The persuasive actor: rhetorical power on the contemporary stage
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This new book by Milan Dragicevich, officially released in March 2019 by the Hackett Publishing Company, is a bold and innovative approach to contemporary actor training. By adapting the classical principles of rhetoric, today’s actor learns to send a powerful vocal “charge” into the act of speaking, strengthening expressivity and range, vocal bravery and command. The book seeks to rediscover the lost art of persuasive speaking, ultimately transforming an actor’s relationship to language, from Shakespeare to Stoppard, from Shaw to Hip-Hop Theater, igniting a spark that will create a more evocative, courageous, and thrilling performance.
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Testimonials for "The Persuasive Actor"
Excerpt from Chapter Five - Mantras, Spells, and Grooves: Repetition
Over 200,000 pilgrims flocked to the nation’s capital on that historic day. They had traveled from every state, by bus and truck and train and by foot. They had answered the call to participate in the March on Washington for Civil Rights, then the largest demonstration of its kind in the history of the United States. 200,000 sojourners stood in the sweltering August heat of 1963, between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, to share a vision of an America that honors its promise of liberty and justice for all. They had come to hear and feel the words that would describe their struggle and inspire their hope. The keynote speaker on that day was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., a Black Baptist minister and Civil Rights leader who had sprung to national prominence leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott seven years earlier. The crowd surged forward as King stepped onto the podium, before the stone memorial to Abraham Lincoln.
King started his speech by noting that, one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the African American—the ‘Negro’—was still not free. He painted a picture of the Black American living on “an island of poverty in the vast ocean of material prosperity.” The Negro, he argued, was an exile in his own land, banished to the unlit corners of American society. The audience moved in closer, vocally responding to King’s oratory. America, King continued, had defaulted on its promissory note of equal opportunity and justice. He spoke of the urgency of the moment, of racial harmony, of nonviolence, of moral battle and vigor.
—And then Martin Luther King, imploring his listeners to resist the pull of despair, calmly looked out across the surging crowd…
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—“we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
King, drawing on his decade of speeches delivered in the trenches of struggle and at church pulpits, continued.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...
I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! (bold italics mine)
I have a dream….I have a dream….I have a dream…King’s voice soared across the National Mall. He would continue to repeat the phrase in the remaining section of the speech. He had used this phrase in a little-known earlier speech but suddenly felt the spontaneous impulse to release it on this Grand Stage. His instincts were right. This phrase changed American history on that day and embedded itself into the consciousness of the 200,000 gathered there, as well as the millions who were watching on television. The 17-minute speech, perhaps the most important in the American 20th century, became known as the ‘I have a dream’ speech, overnight. President John F. Kennedy, greeting King at the White House immediately after the speech, extended his hand with the welcoming words: “I have a dream.”
If King had used the phrase, ‘’I have a dream,” only once during the speech, would he have generated the same impact with his address? Would anyone refer to the speech as the ‘I have a dream’ speech today? What happened that day? What were the effects of King’s words? King’s speech, like every great speech, was a performance and, as such, can be examined by today’s stage actor to see what lessons it may yield. King expressed a profound message, yes, but he also found a verbal package—and voice—which gave it everlasting appeal. In particular, he featured the strategy of repetition.
What is the power of repetition? What is gained when the speaker repeats something? The classical age knew the secrets of repetition and trained young speakers to take advantage of them in persuading an audience. Stirring religious oratory, which understood the effects of repetitive chants, was something King grew up listening to, in the Black Baptist churches of the South. What did he learn there? What “lost knowledge” might the actor acquire today?
In earlier centuries, young performers were trained to recognize and use the rhetorical figures of Repetition. These figures were spread across several broad fronts.
◊ Repetition of Words and Phrases
◊ Repetition of Ideas
◊ Repetition of Structure, Sound
Let’s take a look at each of these categories and examine the opportunities that present themselves to the actor in performance.
[Second excerpt: explores the spellbinding power of the spoken word when embedded in repetitive rhetorical devices, including "epimone"--a delayed repetitive riff reoccurring at intervals--and "epizeuxis," an obsessive back-to-back incantation.]
In Zell Miller III’s spoken word performance piece, The Evidence of Silence Broken, the zealous black Poet recalls an encounter on a city bus:
Once on the back of a bus, a man, average man, suit-wearing man, suit-wearing man, wanted to sit down, sit down next to me. Suit-wearing man in white skin and wet hair, and long day, looking for a sit down, suit-wearing man said: “May I sit down.” black man, me. black man in revolutionary mode. I. revolutionary mode. me. In search of change, me: “By any means necessary,” misquote. me. Acted no better than them who I wanted to change / kill /teach. see learned oppression from an oppressor. but this man. this average man, suit-wearing man. only wanted to sit down.
Look at the variety of repetitive spells and grooves. This Poet, in the heat of racial tension, ignites every thought with repetition, primarily using the delayed spell of epimone and its reinforcement at intervals. Although the whole speech seems wrapped in compulsive epizeuxis. His repetitive hammer brings our attention to details we might have missed or taken for granted. “Suit wearing man”—in its constant reminder—becomes a totem for the white establishment he distrusts and despises. This average, suit-wearing man simply wants to “sit down,” but for the Poet, this act conjures images from Montgomery bus boycotts and is therefore a revolutionary one, and in his “revolutionary mode” he views this act as a direct challenge. And despite his considerable self-awareness, later in the speech, the Poet cannot help but shout a command:
You stand your ass up, my people had to stand for four hundred years. You stand your punk ass up.
More reinforcement. The second utterance strengthens the first. As this “average man, suit-wearing man, suit-wearing man in white skin” turns away and stands, the Poet initially feels a sense of victory. And in a fascinating turnaround, the Poet then describes the realization—in later years—of his own misunderstanding of that average man, that suit-wearing man “looking for sit down.” Remarkably, the phrase “suit-wearing man” travels many miles in this speech, from a kind of anonymous symbol of oppression to an unwitting or unsuspecting figure.
SUIT–WEARING MAN! ➔ suit-wearing man
Practice this speech aloud and let it work on you. Try to avoid interpretive judgments prior to speaking the text aloud. It’s repetitive structure will take you to unexpected places if you are open to its influence. Language-driven actor training allows space for the words themselves to shape character.
Epizeuxis, the Spellbinder, and Epizeuxis, the Mantra, are a powerful team. One provides a delayed punch, the other an extended pummeling. Both derive power from the vehemence unleashed by the act of verbal repetition. They also celebrate the exploration of a word’s meaning by its very repetition. They are not content with a one-time utterance of a phrase or word. Both are too passionate for such economy. These verbal strategies seek a zealous actor, one who demands the repeated attack, works with degrees of emphasis, and verbally insists that the phrase is worth repeating.
Over 200,000 pilgrims flocked to the nation’s capital on that historic day. They had traveled from every state, by bus and truck and train and by foot. They had answered the call to participate in the March on Washington for Civil Rights, then the largest demonstration of its kind in the history of the United States. 200,000 sojourners stood in the sweltering August heat of 1963, between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, to share a vision of an America that honors its promise of liberty and justice for all. They had come to hear and feel the words that would describe their struggle and inspire their hope. The keynote speaker on that day was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., a Black Baptist minister and Civil Rights leader who had sprung to national prominence leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott seven years earlier. The crowd surged forward as King stepped onto the podium, before the stone memorial to Abraham Lincoln.
King started his speech by noting that, one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the African American—the ‘Negro’—was still not free. He painted a picture of the Black American living on “an island of poverty in the vast ocean of material prosperity.” The Negro, he argued, was an exile in his own land, banished to the unlit corners of American society. The audience moved in closer, vocally responding to King’s oratory. America, King continued, had defaulted on its promissory note of equal opportunity and justice. He spoke of the urgency of the moment, of racial harmony, of nonviolence, of moral battle and vigor.
—And then Martin Luther King, imploring his listeners to resist the pull of despair, calmly looked out across the surging crowd…
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—“we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
King, drawing on his decade of speeches delivered in the trenches of struggle and at church pulpits, continued.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...
I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! (bold italics mine)
I have a dream….I have a dream….I have a dream…King’s voice soared across the National Mall. He would continue to repeat the phrase in the remaining section of the speech. He had used this phrase in a little-known earlier speech but suddenly felt the spontaneous impulse to release it on this Grand Stage. His instincts were right. This phrase changed American history on that day and embedded itself into the consciousness of the 200,000 gathered there, as well as the millions who were watching on television. The 17-minute speech, perhaps the most important in the American 20th century, became known as the ‘I have a dream’ speech, overnight. President John F. Kennedy, greeting King at the White House immediately after the speech, extended his hand with the welcoming words: “I have a dream.”
If King had used the phrase, ‘’I have a dream,” only once during the speech, would he have generated the same impact with his address? Would anyone refer to the speech as the ‘I have a dream’ speech today? What happened that day? What were the effects of King’s words? King’s speech, like every great speech, was a performance and, as such, can be examined by today’s stage actor to see what lessons it may yield. King expressed a profound message, yes, but he also found a verbal package—and voice—which gave it everlasting appeal. In particular, he featured the strategy of repetition.
What is the power of repetition? What is gained when the speaker repeats something? The classical age knew the secrets of repetition and trained young speakers to take advantage of them in persuading an audience. Stirring religious oratory, which understood the effects of repetitive chants, was something King grew up listening to, in the Black Baptist churches of the South. What did he learn there? What “lost knowledge” might the actor acquire today?
In earlier centuries, young performers were trained to recognize and use the rhetorical figures of Repetition. These figures were spread across several broad fronts.
◊ Repetition of Words and Phrases
◊ Repetition of Ideas
◊ Repetition of Structure, Sound
Let’s take a look at each of these categories and examine the opportunities that present themselves to the actor in performance.
[Second excerpt: explores the spellbinding power of the spoken word when embedded in repetitive rhetorical devices, including "epimone"--a delayed repetitive riff reoccurring at intervals--and "epizeuxis," an obsessive back-to-back incantation.]
In Zell Miller III’s spoken word performance piece, The Evidence of Silence Broken, the zealous black Poet recalls an encounter on a city bus:
Once on the back of a bus, a man, average man, suit-wearing man, suit-wearing man, wanted to sit down, sit down next to me. Suit-wearing man in white skin and wet hair, and long day, looking for a sit down, suit-wearing man said: “May I sit down.” black man, me. black man in revolutionary mode. I. revolutionary mode. me. In search of change, me: “By any means necessary,” misquote. me. Acted no better than them who I wanted to change / kill /teach. see learned oppression from an oppressor. but this man. this average man, suit-wearing man. only wanted to sit down.
Look at the variety of repetitive spells and grooves. This Poet, in the heat of racial tension, ignites every thought with repetition, primarily using the delayed spell of epimone and its reinforcement at intervals. Although the whole speech seems wrapped in compulsive epizeuxis. His repetitive hammer brings our attention to details we might have missed or taken for granted. “Suit wearing man”—in its constant reminder—becomes a totem for the white establishment he distrusts and despises. This average, suit-wearing man simply wants to “sit down,” but for the Poet, this act conjures images from Montgomery bus boycotts and is therefore a revolutionary one, and in his “revolutionary mode” he views this act as a direct challenge. And despite his considerable self-awareness, later in the speech, the Poet cannot help but shout a command:
You stand your ass up, my people had to stand for four hundred years. You stand your punk ass up.
More reinforcement. The second utterance strengthens the first. As this “average man, suit-wearing man, suit-wearing man in white skin” turns away and stands, the Poet initially feels a sense of victory. And in a fascinating turnaround, the Poet then describes the realization—in later years—of his own misunderstanding of that average man, that suit-wearing man “looking for sit down.” Remarkably, the phrase “suit-wearing man” travels many miles in this speech, from a kind of anonymous symbol of oppression to an unwitting or unsuspecting figure.
SUIT–WEARING MAN! ➔ suit-wearing man
Practice this speech aloud and let it work on you. Try to avoid interpretive judgments prior to speaking the text aloud. It’s repetitive structure will take you to unexpected places if you are open to its influence. Language-driven actor training allows space for the words themselves to shape character.
Epizeuxis, the Spellbinder, and Epizeuxis, the Mantra, are a powerful team. One provides a delayed punch, the other an extended pummeling. Both derive power from the vehemence unleashed by the act of verbal repetition. They also celebrate the exploration of a word’s meaning by its very repetition. They are not content with a one-time utterance of a phrase or word. Both are too passionate for such economy. These verbal strategies seek a zealous actor, one who demands the repeated attack, works with degrees of emphasis, and verbally insists that the phrase is worth repeating.