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Acting Styles

Theatrical style may be classified into two broad types, each reflecting a particular kind of relationship between the actors and the audience.

In the presentational style, actors look at the audience and speak to them directly. They may share things with the audience that other characters aren’t supposed to know. In the representational style, actors are supposed to be living real lives that the audience is observing. The actors don’t acknowledge the presence of the audience. The representational style employs the concept of the fourth wall, an imaginary wall between the actors and the audience; through this “wall” the audience witnesses the action of the play.

Another defining characteristic of theatrical style is the degree of exaggeration employed by the actors. Today actors in most plays try to give the impression of complete realism. Earlier in theatre history (and in some productions today), actors exaggerated their vocal inflections, eye movements, facial expressions, and physical gestures. At its most extreme, this kind of acting resulted in a declamatory or oratorical style, with broad, conventional gestures and movements to represent emotions (such as anger and love) and actions (such as to threaten or search), and a vocal style designed not only to emphasize important words and ideas but to wring the emotional potential from a speech.

Yet another factor that impacts on theatrical style is genre. Following are some of the principal theatrical genres, with their specific characteristics as they apply to acting styles.

Farce

One of the most characteristic types of farce is the commedia dell’arte, a professional form of theatrical improvisation that developed in Italy in the 1500s. Commedia dell’arte farces are based on standard plot outlines, or scenarios, featuring established, or stock, comic characters such as elderly husbands and young wives, gullible masters and tricky servants, young lovers and overprotective fathers. Commedia performers are often masked and exhibit energetic, sometimes acrobatic, physical activity, which constitutes much of the humor in farce.

Comedy of Manners

Balancing satire and flattery, the comedy of manners deals with the vices and follies of the upper class. Plots feature social competition of witty characters whose depth comes from intelligence, not emotion. Characters speak rapidly and with exaggerated vocal variety.

Unlike the physical comedy of farce, the humor lies in the quick and witty exchange of dialogue. Characters in a comedy of manners are generally graceful and constrained in their movements, which largely consist of curtsies, bows, and so on. Hand and facial gestures are especially important, as is the use of the complex language of fans.

Shakespearean Tragedy

Many of Shakespeare’s plays are tragedies. Tragic characters generally have more grace and majesty than comic characters.

They move, think, and act more deliberately and slowly. Their pace and rhythm are steady and consistent. Tragic characters deal seriously with love, faith, virtue, ambition, mortality, and other basic human issues.

Realistic Drama

During most of the 1800s, the Romantic movement influenced drama, poetry, painting, music, and the other arts. Romanticism in drama emphasized heroism and sentiment, extraordinary characters and melodramatic plots. Actors used large, overly dramatic, and symbolic gestures and postures. In the second half of the century, a counter movement, known as realism, began to develop. Romantic dramatists had depicted the remote and exotic; in contrast, realists sought to create the appearance of ordinary reality in theatrical works. In the extreme, naturalistic form of this style, props and sets are very detailed and elaborate in an attempt to actually re-create the environment of the play.

Actors attempt to become their characters. Barely modified physical contact between characters may be used for stage fights or love scenes. Most directors and playwrights, however, choose a more representational version of realism. Since a play is performed on a stage in front of an audience, it’s difficult to present every minute detail of real life. Set designers, therefore, try to convey an illusion or impression of the environment of the play. Actors are aware they are performing. They may use their own thoughts and experiences to evoke emotions and carry out the actions of their characters onstage.

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