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.

QUIZ TIME

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

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 TEN MAJOR EMOTIONS FOR ACTORS

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.