Resumen de Without Colour: Beckett and the Stage Voice
Nicholas E. Johnson, Cathal Quinn
Though widely cited in scholarship and criticism, Samuel Beckett’s admonitions to actors across several of his plays to perform in a ‘toneless’ manner or ‘without colour’ (see Germoni and Sardin, 2012) belies some of the complexity involved in actually voicing Beckett in performance. There are also numerous testimonies that point in the opposite direction from ‘toneless’, since Beckett as a director also emphasised musicality, rhythm, depth, timbre, range, breath, and specificity in relation to actors’ voices. Drawing on a consciously ‘vocal’ form — the philosophical dialogue — this contribution collects the insights gained by two Dublin-based practitioners. They reflect on how their experiences of studio practice, actor training, and theatre directing might point towards a more complex reading of the Beckett ‘voice’ in performance.
