The Voice Is An Instrument

It puzzled me to hear that Sarah Bernhardt would often request a pitcher of hot water to be placed discreetly near her somewhere on the stage to keep down the dust. Why dust? Who cares about dust? Then it hit me: because she’s performing. She’s inhaling deeply to give her voice power. How cumbersome that would be, to try to send her words soaring into the theater while suppressing a cough. Her voice was described as a “golden bell.” It mesmerized people. And she had a personality to match: grace, beauty, and charisma. The voice is an instrument, she said, which the artist must use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb. Or a bell.

It’s a mystery to me how singers are able to give so much expression to their emotion, and make it bold and intimate. It must be like getting naked in front of a crowd. I could never do that. Which is why I write. When I’m in public, among strangers, and often even among friends, I have to keep the full weight of emotion within reins. In writing, emotions can be dealt with more abstractly, even if the words get a little ornate. There’s probing & exploration. Groping, like for a light switch in a hotel, when you get up to use the bathroom, or get a drink of water. You can’t sing that. But if you do, let it puzzle the ears. And pull the mind into the light of a bedside lamp.

Actors leave their personalities behind in the dressing room. Maybe singers do that, too.

In Tombstone, thespian Mr. Fabian (Billy Zane) delivers – quite commendably -  the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V while rowdy cowboys take potshots at the stage.

I’ve always associated Bernhardt with the American West, although she was a longtime resident of Paris. On February 6^th, 1881, on her way to New Orleans aboard a train, she paid the engineer twenty-five hundred dollars, who sent the amount to his wife, should he not survive crossing a bridge whose piles had been weakened by floodwaters. She paid the amount in gold pieces. The train sped across and the bridge collapsed after it reached the other side. Thinking about what might’ve happened – what almost happened – gave her nightmares. Generous souls often act on impulse. Regrets come tumbling down later. Off stage. In the glare of a mirror.

In 1887 she entered the U.S. in Texas, bringing with her a pet tiger. She also wore a live garter snake around her wrist, the one she substituted for an asp while playing Cleopatra.

According to Plutarch, Cleopatra – the actual Cleopatra - spoke at least nine languages: Ethiopian, Troglodytic, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Median, Parthian, Egyptian and Greek.

History is neither chronological or ontological. It’s not even logical. It’s lopsided and beige.

In June, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok wrote to his wife – Circus Queen Agnes Lake Hickok – from the Omaha Metropolitan Hotel. He wanted to put his big hands on her shoulders and kiss her smile. I can feel all the generosity of feeling in that and it makes me feel good about the man. I always wondered about that guy. He came into my awareness when I was eight or nine in Deadwood. I remember the afternoon. The air smelled of pine and there were old cabins that might’ve been around when Wild Bill pulled out a chair and sat down to play a game of poker at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon. Wish that fucker hadn’t shot him. Bill was only 39. If he’d lived another 41 years or so he would’ve made it to 1917. The year the U.S. declared war on Germany. The October Revolution in Russia overturned the tsar’s government and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union. Jazz recording “Liberty Stable Blues” was released. And Marcel Duchamp submitted R. Mutt – a porcelain urinal - to the Society of Independent Artists who were to stage an exhibit at the Grand Central Palace in New York city. They said they’d accept any artist’s work as long as they paid the entry fee. But R. Mutt wasn’t. Upon which Duchamp resigned.  

The world lacks rebels these days. The public has become spookily compliant. Except when they get drunk on a passenger plane and are dragged off by security, shouting, screaming, trying to bludgeon the perceived injustices of the world with their voice. Which can be a scalpel or gun if used wisely. Shouting doesn’t do much, unless you’re Tears for Fears, or Lulu. A voice is useless without the precision of words. Each phrase an incision, each word a bullet fired from the mouth.