you will clearly hear the origin of the American accent. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[doodletronics1]

From Robert MacNeil et al. in The Story of English: "...the Irish have made English their own, and have preserved qualities of speech and writing that many Standard English speakers feel they have lost..." (page 172)

"The English spoken in Ireland still preserves many Elizabethan traits. Shakespeare...would probably have sounded slightly Irish." (page 173).

*Slightly* Irish is the key. He points out Gaelic still further influenced the Irish accent. This performance's probably a bit too Irish.

[PeregrineJohn]

Geez. Ok, you guys, look it up at physorg dot com (for example). It won't let me put the URL in here, but I'm sure you can find it. Go. Read. Learn.

[PeregrineJohn]

Um... no. Read. Learn.

[cgialloreto]

Haha Americans trying to do ye Olde English accent isn't working

[aut0maticearth]

@cgialloreto omg. more like ignorant Americans with preconceived notions about what "ye Olde English" sounded like commenting intelligently isn't working....

Pre-19th century English sounded more like modern American English than it did modern British English. The 'r' that sounds like a 'ah' didn't happen until after the Revolutionary War.

The vowel differences you hear are the result of the Great Vowel Shift that happened around that time.

The pronunciation is SPOT ON.

[buzzlikeyear]

@aut0maticearth You're right about the R but the Great Vowel shift started around 1400 and was pretty much done by 1700.

[liamboyd555]

I know its already been said but I feel compelled to ask: what makes this an 'original pronunciation'? Its just the normal English version I was taught in school with and comical Irish accent added in. Is it maybe that Americans cant pronounce Shakespeare's works normally, so by adding the Irish slant you are trying to add an old world feel about it? Or was Shakespeare and everyone else in England at that time, secretly Irish?

[leproduction]

@liamboyd555 The English language has actually evolved more in England. The US is technically known to speak it more traditionally than in England in present times. The pronunciation of "R's" especially. The Irish have better preserved it as well and is more likely the closest you will come.

[HarryHook]

Meier & Crystal presents... Hamlet, Prince of Wexford...

Ter be, or not ter be– dat is de question: whether 'tis nobler in de mind ter suffer the slings an' arrows av outrageous fortune, or ter take arms against a sea av troubles an', by opposin', end dem. ter die, ter sleep no more – an' by a sleep ter say we end the 'eartache an' de t'ousan' natural shocks that flesh is 'eir ter – ‘tis a consummation devoutly ter be wished. ter die, ter sleep to sleep, perchance ter dream...

[VictimOfBoredom]

Sounds like Irish people reciting Dr. Seuss. >_<

[TheLastBrainLeft]

I believe this demonstrates that prior to the Great Vowel Shift, English in England sounded like English in Ireland, and that Ireland was not affected by it.

Ironic that the Irish often deride the English for stealing their language (Gaelic), it turns out the Irish preserved a form of English that otherwise would be dead.

[barrkel]

For the folks that think it sounds Irish - don't forget that Elizabethan invasions of Ireland (Tudor conquest of Ireland) left particular pronunciations on the local population. It's not that it sounds Irish; it's that English used to have a different pronunciation, which is, in parts, retained in Ireland.

[deadlytoque]

I'm pretty sure OP would have pre-Great Vowel Shift vowels and diphthongs, and also pronounced ultimate-vowels and silent-"k"s.

[HarryHook]

Henry V...  as presented by Meier & Crystal?

"We few, we 'appy few, we ban' av brothers; for yer man to-day dat sheds 'is blud wi' me shall be me brother; be yer man ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle 'is condition; an' gentlemen in Englan' now-a-bed shall tink themselves accurs'd they were not 'ere, an' 'owl their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought wi' us upon Saint Crispin's day."

[vampirebunnyrat]

Good idea. If you're performing for an original 17th century audience. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of people scratching their heads and clapping politely.

[stereo123]

@vampirebunnyrat

Or if your audience is actually people who know about it and are curious to see it. Count me in, isn't that the point?

[jesgep]

It just sounds Irish. I feel like it's getting in the way of your performances.

[leproduction]

@jesgep The English language has actually evolved more in England. The US is technically known to speak it more traditionally than in England in present times. The pronunciation of "R's" especially. The Irish have better preserved it as well and is more likely the closest you will come.

[benjinewton]

I don't get it - this sounds just like English with an Irish accent.

Nothing special about it...

[Yehudittx]

@benjinewton that's kind of the point. That's how English people talked back then. It sounds Irish to you because that accent survives to this day in parts of Ireland and Northwest England. Shakespearean actors didn't sound like Lawrence Olivier. it was popular entertainment.

[jojococoa]

shakespear wasn't irish!

[spoonsythe1]

I thought women weren't in his plays back in the day? not that they shouldn't have been.

[nowzadick]

was that a tragedy or comedy?

[NobleDesignMedia]

Marvelous readings!

[onethousandsteps]

Paul Meier is a genius.

[ryanKonarsk]

that was annoying

[FineBySara]

You do realise that Shakespeare was English, not Irish right? English pronunciation in the 16th century does not equal Irish pronounciation circa now.

[evamedia]

It sounds Irish to me