Excessive Gesturing

The cheerful production of "Hay Fever" led to some searches for books on Berhardt and Duse. The low key acting styles that Stanisklavsky encouraged in his writing and stage directing was a rebellion against the stock gesturing that was the fashion of his time. A counter-revolution seems to be happening at last, where exaggeration is fully acceptable and even to be expected.

Television has worn itself to a standstill. A tedious trail of soaps where facial expression and topical social issues are expected to keep us on the edge of our seats with anticipation as to what the character might spout out next is balanced by reality and survival scenarios made mostly for the entertainment of sadists.

I just turn off and pick up a book or wonder why, as a student, I used read plays for the stage directions first and foremost and considered that many of the witterings of the character were arbitrary in the extreme.
I once managed to puzzle one teacher by putting in an essay that made absolutely no mention of anything that anybody said in that windbag of a play, Ben Jonson's "Volpone". A language and literature course deserves some attention to words, but in this case I was not convinced that they were of any use and was very much taken with the finesse that the great master showed in getting his characters on, off and around the stage. In fact, I think it would be the perfect play for mime artists, along the lines of the scenes from "Les Enfants du Paradis".

Perhaps this explains why the frantic Feydeauesque antics the other night so delighted me. A good night at the theatre is when the actors are at full throttle.

Chapeau!