The Crushed Tragedian

NEW OLD THEATER PLAY - EXPRESS

2011-07-12T09:24:00.001-04:00

THIS WEEKEND ONLY! Limited engagement-

Embark on an excursion into the past with New Old Theater. A delightful study of strangers on a train. Not seen for over 100 years. The journey is farcical and the destination is comedy in:

EXPRESS! - A Railroad Romance in One Compartment by John Maddison MortonStarring: Ian Blackwell Rogers and Allison Plourde
Directed by Steven Lampredi
Gowns by New Old Theater
Scenery by Ider P. Malnevets

Saturday, July 16 · 8:00pm
Fell's Point Visitor Center

1724 Thames Street

Baltimore, MD

Only $10 at the door.

Parking is available in the Caroline Street Garage

Show ticket from PMI or PMS garage and get $2 off admission.

Sunday, July 17
3 o'clock in the afternoon
and 7 o'clock in the evening

The Old Parish House

4711 Knox Road

College Park MD

General seating-$5 Part of the College Park Arts Exchange.

Near Metro!

Melodrama a la Disney.

2011-03-04T14:29:00.004-05:00

Click here for a "mellerdrammer" starring Mickey Mouse. Watch for claptraps, stage machinery, audience participation, and standard gestures!!

CHARACTER ACTORS

2010-04-09T10:44:00.008-04:00

I've posted here a few examples, most from the 1860s, of actors made up as standard characters -- stock or stereotype roles. Except for the woman in the breeches role, any actor could take any of these parts, using heavy makeup, wigs, characteristic costume and movements understood as the basic vocabulary of stage language.

SAILOR

BEGGAR

BLACKFACE

GHOST

SERVANT

STAGE YANKEE

BREECHES ROLE (WILLIAM TELL)

DAME ROLE

KING

HUNCHBACK

It was the general practice that actors had to provide their own make-up and costume; most actors would perforce specialize in a role or roles, taking it up as a "line of business." E.A. Sothern was a light comedian; Madame Celeste was a tragic actress. Utility actors, or supernumeraries, would generally take on most of the roles above, which would be small or unnamed parts. The cross-dressing parts were more important. A breeches role for a woman could be the main character, such as William Tell, above, or Sarah Bernhardt's Hamlet. The Dame role, a widow or old maid of a certain age, played by a man, survives in British pantomime.

You can see by these pictures that the part relied on audience recognition, even before speech, of the type of character. The same thing still occurs in today's comics and in television melodramas.

QUIZ TIME

2010-03-26T13:11:00.016-04:00

I have eight depictions of period actors, each showing one of the Ten Major Emotions actors trained to express. Can you identify them?

1. The pose in question is that of the woman on the right. From Box and Cox.

2. Again, look at the woman's pose, from unidentified play and actors.

3. Both these pictures of Dame Ellen Terry show the same emotion.

4. Edwin Booth as Iago bristles with a particular mood.

5. Edmund Kean, here as Othello; is he communicating his feeling clearly?

6. Julia Marlowe is overcome by her mood as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.

7. Mary Anderson; the play is unknown, but her emotion should be obvious.

8. How do you respond to this attitude by Marie Wilkins in Two Orphans?

An earlier post of The Ten Major Emotions has a drawing and verbal description for each, included under the link "stage gestures."

WINDOWS OF THE SOUL

2010-03-19T10:15:00.010-04:00

While stance and gesture were primary tools in portraying character, there was also facial make-up and expression. The positioning and movement of the eyes were especially important...one of Edmund Kean's strong points was his unusually short eyelids, which meant motions and expressions of his eyes were easily seen.

Actors brought attention to their eyes by making up with dark shadow (even the poorest could apply soot with a knitting needle) and by pointing phrases through the silent use of eye and brow motion. Here are some pictures of extremely effective non-verbal communication through the eyes. (Some of the pictures are viewed better in larger form by clicking on the image.)

Edmund Kean himself, as Richard III.

Charles Fechter "showing the whites of his eyes", as it was called, as Hamlet, with his gravedigger friend similarly using his optics.

An early example -- Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth. A pause to take a stance and direct one's eyes off character or off stage created a frozen moment of emotion.

Madame Celeste freezes another moment. Note the typical positioning of the face away from the body to increase mood.

From the sublime to the ridiculous...unknown actors silently emote.

Edwin Booth in one of his more famous roles as Cardinal Richilieu. Notice the eyebrows' effect in exaggerating the eyes, reminiscent of Kean.

Another Hamlet, this time Beerbohm Tree. You can see that actors who can show white completely around the eye were better equipped for expressing strong emotion.

A carte de visite (sold in theatres and stationery stores) of light comedian E. A. Sothern in a sober mood.

Maude Adams, showing demure charm by the feminine stereotype of "looking through the eyelashes".

Maria Marten or, Murder in the Red Barn

2010-03-10T08:19:00.009-05:00

Contemporary drawing of The Red Barn

If not the most popular Victorian play, then certainly a close runner, Maria Marten or, Murder in the Red Barn was inspired by a real-life murder in Polstead, Suffolk in 1827. The story had all the hallmarks of melodrama: an unsuspecting woman, an upper-class deceiver, illicit sex, murder, a hidden body, and a gruesome exposure through a series of dreams. William Corder, the murderer, who lured Maria to the Red Barn, then shot and buried her, was hanged, his body flayed, and the skin used to bind an account of the murder. Broadside ballads and stage representations were an immediate consequence of the immense public interest in the case. (Visit http://music.metafilter.com/4337/The-Murder-of-Maria-Marten for one version of the song.)

1859 playbill for Murder in the Red Barn

The fictional representations of Maria and her lover fitted them to familiar characters of ingenue and heavy villain, deleting Maria's previous affair with Corder's brother and her illegitimate children (and possible child-murder). Her stepmother, only a year or so older than she, became an elderly doting mother. The maternal nightmares which led to the digging up of a decayed body were taken at face value as ghostly messages, while in real life they may have been the a subterfuge of a scorned woman. Maria's stepmother had been intriguing with William Corder and did not report any nightmares until she received word of his marriage to another woman.

Still playing in 1928

In the 20th-century, the play continued to draw theatre audiences, and at least three silent films were made of the story, one on the site of Maria's death. In 1935, Tod Slaughter filmed a suitably creepy version, well worth watching for his claustrophobic atmosphere and his effective use of melodramatic stage conventions. Especially interesting for Victorian theatre fans is the opening scene of a period theatre company presenting the characters, ending with Death himself. The play is still performed in the UK.

Tod Slaughter as William Corder (1935)

The Old Trouper - Archy and Mehitabel

2010-03-01T09:02:00.021-05:00

The Old Trouper by Don Marquis is a masterpiece of characterization and embodies the spirit of the "Crushed Tragedian" down to the namedropping and melodramatic gesture.

Marquis (1878-1937) created the characters Archy and Mehitabel -- the latter a stray cat, the former a cockroach who typed by jumping on each key which is why there are no capitals or punctuation marks in the poems). Marquis supposedly found the typed pages on his desk the next day and published them.

THE OLD TROUPER

i ran onto mehitabel again
last evening
she is inhabiting
a decayed trunk
which lies in an alley
in greenwich village
in company with the
most villainous tom cat
i have ever seen
but there is nothing
wrong about the association
archy she told me
it is merely a plutonic
attachment
and the thing can be
believed for the tom
looks like one of pluto s demons
it is a theatre trunk
archy mehitabel told me
and tom is an old theatre cat
he has given his life
to the theatre
he claims that richard
mansfield once
kicked him out of the way
and then cried because
he had done it and
petted him
and at another time
he says in a case
of emergency
he played a bloodhound
in a production of
uncle tom s cabin
the stage is not what it
used to be tom says
he puts his front paw
on his breast and says
they don t have it any more
they don t have it here
the old troupers are gone
there s nobody can troupe
any more
they are all amateurs nowadays
they haven t got it
here
there are only
five or six of us oldtime
troupers left
this generation does not know
what stage presence is
personality is what they lack
personality
where would they get
the training my old friends
got in the stock companies
i knew mr booth very well
says tom
and a law should be passed
preventing anybody else
from ever playing
in any play he ever
played in
there was a trouper for you
i used to sit on his knee
and purr when i was
a kitten he used to tell me
how much he valued my opinion
finish is what they lack
finish
and they haven t got it
here
and again he laid his paw
on his breast
i remember mr daly very
well too
i was with mr daly s company
for several years
there was art for you
there was team work
there was direction
they knew the theatre
and they all had it
here
for two years mr daly
would not ring up the curtain
unless i was in the
prompter s box
they are amateurs nowadays
rank amateurs all of them
for two seasons i played
the dog in joseph
jefferson s rip van winkle
it is true i never came
on the stage
but he knew i was just off
and it helped him
i would like to see
one of your modern
theatre cats
act a dog so well
that it would convince
a trouper like jo jefferson
but they haven t got it
nowadays
they haven t got it
here
jo jefferson had it he had it
here
i come of a long line
of theatre cats
my grandfather was with forrest
he had it he was a real trouper
my grandfather said
he had a voice
that used to shake
the ferryboats
on the north river
once he lost his beard
and my grandfather
dropped from the
fly gallery and landed
under his chin
and played his beard
for the rest of the act
you don t see any theatre
cats that could do that
nowadays
they haven t got it they
haven t got it
here
once i played the owl
in modjeska s production
of macbeth
i sat above the castle gate
in the murder scene
and made my yellow
eyes shine through the dusk
like an owl s eyes
modjeska was a real
trouper she knew how to pick
her support i would like
to see any of these modern
theatre cats play the owl s eyes
to modjeska s lady macbeth
but they haven t got it nowadays
they haven t got it
here
mehitabel he says
both our professions
are being ruined
by amateurs

archy

Tom's Friends

Richard Mansfield
Anglo-American actor and producer, known for the beauty of his Shakespearean performances, his work in Gilbert & Sullivan, and his production of and starring role in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Resented by colleagues for his arrogance, short temper and duplicity.

Edwin Booth
Considered by critics and theatre historians the greatest actor of his time, according to some, of all times. Son of famed actor Junius Brutus Booth, he surpassed his father and inaugurated a more naturalistic and introspective acting style. He founded Booth's Theatre in Manhattan and became famous for his roles as Hamlet, Cardinal Richelieu and Iago.

Augustin Daly
Playwright and theatrical manager. His play Under the Gaslight featured a character tied to railroad tracks and saved in the nick of time by his sweetheart, starting a melodramatic trope we all now recognize. He ran a stock company, the "company of stars", and was famous for his attention to detail and paternalistic handling of his actors.

Joseph Jefferson
The most famous actor of the post-Civil War stage, he played the title role in Rip van Winkle for almost forty years. He also played the lead in Our American Cousin, the last play President Lincoln attended. Rip van Winkle's dog Wolf was a ghostly presence, never appearing on stage but frequently mentioned as a loyal and faithful friend.

Edwin Forrest
American actor of Shakespearean and popular roles, seen as a native challenger to British classical actors MacReady and Kean. He played Othello, Lear and MacBeth, but his Romantic heroes, such as Spartacus and Metamora, depended as much on his physical training and muscular presence as on classical artistry.

Helena Modjeska
Polish-born actress, known for her Shakespearean interpretations. Lady Macbeth was considered one of her finest roles, but audiences also knew her as Camille and as the star and producer of the first U.S. staging of Ibsen's A Doll's House.

ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE

2009-09-23T11:04:00.002-04:00

John Maddison Morton subtitled Box and Cox as "A Romance in Real Life," signalling his parody of contemporary melodrama. Rather than heroes fighting bandits, enemy soldiers, or other villains, Morton shows two young Cockneys struggling with housing and marital problems. The setting is not a castle, island, cave or mountain retreat, but a rooming house in London. Instead of a blooming young ingenue, we have the "majestic", middle-aged widow Penelope Ann. Instead of a scheming lawyer, we have a scheming landlady. The hidden will or delayed pardon from execution meant to rush forward the action and resolve the plot(the meaningful artefact of melodrama) becomes letters from Cox's (or Box's) intended. And the stereotyped long-lost family member, identified by a birthmark or token, is rather found by the absence of a strawberry mark!

LORDS OF CREATION (song, 1838)

2009-09-14T11:50:00.003-04:00

In New Old Theater's production of Double the Rent, Katherine Mack performs an olio of a period song, Lords of Creation. Copyright free scans of the sheet music are below.

ADDED PERFORMANCE OF BOX AND COX

2009-09-11T11:22:00.003-04:00

New Old Theater will also be performing Box and Cox on Saturday, September 19, in Ellicott City. Particulars on flyer below.

THE BUSHMEN

2009-09-10T11:41:00.007-04:00

Box asks Cox if he has "seen the Bosjesmans?" This Afrikaans word for Bushmen refers to an indigenous people of South Africa, the Hottentots. In 1847, there was an exhibit at the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly of two men, two women, and an infant, as a sort of ethnographic show.

The Bosjesmans, or Bushmen, appear to be the remains of Hottentot hordes, who have been driven, by the gradual encroachments of the European colonists, to seek for refuge among the inaccessible rocks and sterile desert of the interior of Africa. Most of the hordes known in the colony by the name of Bushmen are now entirely destitute of flocks or herds, and subsist partly by the chase, partly on the wild roots of the wilderness, and in times of scarcity on reptiles, grasshoppers, and the larvae of ants, or by plundering their hereditary foes and oppressors, the frontier Boers. In seasons when every green herb is devoured by swarms of locusts, and when the wild game in consequence desert the pastures of the wilderness, the Bushman finds a resource in the very calamity which would overwhelm an agricultural or civilized community. He lives by devouring the devourers; he subsists for weeks and months on locusts alone, and also preserves a stock of this food dried, as we do herrings or pilchards, for future consumption.
The Bushman retains the ancient arms of the Hottentot race, namely, a javelin or assagai, similar to that of the Caffres, and a bow and arrows. The latter, which are his principal weapons both for war and the chase, are small in size and formed of slight materials; but, owing to the deadly poison with which the arrows are imbued, and the dexterity with which they are launched, they are missiles truly formidable. One of these arrows, formed merely of a piece of slender reed tipped with bone or iron, is sufficient to destroy the most powerful animal. But, although the colonists very much dread the effects of the Bushman's arrow, they know how to elude its range; and it is after all but a very unequal match for the fire-lock, as the persecuted natives by sad experience have found. The arrows are usually kept in a quiver, formed of the hollow stalk of a species of aloe, and slung over the shoulder; but a few, for immediate use, are often stuck in a band round the head.
A group of Bosjesmans, comprising two men, two women, and a child, were recently brought to this country and exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, in Piccadilly. The women wore mantles and conical caps of hide, and gold ornaments in their ears. The men also wore a sort of skin cloak, which hung down to their knees, over a close tunic: the legs and feet were bare in both. Their sheep-skin mantles, sewed together with threads of sinew, and rendered soft and pliable by friction, sufficed for a garment by day and a blanket by night. These Bosjesmans exhibited a variety of the customs of their native country. Their whoops were sometimes so loud as to be startling, and they occasionally seemed to consider the attention of the spectators as an affront.

From The Illustrated London News

They were a huge draw at the Egyptian Hall, but their combination of familiar human form with outlandish customs sometimes caused as much repulsion and disgust as fascination. Charles Dickens wrote:

Think of the Bushmen. Think of the two men and the two women who have been exhibited about England for some years. Are the majority of persons - who remember the horrid little leader of that party in his festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy to water, and his straddled legs, and his odious eyes shaded by his brutal hand, and his cry of 'Qu-u-u-u-aaa!' (Bosjesman for something desperately insulting I have no doubt) - conscious of an affectionate yearning towards that noble savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him? I have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that, setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his hand and shaking his left leg - at which time I think it would have been justifiable homicide to slay him - I have never seen that group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but I have sincerely desired that something might happen to the charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause the immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble strangers.

All in all, not the type of comfortable relaxation a conservative Victorian might prefer. Uncouth habits and scanty dress might well lead a strong-minded fiancee to forbid the sight to her intended.

BOX AND COX FOR CHILDREN

2009-09-09T12:48:00.004-04:00

Grace Chetwin, a children's author, was inspired by Morton's play to write Box and Cox (1990), the story of a hatter and a printer who are "always in the same place, but not at the same time." The author mistakenly believed the story to come from vaudeville so she set the story circa 1900, with charming color illustrations of Box, Cox, and Mrs. Bouncer, the landlady they both want to marry.

FEATHERING HER NEST

2009-09-08T15:37:00.005-04:00

This is an upper-class version of the bed and bolster, with canopy, Mrs. Bouncer furnished her tenants (see picture in September 3 post). A bolster is a long cylindrical cushion, used on sofas as well as beds. Box and Cox had only one bolster between them, which Mrs. Bouncer moved from end to end to accommodate their different tastes. This bolster probably had the only feathers in the bed furniture, the mattress made of wool or straw. Feather beds were for the rich. Here is a list of London prices for a pound of feathers in 1847 (for a decent mattress, about 50 pounds were needed):

This explains the flatness Cox complains of: Mrs. Bouncer has been "tapping the mattress"! -- extricating feathers from the stuffing to sell on the street. Landladies and servants often appropriated candles, coal, grease and alcohol for their own use or to sell for extra income. Compare the street price of about ten pence for a pound of feathers with the daily pay for a matchbox maker (about 18 pence for a day's labor, figure from Henry Mayhew, 1849).

BOX AND COX PLAYBILL (1878)

2009-09-04T09:27:00.002-04:00

BOX AND COX ILLUSTRATION

2009-09-03T09:13:00.006-04:00

Mrs. Bouncer is summoned by two irate tenants.

From Lacy's Acting Editions.

MRS. WIGGINS' BATHING MACHINES

2009-09-02T10:20:00.007-04:00

Box and Cox's Mrs. Wiggins made a fortune by running bathing machines in the seaside towns of Margate and Ramsgate. Bathing machines were small huts on wheels, drawn out by horses, and later by steam, into the water, where a visitor could descend into the waves with some privacy, as well as assistance from the attendants or "dippers". While beaches were segregated by gender till late in the century, observers (of both sexes) were known to stand on cliffs and balconies, using spyglasses. (This was especially intimidating in the early part of the century, when swimming was generally done in the nude.)

The bathing machine was perfected at Margate by Benjamin Beale, who added a hoop and canvas device to the exit for added seclusion. Here are some contemporary pictures of the machines:

Please read the articles here and
here to enjoy more about this this topic, and to see a delightful collection of pictures of machines and the people who used them.

COX AND BOX

2009-09-01T09:02:00.010-04:00

Box and Cox inspired composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (later half of the Gilbert and Sullivan team)to create the musical Cox and Box or, the Long Lost Brothers with playwright F.C. Burnand. Mrs. Bouncer the landlady became Mr. Bouncer the landlord, and all events were sung. You can read more about the play and listen to the music by clicking
here.

NEW OLD THEATER PRESENTS BOX AND COX

2009-08-31T11:02:00.011-04:00

The 1847 farce Box and Cox will be performed this September as Double the Rent! at the locations and dates listed below. Box and Cox was popular for decades; it involves a greedy landlady who rents out her room simultaneously to two boarders -- one works the day shift and one the night shift. Eventually, however, they are home at the same time...come see what happens next.

Fri, Sept 11, 7:30 pm The Old Parish House, 4711 Knox Road, College Park (near the Metro!) Tickets $5

Sun, Sept 13, Fri-Sun Sept 25-27, 8:00 pm Time and Tide Theater at the Fell's Point Visitor Center, 1724 Thames Street, Baltimore
PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN EVERY EVENING EXCEPT SAT SEPT 26 ($15)

PLANCHE'S VAMPIRE WOULDN'T DIE...

2008-10-21T13:56:00.005-04:00

You see here a playbill from 1850, thirty years exactly after the debut of The Vampire; or the Bride of the Isles at the English Opera House. It still rates a large-print title. Planche's memoirs in 1872 state that the play "is a stock piece to this day." By the 1850s it was competing with Dion Boucicault's excellent version of the story, but continued to be a favourite.

Planche' himself had reworked the story twice more: once as the libretto of the opera Der Vampyr and later burlesquing his own production in Giovanni the Vampire!!! or, how shall we get rid of him? (text to the latter unfortunately lost to history).

THE VAMPIRE: ORIGINAL PLAYBILL

2008-10-14T15:50:00.004-04:00

Here is the programme bill for the 1820 The Vampire, starring T.P. Cooke.
Notice the elucidation on vampires, necessary since they were not part of English folklore:

This Piece is founded on the various traditions concerning THE VAMPIRES...they cannot be destroyed, as long as they sustain their dreadful Existence, by imbibing the BLOOD of FEMALE VICTIMS...

Also of note, T.P. Cooke was director of melodramatic action of the piece (the scenery and equipment by all accounts overwhelmed the audience), decades before the idea of direction came into stage practice.

And, the bill states that "applause at conclusion of each performance has lasted for several minutes." Contemporary reviews bear this out.

PLAYBILL FOR THE VAMPIRE (1820)

2008-10-09T08:46:00.003-04:00

Theatrical critics applauded the scenery and effects of The Vampire. The European Magazine and London Review said they "demand[ed] a particular notice", specifically pointing out the effects of moonlight and sea, presenting a "coup d'oeil ... rarely, if ever seen excelled." This handbill for the 1820 production of The Vampire shows two moments from the Introductory Scene, and even from this black-and-white line drawing, we can imagine the effect of T.P. Cooke's appearance in fire and smoke in the dark Caves of Staffa.

For centuries demons, witches and ghosts had appeared through the stage floor by means of trapdoors. The English Opera House, for The Vampire, invented a new device of two rubber doors held shut with sandbags as counterweight; an actor would press quickly through and the weights snapped the doors immediately shut, giving an effect of the actor having melted through a solid plane. With blue fire and smoke, the actor seemed to materialize out of thin air. The "vampire trap" (or "trappe anglaise", in France)became a standard device for supernatural appearances. The Review tells us Cooke as Lord Ruthven "sinks through the stage in a scene of terrific grandeur." Theatre history was made.

BEFORE THERE WAS TELEVISION -- A PARLOUR GAME

2008-10-08T12:12:00.005-04:00

As much as I am an admirer of Victoriana, this forfeit game has me completely bemused. It was invented in the early 1800s, and reminds one that Victorian writers also included Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll as well as Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens. Players took turns reading aloud, as fast as possible, and if anyone made a mistake, he paid a penalty (forfeit). The turns run down the letters of the alphabet; I can't imagine anyone getting past the letter "B".

ALDIBORONTIPHOSKYPHORNIOSTIKOS.

BOMBARDINIAN, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS, who offered a thousand sequins for taking Bombardinian, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

DICKY SNIP, the Tailor, reading the proclamation of Chrononhotonthologos, offering a thousand sequins for taking Bombardinian, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

ELEPHANT peeping in, as Dicky Snip, the tailor, read the proclamation of Chrononhotonthologos, offering a thousand sequins for taking Bombardinian, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

Click HERE if you have the patience to read the whole thing.

BEFORE THERE WAS TELEVISION -- THE STEREOSCOPE

2008-10-03T10:17:00.022-04:00

Before the television -- and before the MagicEye and the Viewmaster -- Victorians had the stereoscope. A stereograph picture was made of two photographs, pasted side by side, which had been taken from two nearly, but not exactly, the same perspective. The stereoscopic viewer brought the eye to focus on the two pictures as one, aping natural binocular vision which presents objects to our brain in three dimensions.

An artist can draw an object as he sees it, looking at it only with his right eye. Then he can draw a second view of the same object as he sees it with his left eye. It will not be hard to draw a cube or an octahedron in this way ; indeed, the first stereoscopic figures were pairs of outlines, right and left, of solid bodies, thus drawn. But the minute details of a portrait, a group, or a landscape, all so nearly alike to the two eyes, yet not identical in each picture of our natural double view, would defy any human skill to reproduce them exactly. And just here comes in the photograph to meet the difficulty. A first picture of an object is taken,--then the instrument is moved a couple of inches or a little more, the distance between the human eyes, and a second picture is taken. Better than this, two pictures are taken at once in a double camera.

(From Oliver Wendell Holmes' Atlantic Monthly article in 1859.)

Stereographs brought the exotic and remote into the home. If one traveled, souvenir pictures could be bought at bookstores and kiosks. Natural disasters, foreign landmarks, strange cultures became immediate experiences through this precursor of the newsreel. The above view of Japan is an example of the handcoloured stereograph.

It entertained, with scenes of dramatic characters. This is a model dressed as the comic Lord Dundreary from the hugely popular play Our American Cousin (1858).

It also catered to the adult male viewer.

The stereoscope was even more popular in middle-class Victorian homes than the parlour piano. It was an educational tool, a source of entertainment, a window on the larger world. One historian estimates the number of sterescopic photos made between 1860 and 1890 as upwards of 400 million (see Michael J. Murphy in St. James's Encyclopedia of Pop Culture online).

Some websites where you can learn more about the stereoscope and stereographic views are: Michael Murphy's online article; the Central Pacific Railroad Photograph History Museum link; Rick Saunders' website; and the Library of Congress online collection.

T.P. COOKE AS LORD RUTHVEN

2008-09-30T13:21:00.002-04:00

T.P. Cooke as Lord Ruthven in The Vampire by J. R. Planche'. Cooke played this role for 365 performances.

THE ORIGINAL FOR LORD RUTHVEN

2008-09-29T11:18:00.009-04:00

The Vampire (published in 1819) took Lord Byron as the model for the vampire Lord Ruthven. Everyone knew this. Byron's ex-lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, had attacked him as "Ruthven, Lord of Glenarvon" in her 1816 roman a clef Glenarvon. Lamb labeled him as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

One of the most famous and recognizable men of his time, thought by some to be the first modern-style celebrity, Byron's persona was known across Europe. By all accounts he had a mesmeric charm which inspired the strongest devotion in his friends. Born with a clubfoot, he was unable to dance, which might have damaged his attractiveness, but he managed to turn it to social advantage. Standing against the glitter of a drawing room or assembly hall, characteristically dressed in black (which he made a fashionable color for men's evening dress), sneering at the contemporary craze for the Waltz, he personified the lonely Fatal Man he created in his poetry. He was shy with strangers, which read as an interesting reserve of character. He was seldom seen to eat or drink, in a time where gentlemen and ladies enjoyed their meals freely. His meager diet left him pale and languid. It added to his supernatural aura, but was merely a prosaic attempt to fight a tendency to fat(Byron was overweight as a boy, until he entered Cambridge and started his lifelong starvation diet).

Lord Ruthven, the first vampire in the Western tradition, was, like Byron, tall, magnetic, pale, and aloof. He had a "penetrating eye", a keen sense of hierarchy and his own superiority, and a consciousness of his isolation from humanity. The "black romanticism" of Byron and Poidori had a permanent effect. Fireside tales of reanimated peasants forced into brutish existence were replaced with the image of the vampire familiar today from Dracula to Lestat: young, aristocratic, brooding, and attractive.

ELOCUTION -- USE OF THE LIMBS

2008-09-26T11:07:00.005-04:00

A page from an elocution manual, c. 1855, showing placement of the limbs and head, with sample lines.

It was as important to use the space above the shoulders as to use the middle space (by the torso) or lower. The feet and legs are in a modified fourth position, with weight on back leg; also, the head turns according to meaning of sentence (generally, to face the dominant hand, but averting the face is appropriate for shame, hatred, etc.).

BEFORE THERE WAS TELEVISION

2008-09-24T14:37:00.016-04:00

Mark Twain spent a whole chapter of Huckleberry Finn describing an evening there. In Tom Sawyer, the children spoke of it as the pinnacle of happiness and beauty. It was The Circus. Even small towns could see the glamour of spangled costumes and exotic animals, listen to brass bands and pipe organs, and watch tightropes, trick riders and painted clowns.

George Washington attended the first circus in Philadelphia in 1793. It was a permanent show in its own building, but in the next decade circuses started traveling across the country. On arriving by horse, and later by train, the circus performers would arrange itself into a line, with animals in fancy trappings or in carved and painted special wagons, brass bands ready, and performers in costume, and parade down main street. This was a wonderful advertisement, and a great show in its own right. Business stopped completely, even schools letting out, so that residents could see "the greatest show on earth."

Circus wagons lining up...note the camel in photo forefront. Circus tents were pitched at the outskirts of town, near pasture and large water supply. Horses, camels and elephants were work animals as well as performers, and were the stars of any parade.

Here is an example of the specially designed cage wagons to show off the wilder animals -- lions, tigers, and pumas.

The famous Nabisco animal cracker box: fashioned after the Victorian circus wagon in 1902, it had a string handle was so the box could be hung on a Christmas tree as a treat from Santa Claus.

Notice the fancy howdahs for the elephant riders and the people leaning out of windows to watch the parade.

More elephants, dressed in advertising banners. The watching crowd seems to be marching parallel with the animals towards the circus grounds.

A lithograph of a fancier parade leaving for town.

Another lithograph: this the cover of a children's book, which used the popular event for story material.

The circus parade is one of the few Victorian entertainments which has continued almost unchanged into our own time.
THEN

NOW

COMPOSITION FOR TWO

2008-09-22T09:28:00.009-04:00

How did two people arrange themselves for viewing by the public? Drama needed a different aesthetic than everyday portraiture. This first photo is a portrait of a husband and wife: this is a record for posterity, showing the sterling worth and solid respectability of the pair. On the stage, attitudes had to show dramatic energy and identify character and emotion. The body was almost never held in a straight line or presented face on as in this portrait.

Two actors working together had to direct themselves toward the audience while maintaining the illusion each was engaged with his partner. Lighting was darker than we are used to; dialogue was not electronically enhanced; an actor turning his back, or even his profile, to the audience could lose the connection he'd worked for.

Ada Rehan and James Lewis are totally engaged with each other, despite Miss Rehan's reading a magazine and Mr. Lewis's back turned toward her. The two actors' bodies lean in parallel toward the same direction. The "S" curve I've mentioned many times is created in both by the turning of the head away from the torso. Arms and legs are held in tension. Especially Mr. Lewis's arms speak of a reaction to something said: shoulders slightly raised, hands opened, but not relaxed. These two are connecting with each other but directing that connection straight out to us.

Here is full body contact between the actors, but we have no doubt it is done for us, not each other. Miss Broughton especially links us with her eyes.

Something a little more passionate, but still a piece of theatrical architecture: bodies weighted on one leg only, arms carefully curved, and facial expressions totally accessible to the viewer. (The actors are McKee Rankin and Lillie Eldridge.)

And here, a very nice dynamic shot from Much Ado About Nothing: John Toole and Teresa Furt. Miss Furt's backward glance is embued with irritation, thanks to her raised arm and downward glance. Mr. Toole uses the "pointing finger" -- used only in admonition or accusation. His body line parallels hers. There is a dramatic connection shown with parallel stances, but the repulsion between the two is communicated by arms and facial expression. We can infer from this still moment a story's beginning (two people with diametrically opposed attitudes or opinions meeting face-to-face) and its end (either the parallel lines will triumph and the pair will embrace, or the conflict will intensify and they will separate angrily, following hints of arms and face), while the climactic middle is frozen before us. Victorian actors were trained to present a continual series of these speaking snapshots on the stage.

BEFORE THERE WAS TELEVISION

2008-09-17T10:54:00.010-04:00

It's customary to explain the popularity of Victorian theatre by saying, "Of course, there was no television at the time." This always seems to me a patronizing and unsatisfactory comment. The 19th century was not simply our century without electronic entertainment. And theatrical drama was not popular just because there was nothing else to do. Just off the top of my head I can think of: torchlight parades, political speakings, circuses, street musicians, horse races, puppet shows, patent medicine salesmen, cheapjacks, Chatauqua lectures, camp meetings, church socials, public trials and performing dogs. Therefore, I'm inaugurating a weekly post, showing or explaining the other varied things our ancestors had around them as spectacle and sport.

The first photograph is of the main street entry of the Peak Family, c. 1867. Note this wonderful custom-made carriage, the horses decked out with plumes and advertising banners, the band including drum and brass instruments -- imagine walking down the street and having this marvelous moving festival come into sight! The next photograph is of the bellringers advertised on the horses: this was a famous touring family show, the Peak Family Swiss Bell Ringers, who performed for over thirty years. Lastly we have the Peak females and their brass instruments (probably played because the most unexpected and attention-getting choice for a Victorian girl). Horace Greeley wrote of them:

The Peak family...have become famous for their bell-music. So skilful are they in the use of bells, that they will change from one to another with the greatest rapidity. The bells vary in size, from a large cow-bell to the smallest dinner-bell, each with a key differing from that of the rest, and as many as forty-two are used by a company of seven.

Quoted below is an 1870 poster from Concord, New Hampshire:

World-Celebrated Peak Family Swiss Bell Ringers, Vocalists, Harpists, and Pianist. The Only Company of Bell Ringers in the United States. Organized in 1839by William Peak, Sr. … 240 Silver Bells Manufactured expressly for, and imported from London by William Peak, Sr., in 1861, and the only two set Peal or Chime of Silver Bells ever manufactured - the largest weighing twelve pounds, and the smallest four ounces, a perfect Chromatic Scale, making the sweetest sounds conceivable; acknowledged by the entire press and public of the United States, Great Britain, France, Spain, West Indies, New Mexico, and wherever the Company have appeared, to be a most astonishing performance, and the Most Superior Corps of Bell Ringers in the World. Also, Two Beautiful Chimes of Silver Staff Bells, 40 in Each, the Only Pair Manufactured, Played by Mrs. Fitz, (formerly Fannie Peak,) and Mast. Eddie Peak. Embodied in the Troupe Are Mrs. Wm. Peak, Soprano, Mr. Wm. Peak, Composer and Pianist, Mast. Albert Peak, the Unrivalled Balladist, Mast. Steve Young, Comic Singer, La Petite Lizette Peak, the Wonderful Contralto, Mrs. Fitz, (formerly Fannie Peak,) Vocalist and Staff Bell Player, Mast. Eddie S. Peak, The Beautiful Staff Bell Player. Little Addie Peak, the Child of Song. The Peak Family Will Be Assisted by the Following Artists: Mr. J.F. Spaulding, Solo Violinist, of Boston, Mr. A.J. Whitcomb, Solo Harpist … The Evening’s Entertainment will embrace new Bell Music upon the Table Bells; new Solos upon the Staff Bells, arranged by Mr. Peak, played by Master Eddie; new Songs, Ballads, Duetts, Humorous and Characteristic Pieces by the Five Juveniles Always Received with Unbounded Applause. Laughable Quintette, the “Smith Family,” Master Eddie, Frank, Lizette, Albert and Addie. Programme … A Splendid Set of Photographs of the Troupe may be seen at the Post Office, three days in advance of the Company. Tickets for sale at the Book and Music Stores. Admission 35 Cts. Reserved Seats 50 Cts. Children 25 Cts. Doors open at 7 - To Commence at 8 o’clock.

Notice the photographs displayed in advance of the performance, a contemporary form of advertising. The group photo above may have been one of them. These would have been sold at stationery and music stores and at performances.

ANOTHER TAKE ON EARLY THEATRE

2008-09-16T09:58:00.006-04:00

Whilst touring the Internet, I found a slideshow by Frederick Burwick of UCLA on his course on Romantic Drama. Click here to view it. I'd love to have taken his class to discuss the issues he brings up: how to breathe life into a piece meant for 19th-century sensibilities; how to restore the musical essence of melodrama when the melodies are not in existence; how to bring period style in a theatre without period equipment, etc.

The photos, however, underline my feeling about period drama -- actors MUST learn to present themselves visually. I look at the postures and bearing of the young actors and they convey nothing to me except physical awkwardness. If you, the reader, look at some of the period photos and drawings on earlier posts here, you will see that every actor worth her salt could communicate emotion and atmosphere without a word. Contemporary playwrights depended on this ability in their actors. Remember there were no directors in the modern sense, and an actor who had no understanding of projecting sense non-verbally, or even standing and moving gracefully, had no chance of lasting on the boards. For plays from the past to rise successfully from the page, we need actors who can treat their part as if it were a slow and narrative ballet.

DR. POLIDORI - INSPIRER OF "THE VAMPIRE" PLAY

2008-09-10T13:17:00.007-04:00

John Polidori (1795-1821) died young, as did so many of his fellow writers of the Romantic Movement (for example, Byron, Keats, and Shelley). Though his degree was in medicine (he was Byron's private physician for a while), he gave English literature one of its most enduring icons -- the vampire. Vampires and revenants had existed in superstition for centuries, but they were part of Eastern European belief. Polidori, inspired by a short piece of fiction by Byron, wrote a story, later dramatized by James Robinson Planche in 1820, which gave us the iconic Western vampire formed after the Gothic type: pallid, imperious, isolated, and charismatic. He was a social and hierarchical creature, far removed from the brutish blood-drinker of folklore. This was the first appearance of the character in English literature, and has influenced literary variations to the present day.

Polidori was the son of a Italian emigre'; his sister Frances married Gabriel Rossetti, and so he was uncle to the artistic siblings William, Dante, and Christine.
He qualified as a doctor at the very young age of 19, after attending Edinburgh University, and served Lord Byron for a while as his personal physician. In 1816 he accompanied Lord Byron to Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Byron's houseguests Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Shelley, as well as Polidori, competed with Byron in a ghost-story contest (the novel Frankenstein owes its existence to this contest). Byron contributed a short vampire tale, which Polidori turned into a longer piece of fiction after he and Byron had parted on extremely bad terms. It mysteriously turned up in an anonymous packet at the offices of The New Monthly Magazine. No name was attached, but Byron was believed by many to be the author. Both Byron and Polidori protested this belief, but whoever the author, the audience knew that Lord Ruthven, the aristocratic revenant, was meant to be Byron himself and this ensured its popular success.

Polidori's ambition was to succeed as an imaginative writer in the Romantic style; he wrote one novel, Ernestus Berchtold, and a sacred poem, "The Fall of the Angels." In 1821, disappointed and depressed, he committed suicide at his father's house, at the age of 26. He is remembered at his boyhood school, Ampleforth College, by the Polidori Lecture, given each year on some aspect of the Romantic Movement.

THE VAMPIRE's Scottish setting

2008-08-27T10:42:00.005-04:00

The Bride of the Isles (as Planche's The Vampire was subtitled) was originally meant as a drama of the Greek isles. Lord Byron drew on Eastern Europe's tradition of revenants for his Lord Ruthven (see earlier post for literary pedigree). Charles Nodier's drama shifted the scene to Scotland, as Planche recollected in 1872, "with the usual recklessness of French dramatists...in Scotland, where the superstition never existed." Planche tried to convince producer Samuel Arnold to place the action in eastern Europe, but Mr Arnold knew Scottish music and dress were in vogue -- and he already had a wardrobe full of Scottish costumes.

The play opens in the dramatic setting of The Caves of Staffa (see above 19th-century illustration). The opening act's stage scenery was one reason theatregoers were drawn to the play in crowds. Staffa, a small island off the coast of Mull, is graced with basaltic caves, the basalt formed into regular rows of glassy dark pillars, resembling a man-made cathedral. The famous Fingal's Cave is entered here, the mouth measuring forty-two feet wide and fifty-six feet high. The cavern itself is two hundred and twenty-seven feet long. This and other caves were popular tourist attractions, inspiring Wordsworth and Keats to poetry, and Mendelsohn to his "Scottish Symphony" and "Hebrides" Overture

SOUVENIR PROGRAMMES

2008-08-22T09:35:00.003-04:00

In Victorian theatre, a special production or anniversary performance was often commemorated with programmes printed on satin or silk, as here:

Planche's The Vampire (1820)

2008-08-20T12:49:00.015-04:00

New Old Theater's next project is a staged reading of The Vampire, written by J.R. Planche and first performed in 1820. This play was written in the High Gothic tradition, with thunderstorms, castles, moonlit nights, a beautiful emperiled virgin, and a Byronic protagonist, Lord Ruthven (the th is silent). The play's pedigree, in fact, leads back directly to Lord Byron himself: Planche adapted a French play Le Vampire by Charles Nodier, which was taken from Dr. John Polidori's story. Polidori was Lord Byron's doctor and a member of the fateful ghost story contest at Lake Geneva in 1816, hosted by Lord Byron, where he heard Mary Shelley's germ of Frankenstein, and Byron's Vampire tale, later embroidered by Polidori and published as his own. The story was sited in Greece (hence the subtitle, The Bride of the Isles), but the English theater owner had an abundance of Scottish costumes, due to the popularity of the Waverley novels, and no Greek ones, so the Vampire became a haunter of the Highlands (see above illustration, taken from the production itself by George Cruikshank).

N.O.T. will be performing at Riversdale House in Riversdale, Maryland, on Friday, 24 October, 2008; the original songs will be performed as part of the play. Click here to buy tickets. Also Saturday, October 25th at the Time and Tide Theater at the Fell’s Point Visitor Center, 1724 Thames Street, Baltimore (Click here, and Thursday, October 30th at The Flag House and Star Spangled Banner Museum, 844 East Pratt Street, Baltimore (email info@flaghouse.org.

Mabel Tainter Theater

2008-03-25T15:04:00.005-04:00

The March edition of Victoriana, a free online magazine, is now available. There is a short article, with lovely photographs, on the Mabel Tainter Theater of Menomonie, Wisconsin, built in the 1890s and still in use. Click here to read it.

VICTORIAN MEN AND THE TEAPOT STANCE

2008-03-06T09:45:00.005-05:00

The "teapot" stance was a basic posture, for men. The actor would stand, one foot slightly forward, one arm forming the handle, and the other arm gesturing widely (see my earlier posts) to communicate emotions and attitudes. Placing one's feet slightly apart helped him move his body backward and forward gracefully. The practice dated far back, even to Elizabethans. You can see Laurence Olivier imitate a teapot in the film Henry V, where he emulated Shakespearean practice.

The pictures above show popular actor Charles Fechter as Hamlet, two unnamed actors (adult and child) and Fechter's friend Charles Dickens, a gifted amateur actor and novelist who dramatized his novels in public readings.

The teapot posture is a dynamic one. Placing one foot slightly forward was a social posture understood outside of drama, taken when one was introduced to another person, approached for conversation, or prepared to recite or discourse. Young boys learned this in classes with the dancing master and the elocutionist. The hand on hip tells us that a reserve of emotion and information is ready to be expressed. In non-dramatic life, this signals an awareness of a mutuality of communication and a readiness to give as well as take. On the stage, we can detect players dominant in plot or dialogue.

The self-awareness and self-confidence of this pose marked it as masculine and privileged. Women and lower classes carried themselves quite differently.

WOMEN'S DEPORTMENT - CARRIAGE OF THE ARMS

2008-01-26T12:09:00.001-05:00

After a long silence, I've come back to posting. Being a Victorian in heart and soul, I have no computer at home. Last autumn, I was SHOCKED to discover that my workplace had blocked several sites, including YouTube, Pandora, and Blogspot. Judging from my officemates, though, you still can hit eBay, JibJab, and Rush Limbaugh.

But I have discovered a local library with more computer spots than users to fill them, so I gathered up some period photographs to illustrate how graceful Victorian women held their arms. Even more than dress and speech, bodily deportment, especially the arms, was a mark of a "true lady."

This first photo is from a reenactment group which creates tableaux vivants -- a pastime popular well into the 20th century, until motion pictures killed off the taste. To me, this photograph illustrates how posture and carriage are integral to proper atmosphere. This group put a lot of work into clothing, props, research -- but looking at how they carry their bodies, I can't imagine them to be anything but modern individuals. I will not focus on the gentlemen, except to notice their hunching positions. The lady is grinning -- showing her teeth! a no!no! -- her head is not held by the neck, but seems to be slapped on the shoulders; her elbows are held awkwardly, too far away from the body; and there is no continous line following from neck down through shoulders to wrist. Deportment manuals compare graceful arms to the movement of a willow wand.

This CDV is of an actress playing Josephine in HMS Pinafore. I chose this to show a graceful extension of the arm. Josephine is pointing to something. Please note, actors, that pointing with a finger in the 19th century is rarely done. Objects, and sometimes people, were indicated with a motion of the eyes or with the whole hand. Pointing directly was used derogatorily, in accusation generally ("This is the culprit!"). Notice the "S" curve of the pointing arm, the slightly flexed wrist, and the sloping shoulders. The opposite arm balances the body and is also flexed into the "line of beauty".

Here the actress Maude Harrison incorporates sinuous curves throughout her posture. Her head faces in the opposite direction to her body (common stage practice);her weight is on one leg, her arms are curved, and her right palm is turned away from the body to accentuate the "S". Because of this turning out, her right elbow is further out from her body than one usually sees. She does this gracefully -- a general rule for acting and re-enacting women is to keep the elbows close in to the body: this helps control the line from shoulders through the arm and concentrates energy in the body.

Here is a lovely, lovely CDV of actress Mary Scott Siddons (great-niece of Sarah Siddons). The charm of this photograph owes a great deal to the carriage of the actress. Note all the "S" curves held in her body. Because of the heavy skirts and drapery, the position of her limbs and spine are even more important to an attractive stance.

Another charming pose by an actress: the arms cannot always be held in curves, but holding them in graceful repose, keeping an "S" in head, neck and back, and holding weight on one leg, keeps an artistic and period presentation.

This line drawing is an illustration from a book of directions for tableaux vivants. The lady on the platter, representing Faith, is pointing upwards. She is not pointing with a straight or tense arm, but the effect is still emphatic and draws the eye upward. The line of the arm echoes the line of the body and the drapery. The women supporting her have their heads gently inclined to make a curved line.

The lady here shown is representing "quietude" in a drawing from an acting manual of the early 19th century. She also must extend her arms, but she keeps them close to her body and keeps a slight curve at elbow and wrist.

Below I'm including two photographs from the mid 1860s to show exceptions to the rule. The first is of two actresses -- you can sense the tension between the characters, and if you analyse the photo you can see that much of this tension comes from the sharp angled elbows and shoulders. The second is a family photograph of two sisters (Victorian sisters usually dressed alike, until marriage). I do not know the particular reason for their posture -- holding the arms and hands at the waist is a common pose -- but these women seem very tense! I assume they're showing off their expensive lace mitts? Or maybe they're very nervous about being photographed? At any rate, the extraordinariness of this pose demonstrates how much we depend on a "feminine", soft and curving line for women's deportment. On the stage, departing from such lines should be done only to make a point of the character's emotion or social class. Actors should always be conscious of how close or far to the Victorian norm they are presenting themselves.

GESTURE STUDY IN AUSTRALIA

2007-09-19T08:40:00.001-04:00

STUDYING THE STROKE
A Secret Weapon for Singers and Actors
By Helga M. Hill (Melbourne)

After generations of neglect, the return to the stage, concert hall and opera house of the Art of Gesture may yet be acclaimed as the most significant development in theatre over the past half-century. Perhaps surprisingly for some, gesture’s current energetic international revival has been initiated by a handful of Australian researchers, teachers and practitioners.

The Art of Gesture was first discerned from nature by the ancient Greeks, and formalised by Roman scribes and orators. Cicero and Quintilian were foremost among the early writers who recorded the rules of the art for posterity. Additionally, there were the Greek and Roman sculptors who, in their quest for beauty, inadvertently immortalised gesture in stone.

The purpose of gesture is to empower chosen words so that an audience can more clearly comprehend the scenes and passions these words are meant to convey.

At the heart of gesture is the “stroke” – the precise movement of the hand on the accented syllable of a word chosen for gesture. The late Dene Barnett, the founder of the modern-day gesture movement, often spoke of the need for “Ciceronian precision” when executing a stroke. This, he maintained, was the “very essence of the art”. Any meaningless waving of arms or hands is tiresome for onlookers and destroys the timing that makes gesture such an empowering weapon for performers.

Gesture comes in infinite variety – large gestures for dramatic moments, smaller for the intimate ones; gestures at various levels and in various directions. Gesture can involve one hand or both in prone, supine or vertical positions. The whole body is involved – placement of feet, the curve of the body, positioning of arms, hands and fingers, a turn of the head or eyes are all part of gesture, as is a moment of stillness.

Such are the techniques of gesture. But what has to be clearly understood is that gesture is the outward expression of what is in the mind, the heart and the soul of the performer. The Art of Gesture enables the audience to join in the experiences of the performer.

In all of this, the use of facial expressions to show passions, such as grief, anger, joy or fear, demands vigorous study and constant practice. Classical paintings depicting such passions are a major source of inspiration for singers and actors alike.

Some songs or spoken pieces may demand very little gesture and, certainly, too much gesture can detract from, rather than enhance, the impact of words. Despite the necessary rules of gesture there is plenty of room for an “artistic-intuitive” approach in putting those rules into effect.

Prior to his death in 1997, Dene Barnett taught philosophy at Flinders University south of Adelaide. In the course of his prolific readings he encountered gesture in the writings of Cicero and Quintilian. Renaissance scholars were following a similar path when they stumbled upon this treasury from the past. Thanks to their efforts gesture entered its second golden age – this time in the courts, religious houses, educational institutions and theatres of 17th and 18th Century Europe.

A steady stream of books on the subject was written well into the 19th Century. These included Gilbert Austin’s “Chironomia”, published in England in 1806, in

which he presented a method of notating gesture. Of importance, too, was the 1827 Amsterdam publication “Gesticulatie en Mimiek” by J. Jelgerhuis with its many expert drawings of gesture and depictions of passions.

Such publications and many contemporary letters show that the art of gesture was understood, appreciated and demanded in Europe throughout this period. Without appropriate gesture, an actor would be publicly derided, a priest would lose his congregation and a courtier would be banished to the lower ranks.

Among surviving anecdotes is the story of Elizabeth I’s request for a copy of a sermon that had pleased her in chapel. On reading it she exclaimed: “That’s the best sermon I ever saw, but the worst I ever read”!

From the 1850’s the study, teaching and use of gesture declined until, by the early 20th Century, it was caught up in a misty area of the subject known as elocution, with some flow-on to silent films. It had disappeared by the time Dene Barnett, like the Renaissance scholars, re-discovered it in the writings of the ancients.

His research over some twenty years, mainly in Europe and sometimes behind the then Iron Curtain, eventually gave rise to his magnum opus: “The Art of Gesture – the Principles and Practices of 18th Century Acting”, which was published in Germany in 1987. This monumental work is, in effect, an overview of the art which will underpin its future international development.

But even if the book is something of a foundation stone for the new gesture movement, reading it does not – in itself – produce a skilled practitioner. Much more than reading is required because today’s gesture student is not supported by a society in which the art is in daily use as it was, for example, in the upper classes of Roman and Renaissance times. Only constant study, mastery of the rules and notation of gesture, and daily practice in front of a mirror will produce long-term results. Working in a team with other practitioners is also an invaluable aid.

In Melbourne the task of reviving the all-but-lost art is well underway. Each year six students are admitted to a ten-week (20-hour) introductory course presented at the Early Music Studio of the University of Melbourne. A library of publications on gesture has been established, including books from Dene Barnett’s collection. And Melbourne audiences, who have the opportunity to see gesture in performances, are appreciating that the art has something special to offer.

The fully-gestured staging of Eccles’ Judgment of Paris (1701) by the University of
Melbourne Faculty of Music in July, 2006, marked a high point for the art in Melbourne. The intimate link between music, words and gesture was noted by many.

The Early Arts Guild of Victoria contributes to these developments through its Gesture Library, the planning of classes and gestured performances and by raising funds for research. Dene Barnett’s brother, Gordon Barnett, who lives in Canberra, has also provided valuable support.

The study of gesture is as demanding as it is rewarding. Once the nuances of the art are mastered, actors and singers develop a powerful new way of influencing audiences. A new not-so-secret weapon is at hand.

Email helgamhill@bigpond.com

RECEPTION OF OUR CURRENT PRODUCTION

2007-09-18T09:58:00.002-04:00

New Old Theater has performed our Evening of Victorian Theater at three different locations now, with the fourth and final location this weekend in Baltimore. Response has been varied.

Our best audience has been at the September Storm re-enactment at Antietam. The atmosphere was enchanted. We performed in a tent, with viewers seated on the ground before us. With a 9:30 show, the audience started gathering about dusk and watched us light the candles for the footlights. The entire audience was in Civil War attire; many of them had seen our previous shows and were excited about a new performance. They knew how to interact with the cast, cheering, clapping and hissing. The actors responded with even larger gestures and stronger voices than we had been rehearsing, connecting powerfully with our audience. I went out to the back of the tent frequently and the candleglow, colors, and soft air lent a magical air to the event.

Re-enactors are always alert for period-correct details. During the farce, Curtis Chunk, the stage Yankee, was writing a letter to his "angeliferous" sweetheart, Miss Fanny Magnet. When he started scratching with a large turkey feather, someone called out, "What are you using for ink?" Our director had warned us that period actors were not to respond vocally to audience members, but non-verbal reactions were appropriate and in fact desirable. Curtis grasped the inkwell on the desk, raised it high, and pointedly dipped his feather in it -- this raised one of the loudest applauses of the evening, even getting cheers! After the show, we had many people coming up to us, praising the performance, and asking questions about acting and drama of the Civil War.

Takoma Park and Street, Maryland, audiences were much quieter. We know from comments afterward that they enjoyed what we gave them, but they were much more subdued. In these setting we were indoors, with electric footlights and modern surroundings. The actors were energetic, but not as transcendant of time and place. Whether the cast affected the viewers, or vice versa, is not clear, but it is obvious to me that period dramas play best when strongly supported by contemporary conventions, and period acting works best as part of a conversation with theatergoers. The lines of the play are merely a skeleton, and without personality to flesh them out, they refuse to live.

But in all our locations, it was obvious we were giving people a unique experience, one they found transforming. A farce got laughs and applause a century and a half after its last performance; King Lear worked as a melodrama, despite 21st-century sophistication. Interwoven with songs, a hornpipe, and a set of Yankee stories, this was the most authentic evening we've produced, and it left us eager to try more.

MARGARET MATHER, 1860-1898

2007-09-17T13:10:00.001-04:00

I was caught by this carte de visite of Margaret Mather as Joan of Arc.
Her facial expression is wonderfully period. Imagine it in color, behind footlights. Margaret Mather died young, at age 38, while onstage. I have been unable to find out of what; sources say "chronic illness," which could be tuberculosis, cancer, or heart disease. She was praised for her physicality, but the CDV has her looking somewhat stiff, as if she was posed by someone else. She specialized in Shakespearean roles.

VICTORIAN HAMLET

2007-09-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

The poster here shows actor Thomas Keene, famous for his late Victorian Shakespearean roles. His poses and costume here show the influence of Edwin Booth -- the most famous Hamlet of all, some critics say the best of all time. Keene supported Booth in several productions.

Those who have been reading my blog for a while will be able to "read" the poster for information: the meaning of the attitudes, the costume stripes to aid visibility in a dim theatre, and the actors playing off of each other in group poses to create a story-picture. This is an excellent exercise for actors today trying to recreate past methods: deconstruct the posture for clues to the story, and try to recreate it on your own bodies. Do as your forbears did, and work in front of a mirror periodically, to check your delivery. And try to deliver gestures in three parts: beginning, middle and end. Normal delivery puts the most energy in the middle; when aiming for "points", the energy should climax at the end and freeze for a second.

BRING A COPY OF THIS POSTING FOR $10 TICKETS ON SEPTEMBER 14

2007-09-13T10:41:00.001-04:00

New Old Theater Presents

AN EVENING OF VICTORIAN THEATER

Directed by Steven Lampredi
"Dramaturged" by Myself

At 8:00 pm on September 14th, New Old Theater
brings to Seekers Church theatrical curiosities seldom seen anywhere.
Theatergoers will thrill to CONQUEST, REVERSAL and REDEMPTION in THE
HISTORY OF KING LEAR Act V and laugh as Curtis Chunk "would a-wooing
go" in the hilarious farce of THE STAGE STRUCK YANKEE. All this, plus
varieties, song and dance. This stunning evening of authentic
traditional theater will be performed at Seekers Church,
one block from the Takoma Metro station (Red Line), and in Baltimore,
Maryland, on September 20, 21 and 22 at 8:30 pm.
$5 children 12 and under

A SPLENDID TIME IS GUARANTEED FOR ALL!

TIME AND TIDE THEATER GARDEN

1732 Thames Street, Baltimore MD 21231 [Fell's Point]

September 20, 21, and 22 at 8:30 pm. $12 adults $10 seniors $5 children

Tickets for both locations will be sold at the door, and on the web
at www.instantseats.com

For more info, see www.newoldtheater.org, or email Steven Lampredi at
lampredi-at-yahoo-dot-com

SONG PANTOMIME

2007-09-11T09:57:00.001-04:00

The photo here is from a 1906 book for school assemblies -- directions for poses and movements to twenty-six of "our favourite songs". Judging by the pencil marks, the number one favourite was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. I couldn't bear to share with you songs like Old Black Joe, Swannee River, or Massa's in the Cold Ground. (These were to be done by children in blackface.) But here is Annie Laurie:

Maxwelton's braes are bonnie,
Hands extended obliquely to the front, somewhat higher than the waist line.*

Where early fa's the dew,
On "where" raise the hands till on level with top of head, then on "falls" bring them slowly down till they are out straight from the sides of the body, then drop to sides.

And 'twas there that Annie Laurie
Right hand out obliquely to the front, eyes looking into distance.

Gave me her promise true,
Right hand is brought up to center of breast, left hand is down and out at left side.

Gave me her promise true,
Right hand raised, arm's length, obliquely to the front, the left hand down and out from left side, eyes raised and looking into space with tender light (italics mine).

Which ne'er forgot will be,
Left hand raised and extended out at left side on level with the waist line; right hand raised, arm curved gracefully until thumb and first finger touch right temple, head drooped and tilted to the right.

And for bonnie Annie Laurie,
Hands thrown out obliquely in front of body, step forward with the right foot, body inclined forward.

I'd lay me down and dee.
Right foot brought back, head bowed sadly, hands out in front of body, down at arms' length, palms down.

*"oblique" arms are palm up, at 45 degree angle from body, fingers toward the ground.

HANDS UP

2007-09-10T13:16:00.001-04:00

ACTOR PLACEMENT

2007-09-07T09:06:00.001-04:00

This is a nice example of stage interaction c. 1860.
The placement of actors meant that they could exchange dialogue without turning back or profile to the audience. Because lighting was dim and sound unamplified, actors needed to face forward; it also helped them forge a connection with the audience. Each actor was aware of and responded to the other's posture and voice and had room for large arm movement. The interplay of movement and sound added to the drama.

This carte de visite is not labelled, but I would hazard a guess that it is Theseus and Hippolyta from Midsummer Night's Dream.

ELOCUTION POSES

2007-09-06T14:51:00.001-04:00

Animation of selected poses from elocution and acting manual of early 19th century.
Notice that legs and feet change positions; some stances are on balls of the feet; arms move from shoulder, with minimum flexing of wrist and elbow; and weight is placed on one leg or the other.

CECILIA LOFTUS

2007-09-04T15:12:00.001-04:00

Here is a very sinister pose by actress Cecilia Loftus.

GESTURAL EXERCISES

2007-08-31T13:34:00.001-04:00

I have copied out some textbook exercises for actors' hand gestures, paired with period illustrations.
Hand Index - pointing index, usually with a relaxed hand, not a fist
Hand Supine - palm down
Hand Prone - palm up
Hand Reflex - palm to chest; sometimes with clenched hand to show agitation
Hands Clasped - gripping each other palm to palm
Hand Averse - palm away from body
Hand(s)Clenched - rolled tightly into a fist

Hand Index
Look here upon this picture, and on this. –Shakespeare
You, sir, what trade are you! –Shakespeare
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? –Shakespeare

Hand Supine
What is your tidings? –Shakespeare
Welcome, Icilius! –Welcome, friends! –Knowles
O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife. –Shakespeare

Hand Prone
No! thou shalt remain with me. –Halm
He draws his lines round the doomed garrison. He cuts off all supplies. –Prentiss
Hold, hold! that is to danger—see you not? –Halm

Hand Reflex
Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. —Shakespeare
And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself. –Shakespeare
O, I have loved thee long; So much the more ecstatic my delight, to find thee mine at length! —Knowles

Hands Clasped
O, spare my child, my joy, my pride! –MacKay
Give your children food, O Father! Give us food, or we must perish!—Longfellow
O, bless you, bless you! My father! my dear father! Art thou not my father? –Knowles

Hand Averse
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! –Shakespeare
Go, go, thou selfish and ungrateful child! –Halm
He hates his fellow-men, and glares upon them with the longing of a cannibal.
–Prentiss

Hand Clenched
I will not yield, To kiss the ground beneath young Malcolm’s feet. –Shakespeare
Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood. –Shakespeare
The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. –Webster

LAZY LIPS SINK SHIPS!

2007-08-29T16:21:00.001-04:00

As techno savvy is today, so was elocution in the past: a means to show oneself intelligent, au courant, and able to master modern communication skills.
It was not only the language one used, but also the precision of clear and easily understood sounds that mattered. Modern American speech, where the mouth barely opens and tones hardly vary at all, would not have been recognizable. Here is a chart of positions with which to make clear, consistent phonemes.

A DIFFERENT TAKE ON SHAKESPEARE

2007-08-29T15:52:00.001-04:00

Victorians had Shakespeare as a cultural constant -- Tocqueville mentioned finding it in remote frontier homes, even when the only other book was a Bible. Actors out of work could raise money by booking a hall and giving readings in Shakespeare, no matter how small the village. In western mining towns, touring companies played Shakespeare to full houses.

But Victorians did not treat Shakespeare with the hushed reverence we feel necessary today. Widespread cultural knowledge of the Bard made possible farces, burlesques, burlettas and pantomimes poking fun at him. The photo is from a farce Romeo and Juliet, with a drag Juliet. The actor Dewolf Hopper is most famous now for popularizing Casey at the Bat through his comic recitations.

COSTUMING THE ACTORS

2007-08-27T10:28:00.001-04:00

The images we usually see from Victorian period drama are of important actors (Macready, Booth, Forrest) or of cast members from the bigger theatre companies. Just as today, the costuming in community theatre is not remotely like that of a Broadway play, the small stock or touring company did not costume itself like the important "legitimate" ones.

Up until mid-century, Shakespeare would be performed in contemporary formal dress. Engravings of Fanny Kemble as Juliet (c. 1830) show her in her bedroom with Nurse, in a low-necked formal dinner gown with elbow-length gloves. Shortly thereafter, actor-managers like Charles Macready, who were ready to invest money and time in "archaeological" productions, started presenting Shakespeare with scenes and costumes scrupulously researched and replicated. But smaller companies, with no assured audience or budget, followed tradition by requiring actors to supply their own costumes. Indeed, attaining employment could depend on the quality of an actor's wardrobe, with a place going to quality clothing, not better talent. Generally an actor would have three outfits: one formal or evening dress, one informal or perhaps peasant, and one "period" -- which could date anywhere from 1200 to 1800. The period outfit would be used for any and all historical plays, which meant that the court in a production of Richard III would have lords and ladies kitted out in court dress from the time of Richard II to George III. Little notice was taken of this -- the point was splendour, not accuracy. As an early actor said, "There were two kinds of drama: white waistcoat and drawing room, and spangles and parade."

The photograph I have above is an unnamed American actor circa 1860. He has knee breeches and pumps (c. 1800), a cocked hat (c. 1750), a stock with a very wide knot (c. ??, perhaps stylish only on stage), and an overcoat with 17th-century sleeve puffs that I've only seen on actors. Made of red velvet with ermine trim, it was a standard for Shakespeare's Richard III. However, there is no crown, and the outfit underneath is plain to say, the least. This looks like a typical outfit put together from various second-hand purchases the actor made to look "long ago" for some historical play.

A CRUSHED TRAGEDIAN

2007-08-23T10:43:00.002-04:00

I had seven years’ apprenticeship at [drama], during which most of my labour was in the field of comedy...the while my soul was yearning for high tragedy. I did my best with all that I was cast for, however, and the unpleasant experience did me a world of good. Had I followed my own bent, I would have been, long ago, a “crushed tragedian.” ---Edwin Booth

The idea of a "crushed tragedian", i.e., one suffering under changes in dramatic taste away from his mastered delivery style, was common through the 19th century. What was considered "natural" and what stiff and old-fashioned changed over the years, though. Edwin Booth, who acted with a graceful and cerebral delivery which shattered the hold on the stage by muscularly flamboyant actors like Edwin Forrest and Edwin's father Junius Brutus Booth, was considered a stale stereotype himself by the time of his death in 1893. Forrest had changed the style popularized by Edmund Kean, who had overturned the theatrical grip held by David Garrick, who had prided himself on replacing stiff classical styles with "naturalism."

The crushed tragedian, whatever he replaced or was replaced by, represented the actor out of work because of his mouthing, overgesturing, and overacting. An Arthur Lloyd song "Junius Brown, the tragedian" (1850s) bemoaned:

Since Kemble none like me's been seen,
Yet nought but bad luck is my portion;
My friends say I'm better than Kean,
That my 'Richard' and 'Hamlet's' a caution.
They say my declaiming's a treat --
In the speech over Caesar by Antony;
I can do the soft parts low and sweet,
Likewise I can 'pile up the agony.'

In 1902, a vaudeville act of "A Crushed Tragedian" had a "representative of the 'old school'" intone:

Classic laurels once were placed upon the tragedian's brow,
But the language-killing funny man gets all the plaudits now.
Richard Third no longer rails 'gainst his "shadow in the sun";
His personator now is forced to do five acts in one...
For vaudeville is the thing that now applause and money fetches;
And if Shakespeare were alive to-day, he'd write twenty-minute sketches.

The author's note says the performer should be dressed in a "seedy" Prince Albert or frock coat, with trousers frayed at the bottom. He should stride about, placing his right hand in the breast of a tightly buttoned coat, except when he is gesturing "extravagantly."

Of course, extravagance is in the eye of the beholder. We consider film and television actors "natural", but if they walked among us in everyday situations...boarding a Metro, buying groceries, asking for directions...we would raise eyebrows at their punching of words, excessive reactions and self-involved carriage. Nor do we see such linguistically, cosmetically, dentally and sartorially managed characters in day-to-day life. We accept entertainment's differences from real life subconsciously, whereas Victorian audiences frequently considered and rated differences they saw.

A THEATRE MANAGER PLANS HIS NEXT PRODUCTION....

2007-08-22T12:45:00.001-04:00

CAPTION: Shakespeare spells ruin, but legs mean dividends!

THE YANKEE MAID

2007-08-21T09:25:00.001-04:00

The Stage Yankee had a female counterpart in the Yankee Maid. Jemima, or Tabitha, or Abigail, was a petticoated equivalent of Brother Jonathan. She wore outdated clothes in homespun stripes or windowpane checks. Her hair was dressed high on the head, usually with a large comb tacked on top. Unfashionably short skirts revealed white stockings and flat black shoes. Her figure was tall and lanky, and she favored "plain speaking" -- truth without flattery, laced with a strong dose of opinion.

The Yankee Maid could be attractive; her function, after all, was generally romantic interest. Jedidah, in The Stage-Struck Yankee, is a "likely-looking gal", although untutored and backwoodsy. If the Yankee woman were old as well as unmarried, however, she became a less sympathetic figure of fun. Harriet Beecher Stowe (who should have known better) created Ophelia St. Clare in Uncle Tom's Cabin along these lines.

Oh! I am a Yankee Maid
My lot O! ‘tis happy and free
My home is beneath the shade
Of the widespreading old Elm tree.
No home can with mine compare.
And many and old-fashioned air
I sing as I’m -- shelling the peas.

Oh! I am a yankee maid.
None happier ever was seen
When in the old elm tree’s shade
Or dancing across the green.
On Sunday to church I go
Where voices in praises unite;
I give a sly look at my beau
And he –- comes a-courting at night!
(First and last verses of "Yankee Maid," 1847)

CORDELIA

2007-08-20T11:39:00.001-04:00

Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman.
King Lear V.iii. 271-72.

Portia (Merchant of Venice) seems to have been the Victorians' favorite Shakespearean heroine, but Cordelia was popular too. The quotation above was cited frequently to praise or correct women and girls. The Cordelia character showed aspects of a Patient Griselda, accepting mutely horrific punishment yet still loving the punisher, and domestic angel, coming to Lear's aid when he is naked and homeless, providing him shelter, food, clothing and medical aid.

Her role as a truth-teller is undercut in the Tate version, as her parallel character, The Fool, was omitted completely, and not restored in any important American production till 1875.* What remains is a lovely, loving maiden, who is rewarded for her virtue by a handsome and brave young prince and the throne of the country, a typical fairy tale princess. She wields no power, but feminine influence. Given Victorian faith in this bulwark of the home, it is no wonder the text with Cordelia's death was so little played.**

It's surprising, then, that I could find so few illustrations of Victorian Cordelias. The images I have here is a pre-Shakespearean one (Cordelia on steroids -- I imagine the printer just prettied up some spare cut of a soldier to save time), one Blake painting from the beginning of the 19C and a Rackham print from the end, similar in tone, despite the hundred years between them. Lear was much more popular, especially in cartes de visites and prints. Cordelia, etymologically the "heart" of the story, is important primarily to illuminate Lear's character.

*Upon Cordelia's death in Shakespeare's text, Lear says "And my poor fool is hanged," tying the two together even more dramatically. The two never appear on stage at the same time, and some scholars theorize one boy actor originally played both roles.

**Click here for a contemporary diary entry concerning British actor Macready's restoration of the original text in London in 1838.

THE TEN MAJOR EMOTIONS FOR ACTORS

2007-08-16T12:05:00.002-04:00

One of the first things a 19th-century actor would learn was the expression of the "ten major emotions": Joy, Grief, Fear, Anger, Pity, Scorn, Hatred, Jealousy, Wonder, Love. These covered most dramatic situations. Contemporary theories of psychology, physiology, and elocution held that internal emotions were expressed externally on the body, the body's external positions could create internal emotions, and attitudes of emotion would communicate and sometimes instill themselves in the viewer. In dimly lit and noisy theatres, the taking of commonly understood positions helped viewers follow a story, of course.

Ten Major Emotions for Actors (1756) by Aaron Hill, was published in Britain and was still running through many successive editions in Jacksonian America. I've listed below the emotions in the order Hill did -- words in brackets are Hill's explanations of the emotion. The descriptions of physical expression are from another very popular book, Lessons in Elocution by William Scott (the 1814 edition). This was another 18th-century title, a standard text for study well into Victorian America. Abraham Lincoln pored over his copy to learn proper modes of declamation and oratory. Copies of Scott's Elocution show up regularly on eBay, generally for about $10 a copy, its ubiquity a testimony to how many copies were printed and kept in early America.

1. JOY [PRIDE possessed of TRIUMPH] when sudden and violent, expresses itself by clapping of hands, and exultation or leaping. The eyes are opened wide; perhaps filled with tears; often raised to heaven, especially by devout persons. The countenance is smiling, not composedly, but with features aggravated. The voice rises, from time to time, to very high notes.

2. MELANCHOLY OR FIXED GRIEF [DISAPPOINTMENT void of HOPE] is gloomy, sedentary, motionless. The lower jaw falls: the lips pale, the eyes are cast down, half shut, eyelids swelled and red, or livid, tears trickling silent, and unwiped; with a total inattention to every thing that passes. Words, if any, few, and those dragged out, rather than spoken; the accents weak, and interrupted, sighs breaking into the middle of sentences and words.

3. FEAR [GRIEF discerning and avoiding danger], violent and sudden, opens very wide the eyes and mouth; shortens the nose, draws down the eyebrows; gives the countenance an air of wildness: covers it with a deadly paleness; draws back the elbows parallel with the sides; lifts up the open hands, the fingers together, to the height of the breast, so that the palms face the dreadful object, as shields opposed against it. One foot is drawn back behind the other, so that the body seems shrinking from the danger and putting itself in a posture for flight. The heart beats violently; the breath is fetched quick and short: the whole body is thrown into a general tremor. The voice is weak and trembling…

4. ANGER [PRIDE provoked beyond reach or regard of Caution] expresses itself with rapidity, interruption, noise, harshness and trepidation. The neck stretched out, the head forward, after nodding and shaking in a menacing manner, against the object of the passion. The eyes red, inflamed, staring, rolling and sparkling; the eyebrows drawn over them; and the forehead wrinkled into clouds. The nostrils stretched wide, every vein swelled; every muscle strained, the breast heaving and the breath fetched hard. The mouth open, and drawn on each side towards the ears, shewing the teeth in a gnashing posture. The face bloated, pale, red or sometimes almost black. The feet stamping, the right arm often thrown out, and menacing with the clenched fist shaken, and in a general and violent agitation of the whole body.

5. PITY [active GRIEF for another’s affliction], mixed love and grief, looks down upon distress with lifted hands; eyebrows drawn down; mouth open, and features drawn together.

6. SCORN [negligent ANGER] - [contempt unconnected with anger…gained…by a seeming unsinewy slackness of muscles, associated with a look of placid indifference. When, however, the passion rises into nervous and exclamatory violence, the laxity of the muscles, added to their given disposition, will require a look that flames with anger and insult, a big and bursting expansion of the body, and a voice of grand and lofty loudness.] …sets the jaws or gnashes with the teeth; sends blasting flashes from the eyes; draws the mouth towards the ears, clenches both fists, and bends the elbows in a straining manner. The tone of voice and expression are all much the same with that of anger; but the pitch not so loud.

7. HATRED (AVERSION) [restrained, yet lasting ANGER] …drawing back, as avoiding the approach of what he hates; the hands, at the same time, thrown out spread, as if to keep it off. The face turned away from that side…the eyes looking angrily and asquint the same way the hands are directed, the eyebrows drawn downwards, the upper lip disdainfully drawn up; but the teeth set. The pitch of the voice loud, the tone chiding, unequal, surly, vehement.

8. JEALOUSY [doubtful ANGER, struggling against LOVE and PITY] shows itself by restlessness, peevishness, thoughtfulness, anxiety, absence of mind. Sometimes it bursts out in piteous complaint, and weeping, then a gleam of hope lights up the countenance…. Immediately the face clouded with a general gloom shews the mind overcast again with horrid suspicion…the arms are folded upon the breast; the fists violently clenched; the rolling, bloody eyes dart fury.

9. WONDER [inquisitive FEAR] opens the eyes, and makes them appear very prominent: sometimes raises them to the skies; but oftener fixes them on the object. If the cause…be a present and visible object, with the look all except the wildness, of fear. If the hands hold anything…they immediately let it drop…the mouth open; the hands held up open, nearly in the attitude of fear.

10. LOVE [DESIRE kept temperate by REVERENCE] lights up [the face with] smiles. The forehead is smoothed, and enlarged, the eyebrows are arched, the mouth a little open and smiling; the eyes languishing and half shut, doat upon the beloved object. The countenance assumes the eager and wishful look of desire; but missed with an air of satisfaction and repose. The accents are soft, and winning; the tone of voice persuasive, flattering, pathetic, various, musical, rapturous, as in Joy.

AMERICA'S FIRST NATIONAL ANTHEM

2007-08-15T14:39:00.001-04:00

Before "The Star-Spangled Banner" became our anthem in 1931, citizens had a more singable tune -- "Hail Columbia". The tune was known as "The President's March" and was written for George Washington's Inaugural. By Adams' time it had acquired lyrics of fervent patriotism. It was played at formal government functions and was the requested tune of choice at American theaters; the next popular was "Yankee Doodle." In fact, audiences were known to riot if orchestras kept on with their Donizetti or Dibdin instead of responding to cries for "Hail Columbia!"

Click here for a streaming audio of the tune and a printed set of lyrics.

LYING IN WAIT

2007-08-14T09:19:00.001-04:00

This is another political cartoon from Victorian Punch, drawing, like "Exit Speech" (see post for August 8) on common knowledge of theatrical convention: here the stage henchmen lying in wait for an innocent victim. The stage brigands are recognizable portraits of government ministers. What interests theater historians are the poses and costumes.

These men are wearing a stage uniform of Romantic male gear, a mishmash of historic styles: fleshings (tights) on the legs, short trousers, 17th-century Musketeer boots, gauntlet gloves, and fancy hats with three plumes.

The attitude of ambush is stylized -- the body leans forward toward the victim, the feet are firmly planted, the arms are tightly held and bent into sharp angles with clenched fists (read determination and aggression); tension is taut in the limbs and neck. The last brigand signals a stage whisper by holding his left hand to the right side of his mouth -- not a natural pose, but certainly more visually dramatic to the audience. One is reminded of the old Disney movie Babes in Toyland where Mr. Barnaby's villains announce to each other, "Let us lurk!" before starching themselves into sinister postures and tiptoeing behind a tree.

The style is satirized here, but it tells us how audiences expected stage villains to signal plotting and violence.

A SPEAKING COUNTENANCE!

2007-08-13T13:11:00.001-04:00

I would love to see the play this pose was taken from! Unfortunately, there is no caption telling us the title or the role.

There are some clues as to the type of character Mrs. Scott Siddons (great-niece of Sarah Siddons)is playing. She has crouched, rather than advanced or retreated on one leg -- so she is some type of marginal character: abject, powerless, and out of alignment with the social order. Her right hand also has an unusual shape -- not the pointing index (which was restricted to accusation, deprecation or scorn), nor the relaxed full hand, prone or supine, for polite indication. It is stiffer, wider and shows internal agitation. Her posture is backing away rather than moving towards what she's indicating. In addition, her left hand is clutching her head: this is the standard gesture for mental disturbance. (Sample lines from melodrama that accompany this gesture: "My brain is on fire!" "It burns!" "Brain! brain!")

Together with the loose uncontrolled hair and the shroudlike dress, I would identify her character as a stage "maniac", the preferred 19th-century term. Notice also her fixed gaze and the large amount of white showing in her eyes. I'd be grateful to anyone who can supply the play's title (though this may have been a stock pose for photography).

ANOTHER CIGAR LABEL

2007-08-10T09:08:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I like cigar label art so much -- the straightforwardness of the depictions? The bright colors? The etched lines of lithography? These really are a cultural art form...and I was very pleased to find one showing the play we plan for September.

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS A GOOD FIVE-CENT...ACTOR?

2007-08-09T12:41:00.002-04:00

Cigars were a big part of 19th-century American life; cigar stores and divans (smoking salons) were in every town and city. The cigar label became an early American art form -- and given the dominance of theatre in America, the two naturally combined. The above two labels are from the website of Chip Brooks, the Cigar Label Junkie. He has a category on his site devoted only to actors, link in link list.

THE STAGE YANKEE AND BROTHER JONATHAN

2007-08-09T09:22:00.001-04:00

Below are some woodcuts of Yankee actor George "Yankee" Hill (1809-1849)in some of his more famous roles. George Hill was the only famous stage Yankee who was actually a native of Yankee-land. He died young, only forty, but had already made a reputation for himself for Yankee stories, lectures, and dramatic roles.

You can see the basic uniform for a stage Yankee in these pictures: tight striped trousers, bright waistcoat, old-fashioned coat (sometimes swallow-tail) with large buttons, haircut circa 1800, boots.*

Before the Civil War, this uniform was more familiar as the outfit for the "Brother Jonathan" character. (See at left container for "Brother Jonathan Chewing Tobacco"). Brother Jonathan was the transatlantic cousin of John Bull -- the typical male citizen of the country -- the man on the street. Brother Jonathan looked much like Uncle Sam, except he would often have a feather in his cap (did this come from the song, or did the song cite an already familiar character?) The Civil War brought increased Federal departments and control, so Uncle Sam (U.S.), the personification of the government, became the dominant figure.

*The woodcuts are images from Hill's book Scenes from the Life of an Actor (1853). It is available online; the link is listed on the left.

TAKING THE STAGE

2007-08-08T11:38:00.001-04:00

In The Stage-Struck Yankee, actor-manager Douglas Double coaches neophyte Curtis Chunk on the thespian art. "You must take the stage," he says. (Viewers of Blackadder will remember the plant-and-roar method of acting satirized there.)

Victorian actors thought of the stage (and audience) as something to be taken charge of. Audiences did not pay their hard-earned money and sit in crowded uncomfortable theatres to see life as they could find it at home. Entrances and exits were neither prissy nor timid. The well-planted stance, outthrown arms, and assertive delivery were a given, enough for Gladstone, on his exit from British government as prime minister, to be caricatured in the well-known posture shown above. Such mainstream jokes from the past help us determine what used to be common practice.

MORE RISING CONCRETES*

2007-08-07T13:58:00.001-04:00

I know I have much to ↑learn, but thou wilt teach ↑me,
And that will make all easy. ---Frederick Halm
[Deference]

"Nay, ↑now, my ↑child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ro↑nald's,
When you are man and ↑wife." ---Tennyson
[Deference]

Antony Bear with ↑me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to ↑me. ---Shakespeare
[Supplication]

I come not here armed at all point with law ↑cases and Acts of
↑Parliament, with the statute-book doubled down in dog's ↑ears, to defend the cause of liber↑ty. I would not debate a point of law with the gen↑tleman! I know his
abilities. ----Chatham
[Negative, non-asserting]

"Let thee ↑out! No," said Sosia, "a slave once disobeying Arbaces is never heard of more!" ---Bulwer Lytton
[Surprise, astonishment]

Falstaff A plague of all cowards! still, say I.
Prince Hal What's the matter?
Falstaff ↑What's the mat↑ter! There be four of us here, have ta'en a thousand pound this day morning. ---Shakespeare
[Retorted question]

Fellow Citi↑zens: It is no ordinary cause that has brought together this vast assemblage.
[Vocative]

*See post for August 6.

VOCAL PYROTECHNICS

2007-08-06T12:54:00.001-04:00

Victorian actors learned to use a full range of vocal slides, rises, falls and waves -- these were not improvised, but followed a set of rules. Below is one such set from the Practical Elements of Elocution by Robert Fulton and Thomas Trueblood, 1893.

"Rising Concretes" (a slide in the voice from one point to some point higher). [marked with “↑”]

1. Direct questions (answered by yes or no)

Lucius Sir, ‘tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.

Brutus Is he ↑alone?

Lucius No, sir, there are more with him.

Brutus Do you ↑know them?

2. Doubt, indecision, hesitation

“I think he is ↑honest.”

Shylock Antonio is a good ↑man.

Bassanio Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?

Shylock ↑Ho! ↑no, ↑no, ↑no, ↑no.

3. Anticipative or incomplete ideas

But whatever may be our ↑fate, be assured, this declaration will stand. ---Daniel Webster

Desirous of being accounted the best swordsman of ↑Rome, he still better enjoyed the reputation of being the incomparable archer. ---Maurice Thompson

4. Conditional or introductory clauses

When I spoke ↑that, I was ill-tempered too. ---Shakespeare
If this be ↑true, then should I know this secret. ---Ibid.

5. Words or clause with subordinate or restrictive clauses attached

Go bid thy ↑mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. ---Shakespeare

6. Deference, courtesy, conciliation, modesty and shame

Portia I grant I am a wo↑man; but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife.

Antony Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,--
For Brutus is an honorable↑man,
So are they all, all honorable ↑men,--
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

7. Supplication, appeal, begging, and fawning
I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
Nor look upon the iron ↑angrily:
Thrust but these men a↑way, and I’ll forgive you
Whatever torment you do put me ↑to. ---Shakespeare

8. Items in a series, except the last (when taken as a whole)

And now abideth ↑faith, ↑hope, love. –1 Cor. xii: 13.

Sans ↑teeth, sans ↑eyes, sans ↑taste, ↑sans everything. ---Shakespeare

9. Negatives

I wonder that you will still be talking, Senior Benedick, nobody marks ↑you. –Shakespeare.

I care not how fickle other people have been ↑found. ---Webster

10. Surprise, astonishment, retorted questions

Benedick Come, bid me do anything for thee.
Beatrice Kill Claudio.
Benedick ↑Ha! not for the wide world.

11. Vocatives

My ↑Lord, I came to see your father’s funeral. ---Shakespeare.

O ↑Lord, our ↑Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. ---Psalms.

THE RISING CONCRETE OCCURS SO MUCH MORE FREQUENTLY [THAN FALLING OR WAVE] THROUGHOUT DISCOURSE THAT IT MAY BE SAID TO BE THE RULE. [authors’ note]

AMERICA-IN-PLAY TREASURES "LOST" WORKS

2007-08-03T12:12:00.001-04:00

New Old Theater has been working to interest audiences in our dramatic heritage, so it's encouraging that last year Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company did a reading of Dion Boucicault's London Assurance (1841) and this year's Capital Fringe Festival included a modern production of The Drunkard (1844) by W.H. Smith. Theater professionals and scholars have shown similar interest:

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

American Theater, Lost and Found
By FELICIA R. LEE
Published: March 24, 2007
When the lights went down at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center for a series of readings earlier this week, characters like Pocahontas took the stage in new short plays with vintage twists. The works had drawn from the hugely neglected legacy of American popular drama from the American Revolution to World War I, which gave birth to many of the themes and characters that still linger in popular culture.

The audience heard Erin Browne’s “Farmer’s Quartette,” her take on the enduring American theme of the contrast between city and country. Ms. Browne’s work was “borrowed from and inspired” by Denman Thompson’s 1886 play “The Old Homestead.” Likewise, “The Next Big Thing,” by Jenny Levison, about a New York socialite who longs to adopt a baby from abroad, was inspired by “Fashion,” by Anna Cora Mowatt, an 1845 comedy about high society.

“These plays represent our shared cultural inheritance,” Lynn M. Thomson, the founder and artistic director of a project called America-in-Play, told the audience. The 10-minute plays and monologues, which were read by actors, were created over a year, Ms. Thomson said. The idea is that by reading and studying these forgotten plays, writers get a better sense of America’s common culture, which in turns enriches playwriting.

America-in-Play is one of the artist-in-residence programs at the center. Tuesday night’s reading of work by six playwrights represented the first in a series. The final two are set for Monday and Tuesday, showcasing the work of 16 playwrights who spent eight workshops studying some 50 vintage plays and delving into topics like the history of the minstrel show, the iconographic cartoons of the period and paintings from the Hudson River School.

“For a variety of reasons, we have neglected our own cultural history,” Ms. Thomson said in an interview. “American writers have struggled. It’s hard to have a rich life with no past. We need a shared cultural vocabulary to talk to each other, to discover in a new way what we share. ”

They’re not after revivals, Ms. Thomson said. “I’m talking about understanding our vocabulary and using it for new work.”

Most of the playwrights in the project had all been taught that true American drama began with Eugene O’Neill, Ms. Thomson said. They knew little or nothing of earlier work that explored archetypes like the stage Yankee or such near-forgotten genres as the race dramas of the Civil War era.

Ms. Thomson has taught, directed and developed new plays and now teaches theater at Brooklyn College. She gained some notoriety for arguing that she was owed partial authorship credit for the hit show “Rent,” on which she served as dramaturg; her lawsuit was settled in 1998.

For America-in-Play, she hopes eventually to commission full-length plays. It would be the culmination of a process that Ms. Thomson traces to 1991, when she stumbled on the old plays while working on her dissertation on George S. Kaufman at New York University.

In several dusty library boxes, she found “Columbia Readex Microprint of Early American Plays, 1831-1900.” Over the next few years, Ms. Thomson sought out other examples of early American theater. From anthologies, she already knew “The Contrast” (1787) by Royall Tyler and “Fashion,” but eventually unearthed other plays like “The Stage-Struck Yankee” by Oliver Durivage
(1847)* and “The Vermont Wool-Dealer” by Cornelius Logan (1838).

In 2005, after Ms. Thomson landed a two-year residency at the TriBeCa center to write a musical, she was also able to begin assembling the America-in-Play project. A flier went out soliciting playwrights; those responding ranged from a tenured professor to Ms. Browne, a graduate student at Columbia University.

“People are always saying theater is dead,” Ms. Browne said. “But this is making me realize how many groundbreaking things happen in theater. We read a play about the American Revolution from the British point of view; we saw recurring stereotypes about Pocahontas.”

C. S. Hanson wrote a comedy called “Falutin” about an affair between two orchestra members that is inspired by “The Vermont Wool-Dealer.”

“So many of the early plays were about a divided country — city versus country, people who looked to England,” Ms. Hanson said. “People struggled with the same issues of identity that we face now.”

One reason the past is neglected is that it’s complicated, suggested Dominic Taylor, a playwright who is also the associate artistic director of America-in-Play. On Tuesday night there was a reading of his “Literal Lineage,” in which the African-American abolitionist Maria Stewart confronts Glen, a character from “The Escape, or a Leap for Freedom,” an 1858 play by William Wells Brown.

“There are more complicated questions about race and identity than we want to confront,” said Mr. Taylor, who teaches playwriting at Bard College. “For example, blackface started in 1829 with a character named Jim Crow, and I know people who grew up in the Jim Crow South who don’t know where the phrase came from. Why perform in blackface? Why is it that minstrelsy is arguably the first American art form that gained international popularity?”

Morgan Jenness, a dramaturg who spent more than a decade at the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater and is on the board of advisers to the America-in-Play project, called the idea of new playwrights exploring this vintage material a thrilling one.

“I think it’s an exploration that is really resonant right now because the continued shifting of the U.S. identity is so crucial — who are we really?” she wrote in an e-mail message. “From the anti-Tory Revolutionary War plays of Mercy Otis Warren to the whole Philadelphia group, to the playwrights Frederick Forrest** commissioned to write roles for himself, to the pre- and post-Civil war melodramas dealing with race, to the immigrant ‘ethnic’ works of the late 19th century, all of them are key in the reflection and molding of the American identity.”

Todd London, the executive director of New Dramatists, put it this way: “Playwrights are writing plays based on types they don’t even know. It’s always good to reconnect. A novelist who writes American realistic novels would not sit down without knowing Dreiser or Hemingway.”

If you are interested in Ms. Thomson's work, you can visit the website of the organization she founded, "America-in-Play." I've added a link to the list on the left.

*This is the play New Old Theater is performing next month.
**I believe Ms. Jenness is referring to Edwin Forrest, the eminent American Tragedian who started the first playwriting contests in America, through which he found Metamora, The Gladiator, and The Broker of Bogota, extremely popular vehicles showcasing his acting strengths.

LEAR IN ART

2007-08-02T10:06:00.002-04:00

Artists have the benefit of telling a tale without the physical limitations of the stage. Storms and lighting are under their control, and facial and bodily expression have boundaries only in the artists' talent. Here are some of the works showing the history of King Lear.

1) "Cordelia's Portion" Ford Madox Brown. This Pre-Raphaelite painting is typical of the movement with its detail in costume and large depiction of emotion.

2) Photograph of "Lear and His Daughters" by Julia Margaret Cameron. Cameron's father posed as Lear.

3)"King Lear" by John Rogers Herbert.

4)Lear frieze at Folger Shakespeare Library. This isn't Victorian but draws on tradition and I'm a Washington native, so wanted to include it.

5) "Lear and The Fool in the Storm" by William Dyce.

6) "King Lear" by George Romney. Romney's work shows his absorption with Shakespeare, most famously in the painting "King Lear In the Tempest Tearing Off His Robes".

7) "King Lear" by Benjamin West.

8) Lear and Cordelia, unknown artist.

9) Cordelia with Lear and physician, Marcus Stone.

10) Cordelia and Lear in prison, William Blake. This scene is not in Shakespeare, so it may have been inspired by Tate's version, which does have a prison scene with Cordelia and Lear, the king asleep with his head in Cordelia's lap.

11)"Lear Mourning Over Body of Cordelia", James Barry.

VICTORIAN LEARS

2007-08-02T09:28:00.001-04:00

King Lear was not a favorite play among Victorians, even in the "happy ending" version by Nahum Tate. However, the role was played by all the prominent nineteenth-century tragedians. The king showed in one play a range of characters favored by Victorian audiences: royal authority, a mind shattered by madness, and the protective father. Although contemporary artists liked to show Lear with Cordelia, or Lear with the three sisters together, the favored pose for photography (popular in postcard or cabinet print form, for middle-class collection) was King Lear mad on the heath (a location never mentioned by Shakespeare, but fixed in the public mind by Tate's version).* Above are photographs, respectively, of Edmund Kean, Charles Macready, Edwin Forrest, Sir Henry Irving, Robert Mantell, and Henry Baynton as the King.
He was also played by Charles Kean (son of Edmund)and Edwin Booth, who brought back the full Shakespeare text to the stage. Edmund Kean, at the beginning of the century, seems to be the last dominant tragedian to have played Lear without the fully flowing white hair and beard which became iconic to the role.

*The weeds and straws in his hair were a trope of madness dating from before Shakespeare and hardening into stereotype in the Romantic and Victorian periods, especially in the "Crazy Jane" character.

AN EXAMPLE OF SCENERY CHEWING...

2007-08-01T13:20:00.001-04:00

Technique can be overdone, then as now.

SOUVENIR PHOTO ALBUM

2007-08-01T10:09:00.001-04:00

These photos are of a souvenir album from an 1875 performance of The Two Orphans. It was photographed by Sarony Studios, New York photographers of the more important celebrities and stars. The pictures tell a lot about acting presentation and costumes. You should be able to pick out the comic character easily; also the pathetic orphan. (It is interesting to see how large the casts were at the bigger theatres.)

Check the posture -- no one takes a neutral position with weight evenly distributed on both feet, direct frontal presentation and ramrod straight posture. The "S" curve was considered the most speaking and beautiful, and actors tried to create one with their arms and legs, and often bending their heads as well, to keep a "line of beauty" in their bodies.

Also look at the eyes: especially the nun and the low comedian. And do you see any differences in male and female carriage?

This type of acting, when done crisply and with strong intent, carries the story along and creates immediate connection between actor and audience.

ELOCUTION AND GESTURES

2007-07-31T10:51:00.001-04:00

The figures here are from an elocution exercise in an 1851 schoolbook. The 19th-century world was one of performance and presentation, a large portion of which was oratory. Preachers, politicans, actors, and lecturers spoke in tones and gestures discrete from everyday conversation. As you can see, even young children were trained to decipher and employ the gestural codes. Notice that one did not only extend the arms, but shift weight, turn the body and head, and change position of the feet. Each numbered figure corresponds to a word in red in the below lines:

KNOW YE THIS, MY FRIENDS, THAT HE WHO REIGNETH IN HEAVEN,

WHOSE FOOTSTOOL IS THE SOLID GLOBE,

WHO AT A GLANCE TAKETH IN ALL THINGS,

WHOSE ESSENCE FILLETH ALL SPACE,

THE IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE,

REGARDETH US, THE CREATURES OF HIS CREATION, HIS BOUNTY,

NOT AS OBJECTS TO BE CAST AWAY

OR REPELLED FROM HIS PRESENCE,

BUT AS BEINGS TO WHOM HIS HEART IS EVER OPEN,

HIS HAND EVER EXTENDED.

HE WILL TAKE US TO HIS ARMS, AS A MOTHER TAKETH HER CHILD.

To get a sample of past oratorical style, click the link "historical speeches" on the left.
This is a streaming of early historical speeches and recordings by Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Ernest Shackleton, Sarah Bernhardt, William Howard Taft and others, created from early cylinder recordings at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (The rest of the site is worth browsing, with early home recordings, music, and one set of early vaudeville recordings.)

BLANK VERSE

2007-07-30T14:25:00.001-04:00

Speaking in blank verse is a challenge, but the structure provided by the playwright provides valuable help to interpreting the character.

Blank verse is unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter; that is, five beats of a simple two-syllable rhythm, like a heartbeat: da dum. A full line will be ten syllables:
da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum

A famous line in iambic is Christopher Marlowe's, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" This is a simple iambic line, as the thought begins and ends where the line does, and there are exactly ten syllables contained in the line. (Blank verse is ruled by five beats, but a line can contain 9, or 12 or even 14 syllables.)

A good writer goes beyond creating a clip-clop rhythm and is able to construct sentences so that the stresses vary without distracting the listener, important words feel the strike of the iambic meter, and ripples, jogs or hesitations clarify the emotional state of the speaker. We will look at some speeches from Act V of Nahum Tate's The History of King Lear (1681) to examine how blank verse helps in characterization.

Look at this speech by Edmund (Bastard):

Bastard What will not Edmund dare! My lord, I beg
The favor that you’d instantly appoint
The place where I may beat this challenger,
Whom I will sacrifice to my wronged fame.
Remember, sir, that injured honor’s nice
And cannot brook delay.

Albany Anon, before our tent, i’th’army’s view,
There let the herald cry

Edmund's lines are nice, regular ten-syllable ones, with the final stress coming pat on the final syllable every time. He starts off with a rushed "What will not Edmund dare!", the exclamation point forcing a pause before "My lord", which is pronounced closer to a 1 and 1/2 syllable sound rather than two. His final line is short, as Albany interrupts him -- he has scant patience for Edmund and has tolerated him in the army out of necessity.

Edmund's earlier speech also is a regular, ten-beat one:

Sir, I approve it safest to pronounce
Sentence of death upon this wretched king,
Whose age has charms in it, his title more,
To draw the commons once more to his side.
‘Twere best prevent –

He is interrupted here again by Albany, but before that we have a clean, almost metronomical beat. If we look at all the speeches in the Act, and count out the beats (marking the number in the margin), we can see that Edmund stands alone with his predictable ten beats. The others speak with 9, 11, 12, or even 7 beats, as often as with 10. All the characters are at a high emotional pitch, but Edmund is able to spin out rhythmic and controlled sentences -- a clue to his character as a plotter and manipulator. He doesn't break until confronted unexpectedly with his half-brother's challenge to fight:

Albany Lord Edgar!

Bastard Ha! my brother!
This is the only combatant that I could fear,
For in my breast guilt duels on his side.
But, Conscience, what have I to do with thee?
Awe thou thy dull legitimate slaves, but I
Was born a libertine, and so I keep me.

Beat out the meter and count the iambs. "Ha! my brother!" connects to Albany's exclamation, showing us a quick reaction. But these add up only to 7 iambs -- the three beats after are possibly a pause of shock or amazement. Edmund picks up again, but the regular beat falters on "combatant" and "legitimate," words of high significance for him. The last word "me" is a throwaway unstressed syllable, which is a telling change in a man of Edmund's inordinate egoism.

Examining where he quivers in his pentameter, where his lines break, or where his thoughts begin mid-sentence, will give clues to the actor where Edmund's fault lines lie, how he presents himself to the world, and emotional peaks can effectively appear. Blank verse adds beauty to speech, but it is beauty married to function -- form not only follows, but supplies content -- a fact alert actors will exploit.

STAGE YANKEES

2007-07-27T09:37:00.001-04:00

The "stage Yankee" was a stock character on the early American stage, said to begin with the character of Jonathan in Royall Tyler's The Contrast (1787). Federal-era America was eager to develop nationalistic icons, and the Yankee type, with his unself-conscious bearing, pride in origin, and idiosyncratic speech, was ideal. [Click link for "Stage Yankee" at left.]

The British actor Charles Mathews observed the Yankee on his American tour in the 1820s and created "Jonathan Doubikins." Mathews, a gifted mimic and writer, brought Doubikins to life in his theatrical "At Homes", in which he played numerous characters with the help of quick-change in costumes and voice and facial characterizations.

Other Yankee actors followed, the most famous and popular being James Hackett, George Handel Hill (image above), Dan Marble, and Joshua Silsbee. The Yankee character appeared in plays like The Forest Rose (1825), She Would Be A Soldier (1832), Cut and Come Again (1840), The Pilot (1843), and The Stage Struck Yankee (1849), culminating in the stage Yankee best remembered now, Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin (1858). Stage appearances of the character would often consist of an improvised narrative, the "Yankee story." Theater historian Francis Hodge has called the practice of the stage Yankee "the American commedia dell'arte," and his role in drama was often that of a Harlequin, as a uniter of lovers and a catalyst of transformation.

The Yankee man was an almost surrealistic mixture of naivete and cunning. He always got the better in a bargain or a swap, but was childishly innocent in the matters of fashion, language and politics. His clothes were peculiar, in the manner of a man unused to city ways: striped trousers, often too short; bright flashy waistcoats; an oversized "bell-shaped" hat; suspenders or "galluses"; a long coat almost to the ankles, or a swallow-tail jacket; a chin beard. This should sound familiar -- it was the origin of our "Uncle Sam". He spoke in a nasal twang, with a stage accent based on western New England dialect, studding his conversation with homely metaphors and outlandish words ("splendiferous," "absquatulate."*). The changes in dramatic taste after the Civil War meant that the stage Yankee faded out in all but the most cliched stage pieces, but the type was important in establishing national taste in the theatre and in representing America across the sea.

*See link at left for Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848)-- while not confined to Yankee talk, it has many, many examples, including "sockdolager", famous from Our American Cousin.

PLAYS MENTIONED IN "THE STAGE STRUCK YANKEE"

2007-07-26T08:45:00.002-04:00

The manager-and-star couple, Douglas Double and Fanny Magnet, speak to each other in allusive theatre jargon, often using play titles that reflect their situation.

The playbills here include the titles the Doubles quote. Notice the format of a typical evening at the theatre: a long play and a farce, generally, often studded with musical interludes.

BASIC MELODRAMATIC STAGE CONVENTIONS

2007-07-25T09:01:00.002-04:00

[The attached pictures are from an early 19th-century acting manual and demonstrate gestures for "terror," "joy," and "anger." Notice weight is on one leg or the other -- not in "neutral stance". Arms are moved from the shoulder, not the elbow and the head is held at an angle.]

1. Actors trained through apprenticeship: joining a company and starting with walk-ons and non-speaking parts, watching more experienced and famous actors. They would develop a “line of business” (stock character), e.g.: hero, villain, low comic, light comic, walking gentleman or lady
2. Most actors had had training from a dancing master, as did most of the public (Dickens showed these even in the poorer neighbourhoods) in dancing as well as: polite carriage, entering and leaving a room, proper bows and courtesies, forms of introduction, etc. Many more had elocutionary training.
3. Delivery of speech and motion was vigorous, spirited, “exaggerated.” The whole body displayed feeling through foot stamping, sudden starts, eye rolling, “windmill” arms, etc.
4. Actors articulated musically and emphatically; they employed large gestures and positioning of body and worked for “points” (traditional places of emphasis in speeches, highly emotional phrases, where actors aimed to elicit applause). As a rule, they did not talk while moving across stage.
5. Entrances and exits were meant to attract attention: actor primarily an ACTOR, not character. An actor entered confidently, directed self towards footlight focal point, and planted oneself firmly before beginning to speak.
6. If an actor received loud or continued applause (including foot-stomping, whistles, shouting, or throwing of wreaths of flowers on stage), speech might be encored 3 or 4 times back to back.
7. Gestures somewhat categorized: serious/comic, male/female, hero/villain, upper class/lower class. The pace slowed for serious moments, sped up for comic ones. Serious or good characters showed more curve, grace and beauty; comics and villains were more angular and sharp.
8. All the tradition and plot similarity allowed “gagging” – that is, being able to play a part without thoroughly memorizing it. Standard company would be performing one play, rehearsing another, and memorizing a third in the same week; changing performances every week.

SOME NOTES:
Neutral stance: Modified fourth position, weight on balls of feet
Chest out, chin in, shoulders down
Back straight and arms curved, elbows slightly out
“THE ARMS ARE NOT STICKS”*

FORWARD: Objective (towards an object) – moments of description, love,
revenge, authority – any emotions directed out
NEUTRAL: Doubt, reservation, neutrality
BACKWARD: Subjective (introspective) – thought, meditation, fear, experience

GESTURES: “BE FREE IN MOVEMENT, VIGOROUS IN ACTION”
Ascending: Appeal to heaven, indication of something above, acclamation (the ideal)
Middle: Indication, description, sincerity or deep feeling (e.g., Aversion)
Descending: Indication, contempt, affirmation, denial

*Quotations are from contemporary acting manuals.

1870S Composite Photograph -- Actors and Actresses

2007-07-24T12:18:00.002-04:00

FOR ACTORS: VICTORIAN DEPORTMENT

2007-07-24T12:12:00.001-04:00

Like all of my text on this blog, the below is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced or distributed without my permission:

VICTORIAN DEPORTMENT AND APPEARANCE

Respectable Victorians (and most Victorians at least aspired to respectability) had a different group of expectations than ours on which to judge and create deportment.

1) Separate spheres for men and women

2) Acceptance of hierarchical society, signaled by dress, movement and speech

3) Clothing and deportment as display and interaction in society, rather than as self-expression

Above all, there was an acceptance (even in America, the “class-free” nation) of incorporating class differences into modes of interaction and dress. People embraced identity as part of a group.

In the 1800s, every aspect of one’s existence was controlled by one’s gender: occupation, dress, speech patterns, and gestures. Masculinity and femininity occupied strictly separate spheres, and indications of either were broadly exaggerated. Men were entering the height of their “lords of creation” era in the 1840s – across classes men walked with a swagger, stood and sat to take the most space, sawed the air with gestures and grasped and brandished possessions like canes, eyeglasses, lapels, or books. This is the time when there were the widest distinctions between male and female dress: colors disappeared from men’s clothing, facial hair sprouted on lip, chin and face, Regency jewelry and snuffboxes disappeared, and male ornaments were mainly sober watch chains, rings and tie pins. (Exceptions were aristocratic “dandies”, like Lord Dundreary, Bohemians in mid-century, and aesthetes at the end of the century.) Men firmly planted their legs when standing. Their social stance generally had one foot advanced, with the hand on the same side holding a lapel, placed on the breast, or gesturing. When directing attention, the head or the whole hand was used, but not the finger. Hands were never put in pockets – this was considered the height of vulgarity. The gaze was to be firm and frank without being belligerent or prying. Men were permitted, within polite bounds, to eye ladies appraisingly.

Women presented themselves as the exact opposite: passive to men’s activity, calm to their energy, emotional to their rationality, etc. Thus, posture and behaviour were designed to draw attention to itself through grace and poise only. Large expansive gestures, long strides, positioning in the middle of a crowd, were all unfeminine. Women took small steps and stood with hands clasped or holding some ornament, like flowers, muff, or lace handkerchief, which could be clasped to the heart while talking. Arm gestures were very limited – during the 1840s-60s, shoulder seams on gowns came several inches below the shoulder, but hands might purposefully flutter in pretty gestures: rings and bracelets were worn several together to draw attention to them. Corsets kept the upper body still, heavy skirts slowed the walk. Women’s shoes were flat slippers, and their walks were described as “pattering,” “skipping,” or “tripping.” At this time, it was considered attractive for young women to appear light-hearted and giddy and exist as an ornament to society. Their clothing was lighter, more colorful and decorative.
In interaction, married women offered their hands upon introduction; unmarried women, never. All women were taught to speak in a low voice and to avoid a direct gaze. In company, ladies kept their eyes down when speaking to superiors and gentlemen, perhaps lifting their eyes but not their heads to meet a glance. The head might be cocked to one side or the other when talking to a gentleman, to cultivate coyness and demureness. [All this will pose special problems for the actress, who must follow stage convention without too outrageously breaking social convention.]

When married women reached a certain age, they became “dowagers.” Their age and experience in social circles, as well as their removal from the marriage market and the realm of sexual attractiveness, theoretically meant they were the more suitable as social arbiters. Their gossip, matchmaking and social arrangements were taken very seriously, and led to the stern, basilisk-eyed British Matron found in most literature of the era. This was acceptable, as long as women worked through Victorian “influence” over men, and did not handle any actual “power”. A dowager was exempt from rules of carriage and deportment for belles, and indeed could be subject to ridicule if she followed them.

For all ladies, the crinoline relieved some of the weight of 19th-century skirts; before up to ten petticoats might be worn at once, but the cage crinoline took some weight off a woman’s legs and provided a cool draft. Women walked so as to seem to run on wheels; the motions of walking were not apparent; no up-and-down movement or hip motion, steps were small; hoop-swaying was kept to a minimum. Hands stayed on the front of the crinoline to guide it when walking or sitting down. Care had to be taken to keep the crinoline from catching on furniture or doorways and turning up to show anything above the ankle. When entering doorways, a woman led with one hip and shoulder, to turn the crinoline for easy pass-through. Feet should not show more than a few inches at the toe, though coquettes could manipulate their movements to show what was called a “well-turned ankle.”

As well as separate gender spheres, there was a gradation of behaviour along class lines. Poor and working classes wore ill-fitting clothes and heavy shoes, which affected their gait and movement. There were no standard sizes of clothing; suits and dresses were custom-made for middle and upper classes, with the poor wearing cast-offs or hand-me-downs.
A bow or curtsey would vary depending on whether it was to an equal, a superior, or an inferior. Men gave a short nod to inferiors, a deep bow to equals, a deeper bow to older people, superiors and ladies (not women). Curtseys were divided into a short dip of the knees, a deep curtsey with one foot planted behind, or a deeper formal curtsey with skirts held to the sides, and as much time spent arising as dipping. The higher the social standing, the more grace and time was given to bowing or curtseying to superiors.

Class, income, region, and marital status were announced in one’s clothing and stance. Conduct manuals of the time spoke of an individual’s “obligation” to his community when choosing clothes or appearing in a public setting. This was felt as comforting and grounded, rather than restrictive as we might judge today. Transgressions of any of the boundaries signaled disrespectability, insolence, or even threat (Asa Trenchard being a prime example). On stage, social class and moral behaviour can be shown by the degree to which these rules were followed.

NEW OLD THEATER

2007-07-24T11:09:00.001-04:00

This is a blog about 19th-century theater, primarily meant for members of New Old Theater (http://www.newoldtheater.org/), an acting company dedicated to the revival of popular 19th-century drama and its conventions.

Above is a picture of Covent Garden circa 1815 -- I believe the play is Shakespeare's Henry V. Notice the positioning of actors downstage near the footlights, the extended postures of actors -- you can even tell which one is speaking at the moment -- the division of audience into pit, boxes and gallery, and the manner in which the audience is as much a matter for viewing as is the play. In our next production, featuring The Stage-Struck Yankee (1849) and Nahum Tate's The History of King Lear (1681), we will be working towards creating the feel, if not the plush surroundings, of this type of theatrical experience.

Please check my blog regularly for text of handouts, photos and drawings of 19th-century actors, material on stage conventions and announcements about our group.