Roy Hart (born Rubin Hartstein; 30 October 1926 – 18 May 1975) was a South African actor and vocalist noted for his highly flexible voice and extensive vocal range that resulted from training in the extended vocal technique developed and taught by the German singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn at the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre in London between 1943 and 1962.Newham, P. "The psychology of voice and the founding of the Roy Hart Theatre". New Theatre Quarterly IX, No. 33. February 1993, pp. 59–65.

History Roy Hart began learning Wolfsohn's extended vocal technique at the Voice Research Centre in 1947 where many of his fellow students acquired unusual vocal flexibility and expressiveness, some of them developing voices with a range in excess of five octaves. Luchsinger, R., and Dubois, C. L., "Phonetische und stroboskopische Untersüchungen an einem Stimmphänomen", Folia Phoniatrica, 8: No. 4, pp. 201–210. Trans. Ian Halcrow. 1956.

In 1959 Roy Hart, having been a long-standing attendant of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre, began teaching acting classes to actors and drama students at various venues across London.Hart, R., et al, "An Outline of the Work of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre", subsequently published in "The Roy Hart Theatre: Documentation and Interviews", Dartington Theatre Papers, ed. David Williams, Fifth Series, No. 14, pp. 2–7. Series ed. Peter Hulton. Dartington College of Arts, 1985.

Following the death of Alfred Wolfsohn in 1962, Roy Hart formed a performing arts group comprising some who had studied at the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre and others who had attended Hart's acting classes. This company was called first the Roy Hart Actor Singers, and then the Roy Hart Theatre.

Under the direction of Roy Hart, the Roy Hart Theatre evolved into a group of performers who devised and presented experimental performances noted for the way the members utilized extended vocal technique to create verbal and nonverbal drama and music, which had a substantial influence on the work of notable contemporaries of the European avant garde, including Peter Brook who subsequently incorporated extended vocal technique into his productions, Jerzy Grotowski, who made vocal expression a central feature to his rehearsal techniques and performances, Karlheinz Stockhausen who adapted works for Hart, and Peter Maxwell Davies who composed Eight Songs for a Mad King especially for Roy Hart's voice.Roose-Evans, J., Experimental Theatre: From Stanislavsky to Peter Brook, 4th edn. London: Routledge, 1989.Kumiega, J. (1987), The Theatre of Grotowski. London: Methuen. Martin., J. (1991), Voice in Modern Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. Barker, P., Composing for Voice: A Guide for Composers, Singers, and Teachers. London Routledge 2014Salzman, E, & Desi, T. The New Music Theater – Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body. Oxford 2008, Oxford University Press.

Roy Hart died in 1975, shortly after the Roy Hart Theatre moved permanently from London to Malérargues, Southern France. However, the remaining members continued the work begun by Alfred Wolfsohn and extended by Hart, through teaching extended vocal technique and staging dramatic and musical performances that utilized a vocal range and flexibility greater than that commonly heard in speech and song.Schechner, R. (1994), Performance Theory. London: Routledge. The Roy Hart Voice Centre(formerly the Centre International Artistique Roy Hart) is still active today in Malérargues.

Alfred Wolfsohn Research Centre Alfred Wolfsohn was a Jewish German who suffered auditory hallucinations of screaming soldiers, whom he had witnessed dying whilst serving as a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I. He was subsequently diagnosed with shell shock, and after failing to benefit from psychiatry, hypnosis, and medication, cured himself by vocalizing the extreme sounds he had heard and later hallucinated, before developing an approach to singing lessons intended to be therapeutic for his students.Günther, M., 'The Human Voice: On Alfred Wolfsohn', Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, 50: pp65–75, 1990.Wolfsohn, A., Die Brücke. London, 1947. Trans. Marita Günther and Sheila Braggins. Repository: Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam.Wolfsohn, A., Orpheus, oder der Weg zu einer Maske. Germany, 1936–1938,Paul Newham, The Prophet of Song: The Life and Work of Alfred Wolfsohn, London 1997, Tigers Eye Press.

Wolfsohn developed and taught techniques that were originally intended as psychotherapeutic, to a regular group of students, some of whom studied with him for almost twenty years, at the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre in Berlin from 1935 to 1939 and in London from 1943 until 1962 when he died. Among these students was Roy Hart, who began studying with Wolfsohn in 1947.

Experimental music and theatre

As a consequence of Wolfsohn's extended vocal technique, his students developed highly flexible and expressive voices, some of them in excess of five octaves.Luchsinger, R. and Dubois, C. L., "Phonetische und stroboskopische Untersüchungen an einem Stimmphänomen", Folia Phoniatrica, 8: No. 4, pp. 201–210. Trans. Ian Halcrow. 1956.

During the three years prior to Wolfsohn's death, this group of students began to demonstrate the artistic use of their vocal expressiveness in vocal music, poetry, and drama, to invited guests. After Alfred Wolfsohn died, Roy Hart expanded upon this tradition, acting as stage director and performer in theatre productions that used a range of vocal expression beyond that employed in most Western drama and music performances of that time.Newham, P., The Singing Cure: An Introduction to Voice Movement Therapy. London: Random House, 1993 and Boston: Shambhala, 1994.

Background

Hart studied English and psychology at the Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg before coming to England to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He recalled:

I came to England from South Africa…I won a scholarship to RADA and was told I had a good voice and stage personality. Yet I had known for some time that my voice was not rooted, not literally embodied... On leaving RADA I was immediately offered a most promising opening in the Theatre…I made an extraordinary choice. I turned down the proffered 'big chance' in order to research into the nature and meaning of the human voice.Hart, R., "How Voice Gave me a Conscience". Unpublished paper read at the Seventh International Congress for Psychotherapy, Wiesbaden, 1967. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.

Hart began taking lessons with Alfred Wolfsohn in 1947. Upon his teacher's death in 1962 the long-standing attendants of the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre divided with Hart taking leadership of one group who were joined by students of Hart's acting lessons while the other group continued their attempts to maintain the centre and its therapeutic focus.

The work of both the Roy Hart Theatre and the Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre was documented in writing, film, photographs, and Phonograph recordings by author, film maker, and archivist Leslie Shepard.Dixon Smith, R., "Leslie Shepard: Writer, editor, film-maker and collector", The Independent, 14 September 2004.Newham, P. The Prophet of Song: The Life and Work of Alfred Wolfsohn. London: Tigers Eye Press, 1997.Shepard, L., et al, "The Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre", Dartington Theatre Papers Archives. Dartington College of Arts, 1985.

This documentation was used as the primary material upon which to base written papers that Hart read in 1963 at the Jung Institute in London; in 1964 at the Sixth International Congress for Psychotherapy in London; in 1967 at the Seventh International Congress for Psychotherapy in Wiesbaden; in 1968 at the Third International Congress of Psychodrama in Vienna; in 1970 at the Sixth International Conference for Psychodrama in Zagreb; and in 1972 at the Seventh International Congress of Psychodrama in Tokyo.Hart, R., Lecture read at the Jung Institute in London, 1963. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.Shepard, L., An Empirical Therapy Based on an Extension of Vocal Range and Expression in Singing and Drama. Paper read at the Sixth International Congress of Psychotherapy, London, August 1964. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.Hart, R., How Voice Gave me a Conscience. Paper read at the Seventh International Congress for Psychotherapy, Wiesbaden, 1967. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.Hart, R., Context. Paper read at the Third International Congress of Psychodrama, Vienna, 1968. Repository: Roy Hart Theatre Archives, Malérargues, France.Hart, R., Paper read at the Sixth International Conference for Psychodrama in Zagreb. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.Hart, R, The Objective Voice. Paper read at the Seventh International Congress of Psychodrama in Tokyo, 1972. Repository: Alfred Wolfsohn Voice Research Centre Archives. Curated by Leslie Shepard, Dublin, Ireland.

The papers presented by Hart made two fundamental points.

First, they proposed that an extended vocal range could be used to produce a form of theatre that returned it to its alleged roots in religious ritual and spiritual practice.Innes, C. (1981), Holy Theatre: Ritual and the Avant Garde. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Innes, C. (1993), Avant Garde Theatre 1892–. London: Routledge.Schechner, R. (1985), Between Theatre and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. The vision of reviving a primitive and provocative participatory theatre that would use a range of vocal sounds to portray mythical characters and deities, and express intense human emotion was synonymous with Jerzy Grotowski's vision of creating a theatre that made full use of the voice to embody archetypal themes. Furthermore, both Hart and Grotowski agreed that theatre should provoke and stir what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious through such portrayal.Flaszen, L. (1975), "Akropolis – treatment of the text". In J. Grotowski (ed.), Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen.Grotowski, J. (1987), "Dziady jako model teatru nowoczesnego". Wspolczesnosc, 21, 1961.Seymour, A. (1987), "Revelations in Poland". Plays and Players, 33–34.Schechner, R. (1995), The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance. London: Routledge.