How dialect is crucial to authentic performances at the Maryland Renaissance Festival
rom the first rehearsal for the Maryland Renaissance Festival, Mary Ann Jung, the festival’s director of Renaissance history and Shakespearean language, has her fellow actors come up with a greeting to use when interacting with audience members. This, she says, is the ultimate key to communicating a character’s societal rank, their humor, their education—and much more.
“In one sentence, you can give that guest so many clues about your character’s personality,” Jung said.
Dialect, a combination of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, is critical when it comes to capturing the essence of a character and communicating that to audiences. But getting it right demands intensive practice, along with historical research and creativity, as performers in the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival can attest to. This summer, even as several adjustments are being made to help keep festival guests safe during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the authenticity of the experience won’t change a bit—and that’s largely thanks to dialect.
The fluid vernacular
of early modern England
Early Modern England, or the period from the mid-15th century through the 17th century, was a time of political, religious and economic transformation. The Church of England broke from Catholicism; the Bill of Rights made the Crown subordinate to the people; and the economy largely flourished. But in the late 16th century, when Shakespeare’s plays were first staged in London, the vast majority of British people could not read or write. Verbal communication reigned, and because spelling had not been standardized, the English language was fluid and experimental.
“They added about 20,000 new words to our English language during the Renaissance,” Jung said. (Today, about 8,500 new words are added to the English language every year.)
Modern audiences often see the language of the Renaissance era as prestigious or intimidating, but the reverence of plays and literature from Early Modern England began well after the era ended—and can misrepresent how that language was used, according to Paul Meier, a dialect coach and scholar of languages. In reality, the language of Shakespeare’s time was casual and vernacular. For example, instead of “goodbye,“ friends would bid each other “farewell“ (“fare“ is a verb that means “to do“) or “I shall see thee anon,“ the equivalent of “see you later.“
While the stories told at the Maryland Renaissance Festival are often set during the Shakespearean era, the language pattern of that time can be difficult for modern audiences to understand, according to Jung. So, instead, she teaches actors other quintessential English accents, which enables the talent to easily communicate with festival-goers (while staying in character.) She chooses these accents based on whether a character is part of the upper or working class: Received Pronunciation, or what’s considered standard British English, is for the well-to-do merchant, while Cockney is for the peasant or tavern wench. To make these accents as authentic as possible, the actors also infuse them with grammar that the everyday person tends to associate with Shakespeare, such as what Jung refers to as reverse negative (“I care not” instead of “I don’t care”) and double superlative (“Thou art the most handsomest man”). Jung also keeps the playful spirit of Early Modern English alive by encouraging wordiness among performers.
“Something we would say in three words, they would have embellished to 30,” Jung said. For example, “There's a million ways to say 'hello,' like, 'good morrow,’ ‘you're well met and well come’ and ‘how now?'“
While the stories told at the Maryland Renaissance Festival are often set during the Shakespearean era, the language pattern of that time can be difficult for modern audiences to understand, according to Jung. So, instead, she teaches actors other quintessential English accents, which enables the talent to easily communicate with festival-goers (while staying in character.) She chooses these accents based on whether a character is part of the upper or working class: Received Pronunciation, or what’s considered standard British English, is for the well-to-do merchant, while Cockney is for the peasant or tavern wench. To make these accents as authentic as possible, the actors also infuse them with grammar that the everyday person tends to associate with Shakespeare, such as what Jung refers to as reverse negative (“I care not” instead of “I don’t care”) and double superlative (“Thou art the most handsomest man”). Jung also keeps the playful spirit of Early Modern English alive by encouraging wordiness among performers.
“Something we would say in three words, they would have embellished to 30,” Jung said. For example, “There's a million ways to say 'hello,' like, 'good morrow,’ ‘you're well met and well come’ and ‘how now?'“
Along with physical adjustments, dialect work demands that actors understand the context around their character, because the more they know, the more natural they'll sound. Renaissance Festival performers research their character's profession and study the history of whichever year is being portrayed, so they'll be ready to improvise convincingly with guests.
“Patrons love this kind of approach because strong emotions make better drama,“ said Jung. Of course, because actors speak in dialect throughout rehearsals, by the time they take to the stage or stroll the village streets, they're able to transition from one high-drama interaction to another without missing a beat.
What it’s like to learn a dialect
Learning to speak in dialect is a physical process. For older dialects, like Early Modern English, the pitch range is wide, so actors must “shift the musculature” of the face, according to Atlanta-based dialect coach Elisa Carlson. Whereas modern speech involves more lateral movement with lips staying flat, Early Modern English fully engages the cheeks and causes the jaw to drop.
An actor’s posture might also change when they’re speaking in an accent. Someone who is playing Queen Elizabeth may find themselves sitting up straighter—and barely opening their mouth to speak, in an attempt to sound “hoity-toity”—according to Carlson, who has worked on Shakespeare productions as an actor and a dialect coach. Jung, who is also a performer at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, finds it easier to stay in character as a restrained personality like Queen Elizabeth I. Her role this summer as Captain Jean the Pirate Queen (based on Jean Cabot, the daughter of Italian explorer John Cabot) presents more of a challenge, because “everything is more relaxed, including your mouth, your face and your posture, [so] it’s a lot easier to drop character and to slip into modernisms,” she said.
Along with physical adjustments, dialect work demands that actors understand the context around their character, because the more they know, the more natural they'll sound. Renaissance Festival performers research their character's profession and study the history of whichever year is being portrayed, so they'll be ready to improvise convincingly with guests.
“Patrons love this kind of approach because strong emotions make better drama,“ said Jung. Of course, because actors speak in dialect throughout rehearsals, by the time they take to the stage or stroll the village streets, they're able to transition from one high-drama interaction to another without missing a beat.
Becoming a
Renaissance-era character
Before he even puts on his costume, actor Fred Nelson, who’s been performing in the Maryland Renaissance Festival since 2002, starts getting into character. On the drive to the festival grounds, Nelson will start “spouting the lines” for his role as King Henry VIII. But it isn’t until he arrives and gets dressed in historic garb weighing between 30 and 40 pounds that Nelson feels truly transformed.
“Once you step into that costume, your nose automatically raises in the air to give you an imperious stature,” he said.
Beyond costuming, actors engage in other ”character creation” exercises, such as exploring their character's goals, that inform their performance. One year, Jung's character, Captain Jean the Pirate Queen, wanted to become a privateer (leader of an armed ship), so her daily interactions with patrons and other characters centered around trying to convince the King that she was up to the task.
Nelson, Jung and their fellow actors are in character for several hours each day, projecting their voices over a cacophony of festival sounds like “[the] clanging of vendors, general crowd ambience, or bagpipes on the next stage over,” Nelson said. The effort is so consuming that it can be tough to transition back to normal when the day winds down. But the actors have a strategy: Together, they shout “The beer is in the pickup truck,” a phrase they’ve discovered is “absolutely impossible to say in a proper royal British accent,” according to Nelson.
Such effort on the part of actors to embody their characters is part of what sets the Maryland Renaissance Festival apart. Audiences know they can expect outstanding performances and actors who are eager to engage—whether it means teaching guests an Early Modern English greeting or providing context around a particular word or aspect of speech. And that will continue regardless of this year’s socially-distanced seating, and restrictions on Pub Sings and up-close interactions. Festival guests will still be able to soak up the atmosphere and experience the dialect of Early Modern England, just like always.
“All of us are just chomping at the bit to let you know about how we speak and what it means,” Nelson said.
Nelson, Jung and their fellow actors are in character for several hours each day, projecting their voices over a cacophony of festival sounds like “[the] clanging of vendors, general crowd ambience, or bagpipes on the next stage over,” Nelson said. The effort is so consuming that it can be tough to transition back to normal when the day winds down. But the actors have a strategy: Together, they shout “The beer is in the pickup truck,” a phrase they’ve discovered is “absolutely impossible to say in a proper royal British accent,” according to Nelson.
Such effort on the part of actors to embody their characters is part of what sets the Maryland Renaissance Festival apart. Audiences know they can expect outstanding performances and actors who are eager to engage—whether it means teaching guests an Early Modern English greeting or providing context around a particular word or aspect of speech. And that will continue regardless of this year’s socially-distanced seating, and restrictions on Pub Sings and up-close interactions. Festival guests will still be able to soak up the atmosphere and experience the dialect of Early Modern England, just like always.
“All of us are just chomping at the bit to let you know about how we speak and what it means,” Nelson said.
The Maryland Renaissance Festival is returning August through October 2021.
If you’re coming to the fest, you might say, ‘Hey. Hi. What's up. How are you?’ There's a million ways to say hello that are not, ‘Hey, you.‘ So they would say things like, ‘Ah, good morrow. You're well met and well come. How now? Good evening.’ The whole point of language at this time is that very few people were literate. They didn't spend time reading and writing, so their main method of communication was verbal. And whether you were a low class peasant or a servant or in the court, they loved verbal language. They loved playing, they loved puns, jokes, riddles. There were no rules. You could make up your own words. It was incredibly free-form and fun and playful.
What we like to do, all cast members, we’ll refer to patrons as ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ The reason that we do this is to ennoble our patrons, to bring them up to our level, to make them feel like a goodsir, or a fine lady. It's a subtle thing that we do, but there's a reason that we use ‘thee’ and ‘thou.’ ‘You’ and ‘yours’ is always acceptable, but ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘thy’ has something a little special.
Some characters are well known, like Henry VIII, obviously, and the civil members of the courts they're all based on real people. And then, there are these other characters that are very meticulously created. Every rehearsal process is a collaborative effort between the performer that's playing the part and several excellent script writers and directors. They all come together to work out, ‘How would that character talk? What form of language would they be working with?’ And then, there's other things, ‘What did that character have for breakfast? How do they spend their day?’ But language is a very important part of it.
The physicality of your character has a lot to do with how you speak and move. Obviously, if I'm playing Queen Margaret of Scotland, you know, when you're in a beautifully corseted, heavy gown, your posture is necessarily upright. It helps pull your shoulders back, and you naturally speak more politely, efficiently. If you're playing a peasant character, depending on who you are, depending on your personality of you character; generally for a cockney accent in a peasant character, your body posture is a little more slouched, your costuming, you're not as rigidly corseted as some court lady. So everything about you, including even the way you hold your mouth and you speak, is more relaxed, so that the costuming helps a lot with how you sound and feel and move around.