Tracing the Madness

Victoria Oftestad

As a tourist in London during the late 17th century, it was mandatory to visit the House of Bedlam, the biggest mental institution in the city. The patients, being considered completely unreasonable, were attributed animalic characteristics, which was reflected in the brutal treatment behind the bars. The ultimate mirroring of the culture of exposing madness could be found in the theatre. Composers for the theatre, in wanting to explore the inability of reason in humanity, wrote The Mad Songs, where the madness is reflected in quick shifts in emotions. These songs have been my tool to gain access to a broader palette of expression in singing. I have developed a handbook of historically informed techniques and documented my process of embodying them, using sources such as Le Brun's "Conférence (...)" (1698); Walter Charleton's "Natural History of the Passions" (1701); Aaron Hill's "The Art of Acting" (1753); and George Vandenhoff's "The Art of Elocution" (1846). My quest for madness has also become a quest for genuinity. When Charles Le Brun conveyed his theory of expression on canvas, he strongly distinguished the difference between painting tense muscles and painting genuine expression. This has become a guideline for my research: in order to gain genuinity, one has to channel a reaction and produce an impulse. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap between now and then, allowing for a deeper understanding of the Mad Songs, as well as encouraging others to dive into theatrical repertoire on its own premises.

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V.IV Melancholy/Grief

"Short sleeps, deep sighs"

Walter Charleton

"Article. 57,

Sighs and Tears.

Sometimes this bitter passion is signified by a certain uncomely distortion of the face, somewhat different from that of Laughter, accompanied with Tears; sometimes only by Sighs: by Sighs, when the Grief is extreme: by Tears, when it is but moderate. For as Laughter never proceeds from great and profound Joy, so neither do Tears flow from profound sorrow."¹

Aaron Hill:

How an Actor is to express Grief.

DEFINITION.

Grief is disappointment, void of Hope.

It is a mournful and un-struggling resignation of defense, to apprehension of calamity : and therefore must require, to express it rightly, a sad look, careless air, and voice un-rais’d, and indolent.

(…) His muscles must fall loose, and be unbrac’d into the habit of languor. — And, then, no sooner shall his nerves have form’d themselves to this lax disposition, for complying with the melancholy demand of the sentiments, than his voice also will associate its sound to the plaintive resignation of his gesture, and the result, both in air, and in accent, will be the most moving resemblance of a heart-felt and passionate sorrow. Whereas, let him endeavor with all possible industry, so to sadden his voice, without a previous accommodation of his look, and his finews, to the faintness of the image intended, his tone will be hard, austere, and unfeeling — and more and more remote from the true sound of distress, in exact proportion to the spring, he retained on his nerves, and the vigor, that had over animated his eye, or too ardently quicken’d his gesture."²

Charles Le Brun

Sorrow

"As we have said that Sorrow is a disagreeable langour in which the soul experiences the discomfort caused by the ill or defect to which the impressions of the brain show it to be subject, so this passion is represented by movements which seem to reflect the restlessness of the brain and the depression of the heart, the eyebrow being raised higher at the inner end than the outer. In a person suffering from this passion the pupil is troubled, the white of the eye yellow, the eyelids lowered and rather swollen, the area around the eye livid, the nostrils drawn down, the mouth slightly open and the corners drawn down, the head negligently leaning to one shoulder; the colour of the whole face is leaden, and the lips pale and colourless."³

Vandenhoff:

"The voice of Melancholy is low in tone, soft, mellow and slow in utterance."⁴

A SHORT REFLECTION ON EMBODYING MELANCHOLY/GRIEF

Once I posed Le Brun's suggested expression, it was easy to channel my inner Grief. Using sighs to manifest my Grief in breath, also contributed to developing a deeper and more profound emotion. However, Hill's descriptions of a relaxed and slow body, didn't invite to utterance, and certainly not to singing. However, with more experience, I think it is possible to balance loose muscles on the outside, with a streaming airflow on the inside.

Footnotes:

1: Charleton 1701, pp. 152-4

2: Hill 1753, pp. 363-5

3: LeBrun 1698, translated in:Montagu 1994, p. 136

4:Vandenhoff 1846, pp. 201-2

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Victoria Oftestad - Tracing the Madness - 2025