Tuesday 27th January 2015 - Research 1700s Acting Styles

Tuesday 27th January 2015
Research 1700s Acting Styles

Restoration Comedy - This is the English comedies that were written and performed in the period between 1660-1710. The Puritan regime meant that public stage performances had been banned for 18 years and the re-opening of theatres in 1660 began a different type of English theatre. Restoration comedy focuses on sexual explicitness, this was encouraged by King Charles 2nd. These type of plays were watched by both aristocrats an their servants as many people were attracted to watch these plays because of the topic that were covered. 

This is from Princton:Restoration Comedy and can be found at http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Restoration_comedy.html (Friday 30th January 2015)

18th Century Plays - In this time period the theatre was a popular pastime and therefore many theatres and playhouses were built and enlarged in London. Usually the write of the play directed it, during the play when it was an actors turn to say their lines, they would step forward and speak. Each actor got paid according to how popular they were and each actor played the same type of role in each play they were in, For example actors who played a tragedy role always performed a tragedy role. The playwrights got paid on the third and the sixth nights performance but only on the original run of the show.

This is from V&A:19th Century Theatre and can be found at http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/0-9/18th-century-theatre/ (Friday 30th January 2015)

David Garrick - For over 30 years (1741-1776) he was one if the most successful actors, producer and theatre managers, during his career he wrote and adapted more than 20 plays. His most successful performance was as Richard 3rd at the Goodmans Fields Thetare. After this The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane hired him and after 5 years of employment he began to manage the theatre. Garrick was famous for using a different acting style to the other famous actors at the time, he prefered to speak and move with a more natural manner rather than using melodrama. The effect of this was more subtle and this was a start of using realism whilst acting. His most famous role was in a Shakespeare play as the role of Hamlet, he also became a successful manager of the Theatre Royal. Whilst being a manger he made several changes to the theatre, for example he had audience memebers sitting on stage, this was to get them involved with the play rather than sitting relaxed watching a proscenium stage.

This is from Theatrehistory.com:David Garrick and can be found at http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/garrick001.html (Friday 30th January 2015)