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Notes on readings
(Taken from the 2002 publication of A
Dress for Mona, pp. 126-127)
Readings are good low-budget ways
to experience plays. If you would like to do a reading
(i.e., have a group read the play out loud), there are a couple of
things to consider:
First, you will want to decide if you want a formal or
informal reading. In a formal reading, the room is divided between
readers and audience, the way a theatre generally is. In the stage
area, there is a chair for each reader. (In this play, you will want
from 5 to 9 readers all together: 4 to 8 for character roles, and 1
for stage directions.) Each of the readers has a script, while the
audience generally does not. In other ways, the formal reading
follows the basic rules of theatre-going. Some preparation or
rehearsal is important. For most occasions, one or two group
“read-throughs” before the presentation will be sufficient. Taken
further, “staged readings” incorporate some blocking (or stage
movement), more developed scene work, and even simple props. In a
less formal reading, such as one might want in a classroom or study
circle, everyone will probably have access to a script, and,
depending on the size of the group, the character roles can either
be spread out more or heaped up higher.
Second, this play takes place in Iran, and the readers
should be prepared for the Persian and Arabic words they will
encounter. (See Persian Pronunciation Guide) A single foreign word
can cause a hiccup in a reading, but a string of them can induce
cardiac arrest. “Mahmudnizhad,” for example, is a mouthful and is
said dozens of times throughout the play. I recommend that readers
learn this name before presenting the play...
Persian Pronunciation Guide
Observing just a few rules, a Persian accent can be fairly well
approximated:
1. Vowel sounds
a. When vowels have accents*
á like a in “father” or “o” in “dog”
í like ee in “cheese”
ú like oo in “shoot”
b. When vowels have no accents
a like a in “cat”
e or i like e in “get”
o or u like o in “go”
2. Consonant sounds
a. Most consonant sounds are similar to
English.
b. Kh, Gh, and Q are guttural sounds, unfamiliar to English
speakers. Appropriately, “kh” is midway between a “k” and a
“h” and “gh” (and “q”) is midway between a “g” and a “h.” These are
difficult sounds for many, so an easy compromise is pronouncing “kh”
as “k,” and “gh” (and “q”) as “g.”
3. Stress
a. Give all syllables more or less equal
stress.
b. Fight the English tendency to speak in iambs or any other
stressed / unstressed combination. |