V.V Fear
"Ah! Much I fear the inevitable time assigned by fate"
Walter Charleton
"Article 33,
The Motions of the Soul and Spirits in Fear.
In Fear, the Sensitive Soul, which was before expensed, being surprised with apprehension of approaching Evil, and willing to decline it, immediately withdraws herself into her Retiring Room, and shrinks up herself into herself; at the same time recalling her forces, the spirits, to her aid, and compressing them. If the Fear can be exalted to the degree of Terror, and the Evil seem independent; then at the same time the spirits are suddenly retall’d from the outgards, the pores of the skin also are shut up by strong constriction (as if the Soul would obstruct and barricado all avenues against her invading enemy) whereby the hairs are raised an end, and the whole body is put into a Horror or shaking. After this, if the passion continue, the whole army of spirits being put into confusion, so that they can not execute their offices; the usual succors of Reason fail, and the powers of voluntary motion become weak; yea sometimes, by reason of a resolution of the nerves and sphinkers of the gutts and bladder, the Excrements themselves are let forth involuntarily."1
Aaron Hill:
"How Fear ought to be acted.
DEFINITION.
Fear is Grief, discerning and avoiding Danger.
It is an apprehensive, but unsinew’d struggle, betwixt caution, and despair : It cannot therefore be expressed, but by a look alarm’d and watchful, with a voice and air, un-animated.
(…)
HERE, an actor, who would impress his imagination with a natural idea of fear, will most effectuantly represent it, by assuming the same languor, in look, and in muscles, that was, just now, described, as peculiar to grief. For then, if he would strike out, in an instant, the distinction, by which fear is diversified from sorrow, let him only, in place of that resign’d, plaintive, passive, distress, that is proper to grief, add (without altering the relax’d state of his nerves) a starting apprehensive, and liftning alarm to his look ; keeping his eyes widely stretch’d, but unfix’d ; his mouth still, and open ; his steps light and shifting, — yet, his joints unbrac’d, faint, nerveless. — And, then will his whole air express the true picture of FEAR, and his voice too, sound it significantly.
(…) But as soon as this pathetic sensation has strongly and fully imprinted his fancy, let him, then — and never a moment before — attempt to give the Speech due utterance. - - - So shall he always hit the right and touching sensibility of tone, and move his auditors, impressingly : whereas, should he, with and unfeeling volubility of cadence, hurry on from one over-leap’d distinction to another, without due adaption of his look and muscles, ate the meaning proper to the Passion, he will neer speak to heart ; nor move himself, nor any of his audience ; beyond the simple and unanimating, verbal sense ; without the spirit of the writer. "2
Charles Le Brun
"(...) The movements of Fear are expressed by the inner end of the eyebrow slightly raised; the pupil is bright, in restless movement, and situated in the middle of the eye; the mouth is open, drawn back, and the sides more open than the centre, and the under lip drawn further back than the upper. The complexion is redder than in Love or Desire, but not so beautiful, for it has a somewhat livid tint; the lips are of this same colour, and also dryer than in Love. (...)"3
A SHORT REFLECTION ON EMBODYING FEAR
Practising to embody Fear, is also practicing scaring yourself. The periods where I focused on this passion, I became very aware of the situations that I find scary. In the practice room, I channeled the same sensations, and let the sound and movements be up to the natural reactions, rather than posing them beforehand. My experience with singing with Fear, is that you have to accept what comes, and not search for beauty, which this project definitely challenges.
Footnotes:
1: Charleton 1701, pp. 122-4
2: Hill 1753,pp. 365-368
3: LeBrun 1698, translated in:Montagu 1994, p. 136
4: Vandenhoff 1846, pp. 197-8