Le “Written Speech” yeatsien et ses expressions scéniques

Abstract

In a first period of his theatrical works, inspired by Irish legends, Yeats endorses the myth of an oral tradition of the Irish people, for which his theatre becomes the speaker. He then takes his distance from it in favor of a concept of oral form that includes his own, the lyrical’s poet, “written speech”, reconciling oral conversation with the « sprezzatura » of aristocratic speech. In both cases, the question is therefore to find actors who will practically develop such a project on stage. From 1900 to 1907, Yeats’s most important collaborator was Franck Fay, co-director of the young Abbey Theatre. After a first career, with his brother William, in the aera of popular irish theatre, he tried to apply in the Abbey the vocal training of the “french model”, from Coquelin to… Sarah Bernhardt, and the Paris Conservatoire. A strange alliance thus took place between the poet, the actor, and a voice tradition seemingly very far from the “yeatsian utopia”. Nevertheless, Yeats’s reference when he aims at the ecstasy or “tragic joy” of his drama’s heroes remains those magnetic french “golden voices”.

Keywords

• Yeats
• Irish theatre
• Franck Fay
• orality
• written speech
• voice training