Performance Style and Gesture in Western Theatre
Subtitle: A History of Performing Styles and Gesture in Western Theatre
Publisher: Oberon Books
Published: April 2008
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9781840025927
Subjects: Acting techniques; Drama; Plays; Western Continental Europe; Drama / History & Criticism; General
Description: "Until the beginning of the 20th Century, when naturalism began to assert its powerful influence on western theatre, acting was a very different business indeed. Rather than attempting to reproduce realistic behaviour, actors conveyed their characters' feelings and intentions by using a vocabulary of minutely prescribed and highly stylised movements and gestures, each with its own meaning and significance." "In this wide-ranging, illustrated survey, Nicholas Dromgoole traces the origins and evolution of this lost 'language of gesture' from ancient Greece to the contemporary stage, and asks what it would actually have been like to watch the great plays - and the great actors - of western theatre in their own day."--Jacket.