What's with all the history?

From Eric Hale:

I just received my first e-mail from the blog. It was one line long. Here’s the quote: “What’s with all the history?”

At least it wasn’t “Why so serious?”

I was confused at first, but then I reread my posts. I mentioned history in the last two posts, so I will assume that is what the e-mail is about. If I get this wrong, my secret admirer may feel free to mail me a clarification.

As actors, it’s important that we know the circumstances of our characters. These are the things that determine how the character will react. As a general rule, the bigger your part, the more information the script gives about your character. For those in the chorus, there’s not much guidance. For this show, the chorus is given the time, place, and a few group designations – soldiers, smugglers, cigarette girls. The rest is up to us.

So, among the questions you have to answer is this one: How would a bystander (or soldier, etc.) living in 1830s Spain react? To know that, you have to know some basics about the history and culture. Let’s consider one case as a concrete example: Micaëla’s entrance in act 1. Based on the little I have learned about the period, I can list some things about that entrance to which my character might react:

* She’s not familiar. That’s unusual enough to be noticed, but Seville is a big city, so it’s not particularly noteworthy.

* She’s a woman who is wandering the streets alone. In that day and time this would have been scandalous, and quite dangerous also.

* She approaches men she clearly does not know. In that day and time, this alone would have been enough to get people wondering how she supports herself.

* The men are soldiers. That goes from scandalous to potentially suicidal. More on the soldiers below.

* She’s looking for a particular soldier, which would lead to a rather obvious assumption about why.

In short, an interaction which would barely get noticed in 21st century America is very significant in early 19th century Spain. If you don’t know the enormous risks Micaëla is taking with her reputation and physical safety, the scene does not make sense.

Now, I have to note that the opera is not intended to portray Spain accurately. However, that does not change the fact that the more we know about the attitudes and culture of the time, the better choices we can make as actors.

That’s why all the history.

A quick digression on the soldiers: The army then was not like the army now. In this time and place, being a professional soldier was not a respected profession. If you think of them like mob enforcers, you have a better idea of how they were considered. While the officers were from the middle and upper classes, the rank and file were thugs paid by the state. They were held in such low esteem that even as late as World War I parts of Europe still considered a conscript army superior to a professional army. I have read that poet A. E. Housman wrote “Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries” because Kaiser Wilhelm insulting described the British Army as a bunch of mercenaries.

I have to thank David Drake, another of the brilliant people I am privileged to call friend. He has provided me with a lot of historical data for several of the shows I’ve been in, including this one. You have to admire someone with an intellect versatile enough to write science fiction and translate Ovid. His site is at http://www.david-drake.com/

Since I know Dave is a Housman fan, I’ll close this one with the poem I mentioned above.

“Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries”
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.