Chapter 17 - Acting Style

Summary

This chapter looks at the evolution of acting styles in Molière’s time, paying particular attention to the creation of a ‘regular acting’ that matched the emergence of the classical rules, and also to the competition between the two main playhouses of the time. Molière prioritised variety. Stage business became a crucible of several traditions and a means of experimenting with new comic effects: from vulgar gestures, beatings and mimicry to lazzi and rodomontades; from provincial accents to stuttering and an uncontrolled emotional hiccup; from cross-dressing to disguise. In the 1660s, Molière sought to differentiate his company from the Hôtel de Bourgogne, whose forte was tragic, oratorical acting, and whose actors may not all have been as physically agile on stage as Molière was himself. He sparked controversy, promoting his hybrid acting ‘brand’, which probably consisted of a combination of an attenuated declamatory style and a faster flow in the tragic and, conversely, an exaggerated and excessive body language style accompanied by extreme contortions in the comic. Molière triumphed on the comic stage, becoming a model and marking the next generations of actors.