Intention

                                Intention:  noun. f. volonté, désir. Avoir l’intention de. Projeter de.

    THE FIRST TIME I met my French husband’s family was daunting to say the least. I had to negotiate not only a language barrier, but an entire cultural barrier. A whole month of awkward dinners, lunches and (gulp!) petite-déjeuners.

    The first meal of the day was the most difficult. My sleeping log of a husband would wake at 10, whilst I was bright eyed and raring for a brioche by 6.30. This left me alone with his father, Hubert. He spoke no English.

    A humorous man, Hubert endeavored to tell me about the ducks outside the kitchen door. He quacked and pointed. And quacked again.

    From that moment on, our relationship consisted of a series of ‘quacks’. On the stairs as a form of ‘hello’. As ‘cheers!’ over a drink. It was our joke, our only verbal communication and the start of a wonderful relationship with mon Beau Père.

                           Intention: (usually plural) the goal with respect to a marriage proposal.

    MORE THAN SIX YEARS LATER, shift to Hungary for a wedding celebration, my four-year old daughter, Miss Pronunciation, decided she would play in French with her fellow bridesmaid. It was obvious the other children had no language in common with her and maybe she thought she’d play the part of United Nations.

    The adults at the wedding had a mixture of French, Hungarian, English, Italian, Spanish and (one scholar, Father of the groom) a smattering of Esperanto. We watched from small, linguistically distinct groups.

    The two small girls, with no verbal language in common, played and danced and shared the pride of being flower girls. Each spoke in their own tongue, gestured, joked, re-assured, laughed, constructed, role-played - developed their own version of ‘quacking’. It was joyful to watch.

                  Intention: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.

    LANGUAGE WITHIN ITSELF can accessorise thought, create intriguing patterns, hypnotise us, drive us forward; but it is not the words themselves that communicate the most important aspects of our relationships and our lives. It is the intention behind them. This is why so many actors who train their voices simply in terms of muscularity are the stage’s poor men. A connection is required. Intention. At all times. It is this intention that provides us with the impulse to speak, to kick the diaphragm into action.

    Working in this fashion does not lessen the physical aspect of the training - it enhances it. I have been training my actors now for two years in this method which is vastly different from what I was taught. From the very beginning. Train the body to connect with intention through every muscular movement, and you will train an actor who never fails to connect in performance.

    Dropping an intention into a released and open body and receiving a response is magic.

    This is what keeps me engaged when I watch an amazing Opera performed in Italian, subtitled in German - neither of which I understand. Performers so connected to their intention and need to communicate that their actions transcend all language barriers. I may not always know the small details, but I am absolutely fixated, connected for three hours.


    MY FRENCH is now conversational. I discuss complex issues in a very simple manner - probably a good habit to maintain. Needless to say, Hubert and I still have a good ‘quack’ every now and then for old times’ sake.

    ..........AND MISS PRONUNCIATION? As we prepared to depart the small Hungarian town for the capital the morning after the wedding, a phone call:

- Who’s that?

- Miss Pronunciation’s friend. She is crying that Miss P. is leaving.

Miss Pronunciation has made a friend for life through nothing else but playing her intentions.