Melodrama a la Disney.

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

CHARACTER ACTORS

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.

WINDOWS OF THE SOUL

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".

The Old Trouper - Archy and Mehitabel

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.

COMPOSITION FOR TWO

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.

ANOTHER TAKE ON EARLY THEATRE

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.

VICTORIAN MEN AND THE TEAPOT STANCE

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

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.

ACTOR PLACEMENT

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.

LAZY LIPS SINK SHIPS!

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.

COSTUMING THE ACTORS

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

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....

CAPTION: Shakespeare spells ruin, but legs mean dividends!