PERSONAEITY, PASSIONS, PERSONALITY: ENGLISH ACTING MANUALS, 1710-1755

By

Barry James 0'Connor

A Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

School of Theatre Studies University of New South Wales February, 1992. Contents

List of Illustrations 3

Introduction 5

Chapter I 42 Charles Gildon's Theory of Acting: The Personaeity manifesto

Chapter II 135 Aaron Hill: the Acting of Classical Emotionalism

Chapter III 207 Sensibility, fire and Feeling: Factors of Personality in John Hill's Theory of Acting.

Conclusion 275

Bibliography 293 (Of Works Consulted) 3

List of Illustrations

Between Pages Figure 1. Actor holding tragic mask. 6-7 Vase fragment from Tarentum, Wiirzburg. Figure 2. "A wholly wrong figure," Franciscus Lange, 78-79 Dissertatio de Actione Scenica. Munich: Society of Jesus, 1927. Rpt.: 1975.

Figure 3. Rear view of correct stage stance, Franciscus 78-79 Lange, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica.

Figure 4. Front view of correct stage stance, Franciscus 78-79 Lange, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica.

Figure 5. 92-93 Portrait of James, Duke of York, as Lord High Admiral. Henri Gascar. National Maritime Museum.

Figure 6. 92-93 The Apollo of Belvedere, c. 350-300 B.C. Roman copy. Vatican Museum.

Figure 7. 92-93 "Tent of Darius," Charles LeBrun. Reunion des musees nationaux.

Figure 8. 92-93 "Anger," Charles Le Brun. 4

Between pages

Figure 9. 92-93 "Fright," Charles LeBrun.

Figure 10. 92-93 "Extream Despair," Charles LeBrun.

Figure 11. 92-93 "The Descent of Christ from the Cross," Jordaens. Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Figure 12. 199-200 David Garrick as Richard III, 1746. Hogarth. liverpool, Walker Art Gallery.

Figure 13. 199-200 David Garrick as Lear, 1761. B. Wilson.

Figure 14. 199-200 David Garrick as Richard III. Francis Hayman, signed F.H. 1760. Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Trust.

Figure 15. 240-241 "The Laughing Audience." Hogarth. Harvard Theatre Collection.

Figure 16. 240-241 "The Weeping Audience." Anon. watercolour. Source unknown. Introduction

The basic undertaking of this thesis is an analysis of three significant eighteenth century acting manuals, which were written

severally by Charles Gildon, 1 Aaron Hill 2 and, his namesake but

no relation, John Hill. 3 A chapter of the thesis is devoted to each of these writers. The theorists have been chosen because of their strategic placement within a period of theatre history which reputedly underwent notable changes in acting style: the period from Thomas Betterton to David Garrick. Generally, the acting of this period has been characterized as a progression from an unnatural to a natural style. I find this terminology problematical, since, because of the privileged position naturalism may be said to occupy, or to have occupied, in the twentieth century, there is tendency to confuse natural acting with naturalistic acting. 4

1 Charles Gildon, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, the late Eminent Tragedian. Wherein the Action and Utterance of the Stage, Bar, and Pulipt, are distinctly consider'd. With the judgement of the late ingenious Monsieur de St. Evremond, upon the Italian and French music and opera's ... to which is added the Amorous Widaw ... written by Mr. Betterton, London: Robert Gosling, 1710; New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970. When referred to in an abbreviated form, this work will be cited as the Life. 2 Contained principally in: The Prompter: A Theatrical Paper (1734-1736), by Aaron Hill and William Popple; selected and edited by William W. Appleton & Kalman A. Burnim, New York: Benjamin Blom, 1966; "An Essay on the Art of Acting," in The Works ofAaron Hill, 4 Vols, London, 1754, Vol. IV, pp. 337-396. The writings of Hill are wide and varied, and will be referred to in detail in the appropriate chapter of this work. 3 John Hill, The Actor; or, A Treatise on the Art of Playing, London: R. Griffiths, 1750; The Actor; or, A Treatise on the Art of Playing. A New Work, Written by the Author of the Former, and Adapted to the Present State of the Theatre ... , London, 1755; reprinted Benjamin Blom, New York, 1969. 4 Alfred S. Golding speaks of "the method before the Method" in his "Towards an Acting Methodology of Seventeenth Century Europe," Proceedings of the 1974 Ohio State University Theatre Symposium, edited by Alan Woods, Theatre Studies, No. 6

Scholarship has offered interpretations of eighteenth century acting in other, less contentious terms-relating it to collateral movements in art history, shifts in aesthetic ideas, and so on. However, discussion in such abstract terms tend to promote notions of radical change in acting style, and I would argue that when looked at from the actor's point of view (as reflected in the acting treatises), these changes, while admittedly evident, are in fact changes of degree rather than kind. The theoretical writings of Gildon and Aaron and John Hill, afford us insights into the actor's art during the first half of the eighteenth century, and alert our attention to what I would argue is the tension between the actor's technique, on the one hand, and his personal and physical make-up, on the other. This tension results from the fact that, due to the peculiarities of the nature of acting, the actor is both instrument and instrumentalist in one. It seems to me that the actor's art is forged from the negotiation between these two elements, and that something of the one is always present even when the other may be said to predominate. When technique dominates in the actor's style, something of the person is somewhere detectable; when the personality looms large in the actor, technique is also there although perhaps well disguised. Therefore, I suggest that a continuum analysis, using the already stated theoretical writings, be applied to the Betterton-Garrick years; a continuum which has at one end, personaeity, and at the other personality. I think this will help us better understand in acting terms the changes that took place in the first half of the eighteenth

21 (1974-75), pp. 5-25; Leigh Woods, in Garrick Claims the Stage: Acting as Social Emblem in Eighteenth-Century England, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984, p. 99, refers to "the naturalistic ... components of Garrick's acting." Figure 1. Actor holding tragic mask. Vase fragment from Tarentum, Wiirzburg. 7

century. In order to explain the polar limits of this continuum, personaeity and personality, especially the former, I need to have recourse, as was indeed customary in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, to the world of classical Greece and Rome. A Greek vase fragment painted in southern Italy in 390 BC

depicts a tragic actor contemplating his mask. 1 The actor has distinct stubble on his chin and his hairline is in a state of advanced recession; he wears the tunic, the high boots, and carries the sword of the classical tragedian. In his right hand he bears the persona of his noble character: the hair is full and generous, as is the beard; the eye is alert and noble in contrast to the grey flecked hair, furrowed brow, and somewhat hooded eyes of the actor. The artist has been at pains to distinguish between the ordinariness of the man and the nobility of his mask. What we see, I think, is the contrast between the personality of the man, who is revealed in all his vulnerability and humanity-in a word, his individuality-and the noble persona or mask, which he holds in his hand, and which is generically representative of all the noble heroic virtues-dignity, pride, comeliness. It is my view that this vase fragment may be interpreted as illuminating two important concepts which underscore the history of acting: those concepts are personality and personaeity. Personality refers to the unique individuality of the person, and I use the word largely in its conventional lexical sense pertaining to character; in the context of acting, personality signifies characterization which is particularized, domestic, and emerging from the personal resources

1 See Fig. 1. 8 of the actor. Personaeity, 1 on the other hand, is a word I have coined to describe those qualities an actor conveys through persona-acting; personaeity denotes external, formal, universalized characterization-the embodiment of universal identity. In effect, personaeity is a synonym for rhetorical or formal acting, but since these latter terms fall harshly on the modern scholarly ear, suggesting as they do hollow and unmotivated acting, I think personaeity is a legitimate coinage in the name of re-evaluation and helps bring new understanding to a class of acting which has been formerly denigrated as "rhetorical," "formal," "technical," and "presentational." All these terms have limitations in terms of modern critical understanding: rhetorical suggests an emphasis on voice; formal carries implications of artificiality; technical tends to equate with mechnical; presentational means the presentation rather than representation of character, nominally thereby excluding emotional identification; personaeity, however, by dint of its root word, persona, places both the face and the concept of character (dramatis persona) at the centre of the discussion of an acting tradition, which is, at the same time, rhetorical, formal, technical and presentational-but without the pejorative associations of these terms. The Tarentum vase fragment arguably provides an informative icon which affords us terms of reference by which we may construct a reading of the history of acting from the Greeks to the early twentieth century. This construction, which has affinities

1 Not to be confused with "personeity," which means "that which constitutes a person," according to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Vol. II, revised and edited by CT. Onions, London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1959, col. 3, p. 1479. 9 with the orthodox view of world drama, traces the history of acting from the masked performer of fifth century Greece to the non­ masked performer of the twentieth century. Moreover, this same orthodoxy would argue that the actor had, in the course of theatre history, abandoned the mask as a universal convention by the medieval period, when masks were worn chiefly by actors playing the devils and demons, and to a lesser extent by those portraying God and the angels, in the Biblical pageants of Catholic Europe; the Elizabethan actor, and his eighteenth and nineteenth century successors, needless to say, eschewed the mask entirely. Indeed, except for the twentieth century experimental work of Copeau and others, the performance mask as a convention in theatre has been preserved only in traditional forms like com media dell' arte (admittedly a broken tradition artifically rediscovered), on the one hand, and, Noh and Kabuki, on the other, which have survived into the present century more or less historically intact. However, when, in the course of theatre history, the mask or persona was given up as a formal convention, the mask survived, I believe, in the metaphorical sense: the actor still had to present a persona or character, now relying, principally on his face, as well as his voice and body to do so-all elements in the process of conveying personaeity. Once the actor had been unmasked, to continue the narrative suggested by the above orthodox view of theatre history, he stood before his audience, as individually identifiable and idiosyncratically vulnerable as is suggested by the depiction of the actor in the Tarentum vase fragment referred to already. With the mask no longer in evidence, we are in fact able to perceive the person behind the persona. Furthermore, in the presentational 10 tradition of acting, which pre-modern acting (the Greeks to the nineteenth century) is generally considered to be, this tension between person and persona is theoretically reduced in importance because the actor's task is to present a persona not a personality, least of all his own. Presentational acting licenses an average mortal to play or present a god, a king, a queen; Everyman, Goodness, Lucifer-elevated personages and moral abstractions, characters far removed from the mundane experience of ordinary humanity in general, and the private experience of the actor in particular. The personality of the actor is not instrumentally involved in the presentation of such personae; the actor's personality is irrelevant because his technique presents rather than represents the character. This non-personal involvement of the actor's selfhood is basic as a distinction between presentational and representational acting: the presentational actor presents the character while the representational actor represents or becomes an embodiment of his role. However, the orthodoxy which I have outlined in the foregoing is merely the theoretical position. The documentary evidence of theatre history offers us unique examples of presentational actors who have (apparently) become either personally involved in their enactments, or, have contributed something of themselves directly to their personations. These examples challenge the received opinion of the non-personally committed presentational actor. First, there is the well-known instance of Polus who carried on stage an urn which contained his dead son's ashes to help motivate the grief of Electra-a role which Polus was admittedly performing in mask, but still employed 11

private woe to motivate a public performance of fictive grief. 1 Plutarch tells of Aesopus laying dead a fellow actor with a sceptre because he was so carried away by his part.2 The Greek rhapsode was thought to have become possessed of his part and to have entered a state of ecstasy as a result; 3 indeed, Plato excluded the actor from his ideal society because the actor shared the rhapsode's ability to transcend his own identity and assume the soul and being of somebody else. The medieval church often worried that actors, some of whom of course were priests, lost themselves in their roles and became possessed by their parts. 4 Burbage's Hamlet cloak was reputedly a sweaty index of the great Elizabethan tragedian's identification with the Dane, a role he is said to have maintained off stage long after the performance had ended. 5 In the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson is said to have remarked that if Garrick really believed himself to be that "monster" Richard, then "he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it." 6 Johnson, of course, did not believe it was possible for actors to be transformed into the characters they represent. Athough these examples have probably been grossly over-mythologized, they are still evidence, albeit rare, among an otherwise dearth of material which demonstrates that it

1 Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, cited in Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy (eds.), Actors on Acting: the Theories, Techniques, and Practices of the Great Actors of All Times as Told in Their Own Words, New York: Crown, 1970, pp. 14-15. 2 "Life of Cicero," in Plutarch's Lives: the Translation Called Dryden's, Corrected from the Greek and revised by A.H. Clough, Vol. V, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1871, p. 40. 3 Plato, "Ion," cited in Actors on Acting, pp. 6-8. 4 Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages, 1300 to 1660, Vol. I, London, 1959, pp. 262 ff. 5 Richard Flecknoe, "The Acting of Richard Burbage," (1664), cited in Actors on Acting, p. 91. 6James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. by R.W. Chapman, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 1252. See also James Boswell, On the Profession of a Player, Now first reprinted from The London Magazine for August, September and October, 1770, Bungay, Suffolk: Elkin Mathews & Marrot, Ltd., 1929, pp. 14-15. 12 is hard to suppress all sense of the actor's individuality /personality-whether it is accidentally or deliberately involved in the creative process of acting. There is a further sense in which the actor's personality is involved in the craft of acting: this is the sense in which his basic personality is unavoidably evident in his presence and person-his very being. The basis of personality is determined by the actor's age, sex, shape, size, complexion, quality and timbre of voice, expressiveness and delineation of face, physical rhythm, and all those other intangible factors which determine the life of what without these attributes would be a mere body. These factors I refer to are in essence the donnes of the actor's personal makeup and will be more or less detectable undereath whatever characterization he assumes as an actor. To put it another way: when an actor calls on his technical resources to make a presentation of personaeity, his personality (even if only in its grosser aspects of shape, height and so on) can never be completely submerged. This problem of separating the actor's essential personality from the actor's art preoccupied Gordon Craig, who was concerned about the potential intrusive "character" of the all too mortal actor qua human being, who presented, for Craig, too many variables of personality to constitute a pure artistic medium. Accordingly, Craig advanced the notion of the Ueber-Marionette: an actor who was as neutral and non-specific as a puppet, and who could be made to express whatever was artistically required of him, without any obstruction from his own individuality)

1 Edward Gordon Craig, "The Actor and the Ueber-Marionette," in On the Art of the Theatre, Chicago: 1911, New York, Theatre Arts Books, 1966, pp. 54-94. 13

The issue of the actor's personality obtruding into his personation is less acute when the persona is suprahuman, and more acute when the persona presented is socially and ethically on a level with the actor's own background and status. In other words when an actor is called on to play characters like, or nearly like himself, then issues of personality-qualities of voice, physique and appearance; in short, attributes of human distinctiveness-are expected to cohere in close approximation: those of the actor's personality finding agreement with those of the dramatic persona. On the other hand, when the actor has to perform elevated characters who are beyond his world and experience, then he must necessarily have recourse to the techniques of personaeity. However, it would be incorrect to infer from this that there is no technique involved in the projection of a character which approximates the actor's own personality. Indeed when the personality of the actor and the personality of the dramatic character are in close coincidence, it is often difficult to detect the presence of art or technique. This is a problem of perception, which often leads to the assumption that personality acting is natural-in the sense of non-artificed-while rhetorical or formal (personaeity) acting is highly artificed and therefore unnatural. These are misconceptions but they raise a number of considerations which are centrally important to this dissertation. Chief among these misconceptions is the position which makes a separation between pre-modern and modern1 acting based

1 By modem, I do not intend contemporary to be understood. I use modem here to refer to the naturalistic acting begun by Stanislavski in the early twenieth century, and continued by the Actor's Studio into the post-war fifties. Modem then is used to refer to an aesthetic of acting which begun in the early part of the century; those other developments in acting which defined themselves against naturalism might 14 on a natural/non-natural polarity. This argument relegates all the historical acting styles from the Greeks through to the melodrama actors of the nineteenth century into the non-natural category, making those of the twentieth century, which, in this instance, largely refers to Stanislavski and his inheritors, automatically natural in style. While it is true that Stanislavski in the early part of the century gave the world a system of actor preparation which was designed to disguise the fact that the actor was acting, it is simply erroneous to deduce from this the Stanislavski actor did not have any artifice or technique-no matter how subtle or invisible-at his disposal. Admittedly, Stanislavski envisaged acting ideally as an art which disguises its artifice, but Stanislavski's later writings clearly confirm the importance he placed on the technical development of the body and voice for stage work. 1 The natural/unnatural polarity, which is often invoked to distinguish modern from pre-modern acting, I think, contentiously uses Stanislavski as its dividing line. This is at best a simplistic, and at worst, a false distinction which misrepresents the diversity of acting styles which are available in both the modern and the pre-modern periods alike. Although Stanislavski may be an important name by which twentieth century acting is identified and partly classified in popular thinking, other names like Brecht, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Barba, Brook and so on, represent but a few of the diverse non-naturalistic approaches to theatre available in the present century.

best be described as post-modern. But there is no scope to develop that discussion here. 1 Stanislavski's early works, An Actor Prepares and Building a Character, emphasize the actor's emotional history, but in his later work, Creating a Role, he underlines the importance of technique. See translations of these works by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood published by Eyre Methuen, London: An Actor Prepares, 1980; Building a Character, 1979; Creating a Role, 1981. 15

Nor, moreover, is naturalism the only acting style with a legitimate claim on the concept of the "natural." Most so-called pre­ modern epochs of theatre claim to have espoused "natural" acting even when the style referred to is patently formal or rhetorical; conversely, it should be noted by way of qualification, that any superseded acting style becomes ipso facto unnatural or artificial once it has been eclipsed. Clearly what is "natural" is determined by the prevailing aesthetic conventions, which themselves alter to suit public and dramatic tastes, theatre conditions, and the general temper of the age.The natural-equals-naturalism misequation, I suspect, arises out of the hegemonic status and ubiquitousness of naturalism in the twentieth century, which, because of its very strength and pervasiveness has exercised a strong influence on the way some scholars view historical acting styles. Certain researchers, notably those who are interested in speech and elocutionary theory, have searched for the chimera of "naturalness": W.M. Parrish went in quest of "The Concept of 'Naturalness'," and G.P. Mohrmann investigated ''The Language of Nature and Elocutionary Theory." 1 The pitfall to avoid is that the natural is singularly and unvaryingly synonymous with naturalistic. The concept of what is natural is, of course, apposite to this present study, which attempts to analyse three eighteenth century acting manuals, at a time when eighteenth century acting was said to have undergone a revolution in natural acting.

1 Parrish, W. M., "The Concept of 'Naturalness'," Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. XXXVII, No.4 (December, 1951), pp. 448-454; G. P. Mohrmann, "The Language and Nature of Elocutionary Theory," Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. LII, No. 2 (April, 1966), pp. 116-124. 16

I claimed above that the Tarentum vase fragment offers us a model by which the history of the actor may be constructed as a movement from masked to non-masked playing; from personaeity to personality. The word I wish to emphasize here is movement: I do not argue that theatre history may be comprehended in terms of a dichotomy of acting styles-the masked versus the unmasked; classical versus realistic; presentational versus representational; unnatural versus natural-but rather as a continuum, where the continuum can offer insights into the gradations within the extreme positions, as well as establishing and recognizing the extremities in their own right. Furthermore, although a continuum arguably incorporates the idea of an evolution, I do not necessarily mean to convey the sense of a utopian evolution (towards, that is, twentieth century naturalistic acting); in short, I do not hold that personaeity playing is inferior or superior to personality acting. Nonetheless, this continuum has two polar states, which are personaeity and personality. Broadly expressed, at one end of the continuum the actor as man is entirely hidden behind his mask; at the other end, no matter what overlays of technique are present, the actor as person/personality is, to a greater or lesser degree, evident to his audience. But in between these two polarities exist other conditions and circumstances relating to actor preparation which need examination. While I believe that the personaeity-personality continuum may be applied to a general reading of European acting history, I am also aware that this same continuum may be seen to operate within specific historical periods and not just across the broad spectrum of theatre history. Notable among these is the Restoration and early eighteenth century English theatre, which is in fact the focus of this 17 present dissertation. The Restoration and eighteenth century not only offers proof of the personaeity-personality continuum in the three acting manuals which are at the centre of this study-Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton, Aaron Hill's The Art of Acting and his other various writings on acting, and John Hill's The Actor (1750; 1755)-but also this period of English theatre presents a rich field in which to study the personaeity-personality continuum. The reasons for this are threefold. First, there are the already mentioned acting manuals and dissertations, the first substantial such works to appear in English theatre history, which provide evidence of the discourse on acting which was enthusiastically conducted throughout the eighteenth century. Secondly, there is tangible evidence of stylistic changes in eighteenth century acting styles, which may be read in the light of the discourse contained in the acting manuals. Thirdly, this discourse and these stylistic changes pertain to a theatre whose architecture and performance dynamic remained more or less the same throughout the period in question, thereby providing a constancy of theatre conditions against which the changes in acting style might be measured. I shall have more to say about the manuals and their writers subsequently, and, of course, in the body of the dissertation itself, here, however, I would like to offer some remarks about the so-called revolution in eighteenth century acting. During the late Restoration to mid-eighteenth century two instances of changes in acting style are recorded: one well known, and one not such common knowledge. First, there is the momentous change which is associated with the name of David Garrick, and immediately characterized in the irresistibly quotable account of Richard Cumberland, the author of The West Indian, 18 who was nine years old at the time of Garrick's debut and sixteen when in 1746 he first saw Garrick on the stage in Rowe's The Fair Penitent, and reflected some years afterwards on the importance of Garrick:

-Heavens what a transition!-it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away with, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarism and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to the prejudice of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. 1 David Garrick's London debut is generally agreed to have sparked a revolution in acting when, on the night of Monday the 19th October, 1741, David Garrick, then an unknown actor billed only as

"a GENTLEMAN, who never appeared on any stage," 2 bounded onto the stage at Goodman's Fields Theatre in the part of Richard III, effectively sweeping before him the old tradition of acting. In addition to the almost overnight reception of David Garrick as a revolutionary of natural acting in the mid-eighteenth century, there is also Colley Cibber's less well known suggestion of an identifiably new style of acting which he claimed originated in the mid-1690s. In his Apology (1740), written almost half a century after the event in question, Cibber cryptically observed that "several of our people [he spoke as one of the company of less experienced actors who were left behind at Drury Lane when Betterton seceded with the disgruntled, older hands to Lincoln's Inn Fields] shew'd themselves in a new style of Acting [my italics] in which Nature

1 Richard Cumberland, Memoirs, London, 1806, p. 60. 2 Garrick had already appeared under the assumed name of Lyddall in Ipswich, playing Aboan in Oroonoko. The Letters of David Garrick, edited by David M. Little and George M. Kahrl, London: Oxford University Press, 1963, Vol. I, p. 27, n.l. 19

had not as yet been seen." 1 Unfortunately, Cibber does not amplify what he meant by this "new style of Acting." However, he does associate the "new style" with three new plays, which allowed the young Drury Lane company, according to Cibber, to be shown to the

London theatre-going world "in a new light." 2 This allusion to the three plays, all of which fall almost within the same twelve-month span, not only enables a dating of the declared stylistic change, but also, because of their new thematic content, allows us to speculate about the affective nature of the "new style" of acting. The plays in question, Southerne's Oroonoko (1696), Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1697), and Cibber's own play, Love's Last Shift (1696), (two comedies and a tragedy with a comic sub-plot), represent new developments in Restoration playwrighting: the trend towards what Bernbaum originally identified as

sentimentalism in the drama. 3 But this literary concept has since been called into question, with more recent critics finding the term either unhelpful as a concept or difficult to pin down as to its origins. As far as their impact on acting style is concerned, we can say that these three plays provide opportunities for actors to exhibit affecting emotions on stage-to offer moments of empathetic identification to their audiences. While this is by no means a new trend, and indeed evidence of it may be found in plays earlier than

1 An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, London: Dent, 1976, p. 155. 2 An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibbe, p. 155. 3 E. Bembaum, The Drama of Sensibility, New York 1915, 1958. The ambiguity of "sentimentalism" as a term is highlighted by John Loftis, Vol. V, 1660-1750, London: Methuen, 1976, pp. 66-69: The Revels History of Drama in English, T.W. Craik and Clifford Leech, (General Editors), 8 Vols., London: Methuen, 1975-83. Loftis acknowledges that final agreement on the meaning of "sentimentalism" may not be necessary, thereby requiring the formulation of a new conceptual framework within which to understand sentimentalism. See also Laura Brown, English Dramatic Form, 1660-1760: An Essay in Generic History, New Haven: Yale U.P., 1981, esp. Part II pp. 102 et seq; pp. 225--6 n. 20

1696, the year of Oronooko and Love's Last Shift. In fact, Robert D.

Hume 1 argues for a contiuum in English drama of gradual change from non-sentimentalism to sentimentalism, beginning in 1660

an~ bridging almost a century of playwrighting development until the mid-eighteenth century. The point about Hume's argument is that he claims that most of the changes along his continuum were in place by 1710 (interestingly enough the year of publication of Gildon's The Life), so perhaps it can be said that the three plays Cibber cites, being plays of the mid-1690s, are highlights of this gradual process and as such offered in their dramaturgy increased pathos and emotionalism for actors to exploit with their audiences. Certainly, I think the Cibber allusion to a change in acting style is significant enough to be juxtaposed against Leigh Woods claim that, ''by 1741, the year of Garrick's debut, there us no evidence to suggest that a change in acting style has emerged comparable to those which Hume and others have demonstrated at work in the drama prior to

1710." 2 However, to pay Woods his due, that the Cibber stylistic change was ''comparable to those ... at work in the drama" is hard to establish unequivocally, and furthermore, it still remains impossible to discover definitively what Cibber meant by the phrase "new style" of acting. However impossible it is to ascertain what Cibber meant precisely by the phrase, the effect of hindsight on his recollections has to be taken into account: the event is recorded by Cibber in his Apology (1740), and like Cumberland's above account of Garrick's inaugural appearance, it too was written some years

1 Robert D. Hume, The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1976, pp. 5, 491-2. 2 Woods, Garrick Claims the Stage, p. 30. 21 after the event. However, whatever weight these two instances of acting revolution-the one in 1696, or thereabouts, and the other 1741-might separately and variously carry, does not alter the fact that both cases provide evidence that there were in effect two acting revolutions which occurred during the period of this study, one at the beginning and the other at the end. The "new style" of acting mentioned by Cibber might reflect a trend towards pathos in acting, but this should not be interpreted as meaning the dawning of feeling in late seventeenth century acting. I note this caution out of an awareness that certain scholars have misread rhetorical acting as being acting which is devoid of emotion. This bias against rhetoric-a bias which can take the form of a genuine belief that the rhetorical tradition offers no place for substance or truth in acting-can be seen, even if only implicitly, in research publications like Marvin Rosenberg's article on Elizabethan acting. Rosenberg posed the question "Elizabethan

Acting: Men or Marionettes?" 1 which betrays the bias, even in the hypothesis of the title, that the Elizabethan theatre would have tolerated bloodless puppets strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage. This line of thought, which is tantamount to claiming that what we today regard as bad acting could at some other time have been thought good, is to be found in papers published earlier than Rosenberg's, reflecting the long-standing debate in such questions as "Did Betterton Rant?" and "Did Betterton Chant?" 2 In other words did the most eminent actor of the Restoration win his

1 Marvin Rosenberg, "Elizabethan Actors: Men or Marionettes?" PMLA 69, (1954), pp. 915-27. 2 A.C. Sprague, "Did Betterton Chant?" Theatre Notebook , Vol. 1, No. 5 (October, 1946), pp. 54-55; and Mollie Sands, "Did Betterton (and his Successors) Chant?" Theatre Notebook, Vol 1, No. 7, (April, 1947), pp. 99-100. 22

reputation for greatness by verbally hectoring his audience, or delivering his lines to them in a meaningless sing-song? Other (and, in certain cases, more recent) scholarship has tried to explain the acting of the Elizabethan and the Restoration periods in its own terms-as a deliberately artificial form of acting.

Bertram L. Joseph 1 initially tried to offer some serious

understanding of rhetorical acting as did Lise-Lone Marker. 2

Joseph R. Roach 3 has finally and recently demonstrated that the rhetorical tradition of acting since its inception, certainly since Quintilian, had been addressed principally to conveying emotion in a determinedly convincing and affecting manner. Alan Hughes has shown that eighteenth century acting may be viewed profitably and informatively within the wider context of baroque and roccoco

sculptural eloquence. 4 More recently still Edward Burns has directed our attention to understanding pre-modern concepts of character in order justly to comprehend the rhetorical tradition of

acting within its own context. 5 Since Burns has reviewed the concept of character from the writer's point of view, it is opportune to review the concept of characterization, from the actor's point of

1 B.L. Joseph, "Acting and Rhetoric," Theatre Notebook, Vol. 1, No.4 (July, 1946), pp. 43-45. See also Joseph's Elizabethan Acting, Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1964, and L.­ L. Marker, ''Nature and Decorum in the Theory of Elizabethan Acting," in D. Galloway,The Elizabethan Theatre, Waterloo, Ontario:Archon Books, 1970, pp. 2, 87-107. The non-formalist case is represented by: J. F. Kermode, Research in English Studies, No. 4, (1953), pp. 70-3; S.L. Bethell, "Shakespeare's Actors," Research in English Studies, No. 1, (1950), pp. 193-205; R.A. Foakes, ''The Player's Passion: Elizabethan Psychology and Acting," Essays and Studies, No.7, (1954), pp. 62-77. 2Marker, L.-L. ''Nature and Decorum in the Theory of Elizabethan Acting," in D. Galloway, Elizabethan Theatre, 2. Waterloo, Ontario: Archon Books, 1970, pp. 87- 107. 3 Joseph R. Roach, The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting, Newark: University of Delaware press, 1985, Ch. 1 passim. 4 Alan Hughes, "Art and Eighteenth Century Acting Style," Theatre Notebook, XLI, I, II & III, 1987. 5 Edward Bums, Character: Acting and Being on the Pre-Modern Stage (London: Macmillan, 1989) Chs. 1, 2, 3 passim. 23

view. From the actor's point of view the emotional question is always in the forefront. In terms of traditional rhetoric-based acting forms the question of emotion must rightly be rephrased as a question of the passions.

The passions were the psychological foundations of the rhetorical tradition. Of keenest interest in the eighteenth century, the passions enjoyed a long history back to antiquity, which deserves some attention. Aristotle described the passions as forces which impell people towards rewards and make them shrink away from punishments. Before this concept reached the English enlightenment, the medieval moral philosophers had added overtones of Christian morality to the passions. Rather like the forces in a morality play, the passions became recognizable entities, like Love, Hate, Envy, Fear, Admiration, and so on. Each one had its peculiar look and sound; each one emanated from the soul and expressed itself outwardly, completely transforming the body and voice. Each passion had its peculiar qualities and features which distinguished it the one from the other. From this it may be seen how closely allied were the concepts of passion and characterization. The actor had to ensure that each passion was given its due in his stage representation. Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, the three theorists under consideration in these pages, all hold this belief in common, but they vary in their interpretation of it and in the emphases they place on the various elements of expression. In the eighteenth century, the age of reason, as indeed was the case in previous times, the passions were something to be feared, since they suggested either the absence of reason or its defeat-in earlier times, the presence, perhaps, of the devil or his agents. In the 24 extremity of their passions tragic heroes-and heroines-in Restoration plays are exhorted to invoke reason, to control their passions. In addition to the psychological, there is a moral dimension here too; for the tragic hero is able to meet the demands of reason over passion, rather more successfully it would seem, in most instances, than less worthy types, and even innocent victims, who run mad, slaves of their passion, lost to the redeeming powers of reason, when Reason is identified with God. As has already been mentioned, the passions are an attempt to account for human emotions which can be traced back to antiquity; in fact to Galen in the second century A.D. Even before Galen, Chrysippus and many other philosophers had taken up the question of the passions; as had Aristotle and his followers, and indeed, Plato before them. 1 Aristotle had rationalized the passions into two: pleasure and pain. However, the list of the passions was more or less the same in Gildon's time as it was in Galen's: "anger, wrath, fear, grief, envy, and violent lust." 2 It was as true of late seventeenth century enlightenment, as it was of the second century A.D., that the passions were something in need of correction: they were a natural (in the sense of untutored and undisciplined) state, and as such, a state which needed modification. "Diseases of the soul" is a phrase used by Galen, 3 while Thomas Wright, 4 reflecting a post medieval sensibility, calls them "perturbations of the soul"; and the best antidote to this diseased state is reason. The unlicensed

1 Galen on the Passions and Errors of the Soul, translated by Paul W. Harkins, with and Introduction and Interpretation by Walter Riese, Ohio State University press, 1963, p. 28. 2 Galen on the Passions, p. 32. 3 Galen on the Passions, p. 44. 4 Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General, edited by William Webster Newbold, New York: Garland, p. 17. 25 powers of the passions threatened irrationality, and that for the seventeenth century meant a bestial state, one of being less than human, not unlike the view of humankind often attributed to Hobbes. To be human is to follow the dictates of reason; follow your passions and you are a wild animal. Galen held, as did the moral philosophers of the Middle Ages after him, that moderation was the ideal, and that immoderate action was undesirable-the golden mean epitomized the sense of good both in terms of physical health and spirtual morality. There are two aspects to the irrational soul, as conceived by Galen:

We have in our souls two irrational powers. The one [the irascible,] has for its task to become angry and wrathful on the spot with those who seem to have treated us ill in some way. It is also a function of this same power to cherish its wrath for a longer period since the passion of anger is greater in proportion to the length of time it endures. The other irrational power in us [the concupiscible] is the one by which we are carried forward to what appears to be pleasant before we have considered whether it is helpful and good or harmful and bad. 1 The division into concupiscible and irascible soul was a division maintained by Thomas Wright in his The Passions of the Mind in General (1615). For Galen, self-control is not enough: he goes on to recommend the control of our passions externally-by others, perhaps by some government like that envisaged by Hobbes' Leviathan. Ultimately, this regulatory agent requires the subjugation of the passions. Just as Jonson's theory of the humours contends that the body is a container full of humours, Galen's theory of the passions

1 Galen on the Passions, pp. 47-8. 26

maintains that "the soul is already full of passions." 1 Like Jonson, who espoused the notion of four humours, Wright, who inherits Cicero's line on the passions from St. Augustine, declares that there are four primary passions, or "perturbations" of the soul: pleasure,

lust, fear and sorrow. 2 The list is basic and reducible to four categories of passion: pleasure or joy; desire or lust or love; dread or fear; grief or sadness. Like the humours, these passions too must be kept in balance, and reason for the seventeenth century philosophers was the fulcrum. A man of reason was indeed a man to reckon with and admire; someone who exercised reason in the face of passionate onslaughts provided a Herculean model, a

veritable heroic ideal. 3 The Restoration and eighteenth century stage held up such models to their audiences and denigrated those who offended against the pattern of dignified restraint and control. In this regard, the Restoration actor was a character in two senses: character both in terms of dramatis persona and in the sense of moral exemplum. So when we consider character in this context, we have to allow, as the treatises under consideration in these pages will attest, the homiletic as well as the human connotations of the word. While the passions were a constant tenet of eighteenth century theatre aesthetics, the emphases afforded them varied throughout the century. However, if we regard the period of theatre covered in this thesis as classical theatre in the age of reason, then the stylistic and aesthetic shifts which are reflected in the discourse

1 Galen on the Passions, p. 45. 2 Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General, p. 17. 3 For a comprehensive discussion of the Herculean theme, see E. Waith, The Herculean Hero, London: Chatto & Windus, 1962. 27

on acting throughout the period, in point of fact the shift from personaeity to personality, are the more illuminating since they occur within the one aesthetic framework-an aesthetic framework which was otherwise noted for its consistency and homogeneity. This was an aesthetic framework which espoused control in the passions, which are by definition, out of control states of being. If we regard the passions as a problem to be confronted within a stage philosophy which cautioned control, both in social behaviour and in stage performance, then it is informative to analyse how successive generations of actors coped within the classical ethos which sought to circumscribe the passions. Neo-classicism, or eighteenth century rationalist philosophy, assumes the existence of certainty and a logical order, which once arrived at, are unalterable and unassailable. The mathematical laws which govern all aspects of God's universe are unlocked for mankind by the exercise of his ennobling power of reason, and once these secret principles of the world's operations have been discovered then they remain known and unchanging thereafter. Ideally, the rhetorical theories of the ancients-especially the Romans, Cicero and Quintilian-are as· applicable, theoretically speaking, in the London theatre world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century as they were in the Roman theatre of their own time. Neo-classicism, by definition, viewed London as a new Rome or a New Athens. As an aesthetic it emphasized authority and order; and, at least in its theoretical sense, classicism demands constancy and invariability. And yet, the theatre world, as the theorists and theories under investigation in this thesis show, was not at the centre of the classical orthodoxy. 28

The theatre, unlike the literary salons, had more freedom, by dint of its peripheral status in intellectual society (certainly this was the truth of the situation well into the early Garrick years), to depart from the strict doctrine of neo-classicism, while still reflecting its basic and overriding influence. Because the theatre was not at the centre of eighteenth century intellectual life it was free to go its own way, while yet reflecting the prevailing aesthetic climate because the theatre, as a cultural expression of its society, could not help but reflect the prevailing spirit of the times. If we regard the three principal theorists in this study­ Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill-as writing within the ambit of neo-classicism, then their variations and different emphases as theorists are all the more revealing, as has been said, since they are all in principle trying to provide an aesthetic of acting from the point of view of the same informing artistic theory, while at the same time having to adjust this to the theatrical practice and audience demands of their time, as well as to their own individual proclivities. The popular concept of Restoration and eighteenth century theatre which survives today focuses on the comedy: the comedy and the comic acting style. 1 The reason for this is plain: the comedy has survived into the twentieth century repertoire better than the tragedy. Ironically, following the example of Aristotle's Poetics, and perhaps because of it, the art of comedic performance was scarcely theorized in its own time. By contrast, discussions of tragic acting

1cp. Lyn Oxenford, Playing Period Plays, London: J. Gamet Miller Ltd., 1974, Part III, passim. J.L. Styan's Restoration Comedy in Performance, Cambridge University Press, 1986, is a serious attempt to understand Restoration comedy in its time so as to inform modem reproductions in today's theatre. 29 and the passions were central to the theoretical writings and treatises on acting which grew in number during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. "Delineating the Passions" is a phrase which adequately sums up the theoretical writings on Restoration and eighteenth century acting. 1 The corpus of treatises which are at the centre of this dissertation, the writings of Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, all deal with the noble art-tragic acting. However, it must be confessed by way of qualification that John Hill, the mid-eighteenth century theorist, allows more room to comic acting than do either of his predecessors. This is probably due to the fact that by John Hill's time comedy was gaining ground over tragedy, and influencing the performance style of the serious drama as a consequence, which it continued to do as the eighteenth century wore on-both in England and France, the latter being where Hill's prototype for The Actor originated. Not only is the tragedy virtually unknown on the modern stage, the tragic acting, in terms of theatre history, is also relatively unknown, and, in absolute terms, largely unknowable due to the paucity of detailed and comprehensive information concerning the Restoration. The evidence improves in bulk and variety as the eighteenth century progresses. However, we know very little about the acting of Restoration actors like Mohun and Hart; and even though we know Thomas Betterton to have been the greatest actor of his time-the late Restoration to early eighteenth century-few accounts of his performances exist to allow us to gain a truly

1 George Taylor, "The Just Delineation of the Passions: Theories of Acting in the Age of Garrick," in The Eighteenth Century English Stage, Eds. Kenneth Richards and Peter Thomson, London: Methuen, 1972. 30 complete picture of the actor. Accordingly, his reputation for greatness is one that must for the most part be taken on trust. In making this assertion I do not underestimate the work by Judith Milhous and other scholars, who have brought light to hidden corners of Betterton's career, notably his practice as a theatre manager. 1 When educated guesses are made as to what it must have been like to have witnessed a Restoration tragic performance, the answer, more often than not, is melodrama. There is nothing wrong with this speculation provided it is qualified as Philip Parsons does in his article, "Restoration Melodrama and Its Actors,"2 but it is wrong to confuse Restoration melodrama with nineteenth century melodrama; to equate, in other words, Restoration serious acting with the extravagant and pictorialized nineteenth century variety which, in large measure, became encoded in the Delsarte methodology. The theatrical circumstances were very different in both cases. In the nineteenth century the actor became increasingly if gradually part of a total stage picture, so that his technique in voice and posture was adjusted accordingly. The Restoration actor was not exclusively assimilated within his stage picture, but could operate within it and outside it as circumstances required. When he acted outside of the scene on the forestage, or apron stage in front of the proscenium, this facilitated an intimate acting style suited to the smaller (compared to their nineteenth century counterparts) seating capacity found in the

1 Judith Milhous, "An Annotated Census of Thomas Betterton's Roles, 1659-1710," Part 1, Theatre Notebook, XXIX, No. 1, 1975, pp. 33-42; Part 2, Theatre Notebook, XXIX, No. 2, 1975, pp. 85-94. 2 Philip Parsons, "Restoration Melodrama and Its Actors," Komos, vol. II (May, 1969), pp. 81-88. 31

Restoration theatres. There are of course differences of kind and degree between nineteenth and eighteenth century acting. These differences, so far as the Restoration and eighteenth century are concerned, are revealed by a close analysis of the acting treatises of that period. Given that the task of the eighteenth century actor was to delineate the passions, did Garrick achieve this by different means to Quin, and did Quin, in his turn, employ different techniques to Betterton; or did each actor simply emphasize different elements in what was essentially a common Restoration and eighteenth century approach to the art of acting? To try to answer such questions as these, the acting treatises of Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, are each considered as representative of three significant periods. Charles Gildon's The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton (1710) occurs in the late Restoration period, but there is no reason to doubt its representativeness of the entire Restoration (1660-1710); covering the period thence up to and including the introduction of Garrick (1710-1741) are the theoretical writings, in verse, essay and journal form of Aaron Hill; lastly, John Hill's The Actor (1750, 1755) is used to account for the acting styles of the Garrick years. The three theorists studied in these pages are theatre commentators first (Gildon perhaps fits less easily into this category than the other two) and classical theorists second. That is to say, that Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, are not amongst the first rank of thinkers and arbiters of taste of their day. Indeed few of the first rate minds (Dryden is one exception) of the eighteenth century paid any attention to drama let alone the theatre and hardly at all to acting. The reason for studying these theorists is that they provide first hand evidence of acting theory during a time when the theatre was 32 undergoing stylistic changes, and in addition, because these three writers in their diversely different ways were intimately acquainted with the theatre of their time. To call the writings of Gildon and the two Hills theories is a misnomer, even though it is a misnomer often committed in these pages in the name of convenience. Their works are rather of the nature of practical advice to and for actors, but this practical advice is served up with lashings of ancient and contemporary acting theory, in addition to reflecting their several contexts of contemporary theatre practice. The three theorists are veritable sponges of ancient and modern thought. In the case of Gildon, his The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton incorporates the classical rhetorical theories of Quintilian and Cicero. In the case of Aaron Hill, his theories on acting in his journals, letters and essays on the subject reflect Cartesian philosophy, as well as his own unique theory of acting which in turn influenced Lessing's the "Laocoon," and anticipates modern theories like the James-Laing theory. Aaron Hill is probably the most original theorist of the three under study in the present work. John Hill's The Actor (1750, 1755) represents, at second hand, the thoughts on acting of the French theorist Remond de Sainte-Albine, while at the same time providing Hill's own observations and his own choice of illustrations of acting from the English stage. And, although John Hill may be viewed as a mere conduit of French thought, the anglicisation of his second edition in addition to his involvement in the English theatre with figures like Charles Macklin I think justify his inclusion in these pages. Moreover, the practical advice and observations on acting which are made by the three "theorists" reflects prevailing philosophical positions relevant to the theatrical world of their 33 time. The philosophical positions, such as they are, of the "theorists" who are included in this study are naturally interesting in their own right and because of the English theorists' association with more renowned theorists. Specifically, however, Gildon, Aaron and John Hill, are of particular interest to the present undertaking because of their intimate connection with the theatre and the theatre world of the Restoration and first half of the eighteenth century. Apart from their status as theorists, Gildon and the two Hills were variously: managers, playwrights, teachers of famous actors, pupils of famous actors, correspondents of famous actors, frequenters of the pit and friends of the influential in the social circles of their day. Their treatises, then, are of interest because they surely reflect and are influenced by the contingent world of the theatre. Charles Gildon was a minor literary figure, who lived by his pen after he had dissipated his family legacy; he moved in circles which included more esteemed figures like his friend, John Dennis the critic and playwright. In terms of critical theory Gildon reflected Dennis' neoclassical views and sided with him against Rymer, particularly in the matter of Shakespeare. 1 Gildon himself wrote four tragedies, The Roman Bride's Revenge (1697), Phaeton, or the Fatal Divorce (1698), Love's Victim, or the Queen of Wales (1701), and The Patriot, or the Italian Conspiracy (1703); and one comedy, Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate (1699). In addition to the foregoing, Gildon produced theoretical works, including Miscellaneous Letters and Essays (1694), and The

1 See Springarn, J.E. (Ed.), Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, London, Oxford University Press, 1957, Vol I, p. lxxviii. 34

Complete Art of Poetry (1718). To Gildon's credit must also be listed

The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets 1 (1699) [after Langbaine] and The Works of Shakespeare (1710). Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton is more an acting manual than it is a biography of the actor whose name it bears. Although it purports to be an autobiography, the work is certainly by Gildon not by Betterton. The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton appeared in two editions, one in 1710 the year of Betterton's death, and again in 1741 (Gildon died in 1724) in a pirated form ascribed to that ever resourceful publisher of the eighteenth century Edmund

Curll. 2 Indeed, this latter edition of The Life remained better known to scholars for the longest time; and some display an ignorance of its more legitimate predecessor, to which this thesis devotes its attention. The real authors of The Life are neither Gildon nor Betterton, but Cicero, Quintilian and a number of Renaissance sources, whose various pronouncement on acting are anthologized without acknowledgement in Gildon's treatise. They may indeed represent what Betterton stood for as an actor; they may even be the very authorities to whom Betterton turned for inspiration. What is significant, however, is that the work stands as a treatise of rhetorical delivery, as appropriate its lengthy title declares to the parliament and law court, as it is to the stage. In effect, however, the Life has, by example and emphasis, more to do with the stage than those other advertised forms of public address it refers to in its title.

1 Charles Gildon, The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets ... First begun by Mr. Langbaine, improv' d and continued down to this Time, by a Careful Hand. London, 1699. 2 Sometimes credit is given to William Oldys. 35

The theoretical works of Aaron Hill are entirely his own; they are based on a love for and an involvement in the theatre as a manager, playwright, critic, and promoter for over almost half a century. Hill's theories appear in essays, in verse both long and short, in journalistic tracts, in letters to actors; along with his plays and poems, his theories are collected in the posthumous publication of his Works in 1753, where they find their fullest expression in his "An Essay on the Art of Acting'' (1744). While Gildon had been a playwright and author he was basically a hack compared to Hill, who not only produced a body of plays and a substantial body of original theory, but also managed a theatre company, (and an opera company). Aaron Hill respected Gildon, dedicating his play The Fatal Curiosity to both Gildon and Dennis. Hill moreover made forward looking pronouncements about the need for historical detail in a period when the theatre paid no heed to comprehensive historical accuracy in costumes and scenery. In addition, Hill argued for an acting academy-indeed he tried to start one himself-and corresponded with famous actors like Garrick on the subject of his acting. Hill coached Mrs Cibber, before her fame, in the leading role in his own play Zara, an adaptation of Zaire by Voltaire, who was a friend of his. It was through Hill in fact that Voltaire's influence on the English theatre was channelled. The theoretical works of John Hill take the form of two editions of The Actor: one edition in 1750, and another in 1755. The first version of The Actor is a translation/ adaptation of Pierre Remond de Sainte-Albine's Le Comedien (1747); the second version expanded the original text, adding more examples of performances from the contemporary English stage. John Hill reflects probably the least varied theatrical experience of all our theorists, except perhaps 36 that he went to the theatre at the most interesting time of any of the periods under review-during the age of Garrick. Unlike our other theorists, John Hill spent most of his varied career, in activities outside the theatre. However, it was not unusual in the eighteenth century for a gentleman and man of letters to enjoy a wide variety of professional activities; the eighteenth century word for such a person was a "projector." Even Aaron Hill devoted himself to forest projects in Russia and wine ventures in Bermuda; but John Hill ranged very widely from botanist to naval historian. Having said this, however, it must be observed that John Hill studied acting with Charles Macklin, and thereby presumably reflects in his own writings something of the principles he may have learned at Macklin's hands. And there are some who would argue that Macklin's acting was even more "natural" than Garrick's.

Before venturing into the thesis proper, I want here to provide an overview of the coverage given the works of Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill in the existing literature. I shall start with the documentary histories and work progressively through to the most analytical works on the subject of the three theorists. In Nagler's A

Sourcebook in Theatrical History 1 extracts from Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton are included, but these are ascribed to Edmund Curll, who, in 1741, as I have already observed, republished Gildon's work of 1710 under the title The History of the English Stage. Aaron Hill and John Hill are both represented in Nagler's sourcebook but not as theorists: John Hill is there as a

1 A.M. Nagler, A Sourcebook in Theatrical History, New York: Dover, 1952, pp. 219-226. 37 source on Macklin as an acting teacher; Aaron Hill is there in the name of his theatre costume innovations. 1 In John I. McCollum's collection of historical documents, The Restoration Stage, 2 the editor finds Gildon of interest only as an historian, and, ironically, a biographer of Betterton. A more recent collection of exerpted materials, the first volume in the Theatre in Europe: a documentary history series compiled and introduced by David Thomas and Arnold Hare, acknowledges the contributions made by Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill to eighteenth century and later acting, although it is only John Hill's The Actor which earns the distinction of being included amongst the collection of sources. However, the editors, Hare and Thomas, do acknowledge that all three theorists, among others they cite, share the same preoccupations concerning acting, while, at the same time, mounting their own hobby horses in pursuing those common concerns. 3 Among the anthologists, Dene Barnett's 4 work stands out uniquely: not only for its recognition of Gildon and the two Hills as theorists of and commentators on acting, but also for the wide, European context in which Barnett places theirs and many other writers' works, bringing French, Italian, German and English sources together in a context of European commentators on the use of hands, eyes, gesture and so on-all of which suggests an almost

1 Nagler, A Sourcebook in Theatrical History, pp. 360, 391. 2 John I. McCollum (ed.) The Restoration Stage, Houghton Mifflin Research Series No.8, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood press, 1973, pp. 104-111. 3 David Thomas (ed.), Restoration and Georgian England, 1660-1788, Cambridge, Cambridge University press, 1989, p. 342. In addition, this volume also quotes Curll's account, in his The History of the English Stage, of Rochester's training of ElizabethBarry. The Barry material is the only thing, apart from minor omissions of text, which stops Curll's history being an exact duplicate of Gildon's the Life of Mr Thomas Betterton. 4 Dene Barnett, "The Performance Practice of Acting: the Eighteenth Century," Parts I, II, & III, Theatre Research International, 1978. 38

commonly agreed European wide grammar of acting performance. When it comes to general histories of acting, there is none more comprehensive nor more universal than The Length and

Depth of Acting by Edwin Duerr; 1 he covers both the occidental and oriental traditions of acting, from the earliest times to the present century. Duerr deals with Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, affording each an individual, and surprisingly complete (given the broad historical scope of his coverage) assessment within a chapter entitled "The Successful Eighteenth Century," which also deals with comparable European theorists, especially the French sources to

which Gildon own work owes so much. 2 The Revels History of

Drama in English 3 series devotes little attention to the three writers as theorists: Volume VI (1750-1880) makes historical mention of Aaron Hill and John Hill; Volume V (1660-1750) has passing references to Gildon and Aaron Hill. In more specific historical accounts, like David Garrick: A

Critical Biography, authors Stone and Kahrl, 4 in a chapter entitled, "Garrick and the Acting Tradition," discuss the contributions of Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill to the pre-Garrick acting tradition, as a means of painting the context into which Garrick marched in 1741. Furthermore, in a chapter headed,"Building a

Character," in his Restoration Theatre Production, 5 Jocelyn Powell

1 Edwin Duerr, The Length and Depth of Acting, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1962. 2 Duerr, The Length and Depth of Acting, see Chapter 7. 3 John Loftis, Richard Southern, Marion Jones & A.H. Scouten, Volume V 1660-1750, London: Methuen, 1976; Michael R. Booth, Richard Southern, F. & L.-L. Marker, Robertson Davies, Volume VI 1750-1880, 1975. 4 George Winchester Stone, Jr. and George M. Kahrl, David Garrick: A Critical Biography, Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1979, p. 33 et seq. 5 Jocelyn Powell, Restoration Theatre Production, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, Chapter 6. 39

affords Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton a place as an acting manual on the subject of Restoration heroic acting. Another stimulating writer in the field, Joseph Roach, in his The Player's

Passion, 1 has truly and fully represented the contribution of Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill to the discussion of the history of ideas relative to the development of acting theory from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. William Worthen, a writer as stimulating and as provocative as Roach, draws on Aaron

Hill's and John Hill's works in The Idea of the Actor, 2 but not Gildon, which is understandable since Worthen does not cover the Restoration period, choosing instead to deal with the subject of ethical constructs of the actor on the Elizabethan public stage, the theatre of Garrick, and, in the modern theatre. Worthen identifies approved acting codes with the acceptable codes of social behaviour which are contemporaneous with them, and which, he argues, they reflect: in other words, the concept of the actor is a metaphor of social behaviour and conduct. In support of my own endeavours, I take encouragement from Worthen's argument that scholarship has neglected and thereby should pursue "the theoretical investigation of the stage by its practitioners as a serious contribution to our understanding of acting and drama .... [T] here's often a dismaying lack of rigour in the writing of a John Heywood, or a John Hill, or even a Jerzy Grotowski. Nonetheless, we should not slight their informed efforts

1 Roach, The Player's Passion, 1985. 2 William B. Worthen, The Idea of the Actor: Drama and the Ethics of Performance, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. 40 in what is clearly a complicated and obscure endeavour." 1 These are in fact my sentiments exactly. Among works which make specific contributions to the scholarship on Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, are several articles and one monograph. This last is Dorothy Brewster's critical biography of Aaron Hill, and although she makes mention of his critical works, her interest in them is as a literary biographer not as a theatre historian. Chief among the articles are those by George Taylor, F.J. and L.-L. Marker, Earl Wasserman, and Wilbur S. Howell. In his "Sources of the Elocutionary Movement in

England: 1700-1748," 2 Howell ascribes considerable importance to Gildon as regards the regeneration of the elocutionary movement in eighteenth century England, and argues furthermore that Gildon should cease to suffer the neglect which history has traditionally afforded him. F.J. and L.-L. Marker's article, "Aaron Hill and

Eighteenth Century Acting Theories," 3 is the most complete and analytical, single treatment of Hill as a theorist, which debunks the tendency to interpret him as a advocate of "naturalistic" acting. Finally, Earl Wasserman, in his article on the workings of the sympathetic imagination, rightly places Aaron Hill and John Hill centrally in the discussion of mid eighteenth century sensibility and the concomitant aesthetic notion of sympathetic identification: of projecting the personality of the preceiver into the artisitc object in order to identify with and understand the object. 4

1 Worthen, The Idea of the Actor, p. 7 2 In The Quarterly Journal of Speech, XLV, No. 1, 1959, pp. 1-18. 3 In The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol61, No.4, 1975, pp. 416-427 4 Earl R. Wasserman,"The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century Theories of Acting," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XLVI (1947), pp. 264-272. 41

The present undertaking is not the first to deal with the writings of Gildon and the two Hills, but it is so far as I am aware the first to interpret the evidence on the personaeity-personality continuum. This continuum analysis first and chronologically directs its attention to Gildon's The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton in order to establish what were the principles of Restoration acting as practised by Betterton and prescribed by Gildon. The second chapter deals with Aaron Hill, whose major writings were an attack on the acting of the 1730s, which help our understanding of the theatre context in which Garrick's debut was so remarkable, as well as providing insights into the growing importance of emotionality in acting. John Hill's The Actor reveals the changes in emphasis that neoclassical acting had finally undergone by the middle of the century, as the 1755 edition of The Actor is optimally placed to bear witness to, appearing as it does after some fourteen years of Garrick's theatrical hegemony. Chapter One Charles Gildon's Theory of Acting: The Personaeity Manifesto

In terms of the personaeity-personality continuum, Charles Gildon may be placed almost exclusively at the personaeity end. Gildon's

The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton 1 is in fact a manifesto of personaeity acting; that is to say, Gildon's treatise is concerned with the creation of a character's persona rather than the presentation of personality on stage. The actor is not expected to bring his own personality to his characterization, expressing the one through the other, but rather, to use his physical apparatus as an instrument to delineate character according to a recognized theatrical code. In this regard, The Life is a quintessentially rhetorical acting manual, emphasizing the eloquent expressiveness of the actor's voice and figure, which Gildon treats in almost equal part, while yet prioritising action over utterance. Personaeity embraces three levels of personae through which Gildon requires the actor to address his art to its audience. I shall deal with each of these in tum; first, there is the moral persona of the actor's public reputation, which is extraneous to his work in the theatre but still provides an ethical frame of reference by which its theatrical effectiveness is measured; secondly, there is the fictional persona, the conventional notion of dramatis personae, which describes the actor's relationship to the dramatic character provided

1 Running references are to the edition cited, see above p. 5, n 1. 43 by the playwright; and thirdly, there are the technical aspects of the various performance personae, which refer to the actors body and voice, both in passion and out of passion-central in this last category is the face as persona. Before I commence the discussion of these different levels of personae, I want to remark on the manner in which Gildon has placed the concept of persona at the centre of his treatise. Although he would have his reader believe that the Life is actually the work of Betterton, Gildon makes use of the thinly disguised ruse to speak his own thoughts through the persona of the great Restoration tragedian who died in 1710, the year of the publication of Gildon's treatise. Although it lays claim to being a biography of Betterton (?1635-1710), the Life chronicles Betterton's life and career in a scant four pages (pp. 5-8); in the bulk of its pages, it is really an acting treatise which purports to pass on the secrets of Betterton's art to the next generation of actors. However even there, in the otherwise non-biographical section of his treatise, Gildon still indulges in the fiction that the substance of his work was literally handed to him as a manuscript by Betterton himself. Gildon does this, of course, in order to demonstrate the credibility of Betterton's hand in his treatise. A fiction it may be, but it is an elaborately concocted one, as may be seen in the amount of supportive narrative detail supplied by the author. For example, after a congenial lunch with Betterton in the garden of his house in Reading, the reader is asked to believe, Gildon and an unnamed acquaintance prevail on the retired actor to reveal to them his "System of Acting." Betterton responds, saying:

Were I, Sir, (reply'd he with a graceful Modesty) as capable as you would persuade me that you 44

think me, I should easily be prevail'd with to communicate my Notions on this head; but being sensible of my Incapacity, for the very reasons you have mention'd, of my Ignorance of the learned Tongues, I must be excus' d; yet not to disappoint you entirely, I shall fetch you a Manuscript on this Head,written by a Friend of mine, to which I confess I contributed all, that I was able; which well perus' d, and throughly [sic] weigh' d, I persuade myself our Stage would rise not fall in Reputation. (pp. 17-18) Betterton then went into the house, Gildon recounts, and returned with "some loose Papers, which I knew to be his own Hand" (p.18). This is probably an apocryphal tale. Gildon is not only trying toes­ tablish the credentials and credibility of Thomas Betterton as his putative source on the art of acting-just as Plato had used Socrates, Gildon quickly reminds us, to establish authority for his philosophical dialogues (p. 3)-but Gildon is also hoping to associate the moral stature of the great actor with a work in which the moral and the aesthetic aspects of acting are inextricably interwoven. The parallel of the actor's moral probity and his artistic achievements is an important one for Charles Gildon. What in fact the Life comprises is a collection of sources, acknowledged and unacknowledged, ancient and modern, Greek and Roman, French and English, reliable and unreliable, on the art of acting. The nature and derivation of these sources have been extensively discussed elsewhere.1 The Life is of present interest be-

1 Gildon acknowledges his classical debts, lest he be thought a "Plagiary," saying "I have borrowed many of them from Quintilian and other Authors" (ix); however, W.S. Howell, "Sources of the Elocutionary Movement in England: 1700-1748," QJS, Vol. XLV. No.1, Feb. 1959, pp. 3, 10-12, & 10 n. 53, shows that many of Gildon's sources are in fact unacknowledged. Howell observes that Gildon relies heavily on the English translation of a French source: MichelLe Faucheur's Traitte de l'action de l'orateur, ou de Ia Prononciation et du geste, pp. 10 ff. Gildon in his Preface admits that he has ''borrow'd many of [his sources] from the French, but then the French drew most of them from Quintilian and other Authors" (p. ix). 45 cause it is in fact the (self-styled) first English acting manual.l Furthermore, in addition to being the first substantial enquiry into acting, it is also very much a publication of its time; and, there are two reasons for saying this. First, Gildon's Life may be viewed as belonging to the theatre literature that, in the final decade of the seventeenth century, was flushed out of the bushes by Jeremy Collier's charges of lewdness and profanity against the stage. Other works in this category, which, like Gildon's, were defensive of the theatre, are James Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699), the anonymously authored A Comparison Between the Two Stages (1702), and John Downes' Roscius Anglicanus (1708). While none of these works takes sides in the profanity debate, they are all acutely conscious of Collier's fulminations against the theatre, and, in addition, of the threat to legitimate drama represented by the importation of dancing and opera in order to attract diminishing early eighteenth century audiences back to the theatre. Secondly, the Life is an expression of its time in the broader sense: the age of reason, which felt it had a mandate to place life (and art) under rational scrutiny. Insofar as it lives up to its self-declared empirical investigation of the actor's art, which Gildon accordingly calls "that noble Science" (p. 4), the Life is reflective of the general spirit of scientific enquiry which characterized the eighteenth century and which had been instigated by the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, when it was chartered in 1669. Before he deals with the art of acting, Gildon deliberates on the (to him) all important aspects of the actor's ethical reputation as

1 "I flatter my self," says Gildon in his Epistle Dedicatory,"that, ... I am (as far as I know) the first, who in English has attempted this Subject." p. vi. 46 a personality, which, conveniently for Gildon, Betterton also epitomized. In order to be a worthy representative of virtue in the theatre, and to exemplify the various heroic roles successfully, the actor, argues Gildon's thesis, must be of exemplary moral character in real life. Ironically, then, while the actor's personality is submerged in the service of personaeity in his acting, his good name as a known personality outside of the theatre becomes a direct index of his moral rectitude. The actor-as-person is held in view, as it were, behind the actor-as-performer, providing the audience, as Gildon would have it, with a bi-focal vision, which is at once aesthetic and ethical. Gildon fervently believed in the ability of high order tragic drama and high order tragic acting, (the one was attendant upon the other in Gildon's view), to serve a morally uplifting and improving function for humanity. Gildon concluded that tragedy and tragic acting were waning in the first decade of the eighteenth century; and he felt that by advising on the improvement of one, the betterment of the other would logically follow. Tragedy and tragic acting share a common high moral purpose; Gildon wanted a world of "GOOD ACTORS and GOOD PLAYS" (p. vii), where good was presumably intended not only in its aesthetic but also in its ethical connotation. By "purifying our Passions, and the Conveyance of delight, the Stage may properly be esteem' d the Handmaid of the Pulpit'' (p. 19). It was no accident that Gildon chose to dedicate the Life to Richard Steele, who was a theatrical reformer both in his dramas and in his contributions to journals like the Spectator and the Tatler. In 1701, Steele's tract The Christian Hero appeared, 47 establishing his reputation, after a morally freebooting soldier's life in the Coldstream Guards,l as a moralist and Christian reformer. The moral purpose of the tragic actor was correlative with the moralistic intentions of tragedy itself. Like the Heroic Poem of which it was the theatrical counterpart, tragedy was an ennobling art form-the highest attainment of dramatic literary endeavour. And it held this elevated position because of its ability to instruct and delight. ''Philosophy instructs," says Dryden in his Preface to Troilus and Cressida (1679), but "precept ... is not so delightful as example."2 Tragedy, in the light of this then, is dramatized (moral) philosophy. Like Dryden's, Gildon's was another of the voices which were raised in the early eighteenth century on behalf of tragedy as a dramatic form, which, as has already been said, was seen to be in decline both artistically and didactically. In the Spectator of April 14, 1711, Addison cautioned that "modern tragedy ... falls infinitely short of ... the moral part of the performance."3 And the Preface to A Comparison Between the Two Stages referred in 1702 to declining standards in tragedy, announcing: "our present Poetry... never was at so low an Ebb."4 Gildon had echoed the early eighteenth century verdict when he said of tragedy, "this excellent Poem loses Ground every Day in the Esteem of the Town" (p. 12). The taste for tragedy had waned, Gildon opined, in an age of moral degeneracy such as he judged the first decade of the eighteenth century to be. The parallel between

1 Theophilus Cibber, The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, 1753; Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung Hildesheim, 1968, Vol. IV, p. 112. 2 Essays of John Dryden, edited by W.P. Ker, New York: Russell & Russell, 1961, Vol. I, p. 209. 3 The Spectator, No. 39, Saturday, April 14. 4 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, London: 1702; Garland, New York, 1973, n.p. 48 imperial Rome's declining years and the Augustan age in Queen Anne's England is implied by Gildon's statement that "when the Roman Virtue decay'd," the decline expressed itself in the Roman's debased taste in "Sports and Spectacles." Tragedy "was slighted"; "Farce on the one hand, with its Mimes and Pantomimes; and Opera on the other, with its emasculating Sounds, invade and vanquish the Stage"(p. 14). Gildon clearly saw that the way to re-elevate tragedy to its rightful and dignified position was to elevate the status of the tragic actor, who was no less than the high priest, worshipping at tragedy's altar. From the outset Gildon makes it clear that his philosophy embraces both the moral and aesthetic aspects of acting at the same time. If tragedy is to have the full impact of its moral purposes, then the actor must be a morally fit person to speak on its behalf. Therefore, the morality of the actor and the overall moral intentions of tragic drama are interdependent. Gildon speaks of "the Art of Playing" in the same breath as that other equally important consideration, "the Duty and Qualifications of Actors" (p. 18). Before he even attempts to tackle the rules of acting, moreover, Gildon makes a number of categorical pronouncements on the morality of actors. Using the persona "Betterton," he laments the present ill­ preparedness of actors in the first decade of the eighteenth century, recalling nostalgically that when he

was a young Player under Sir William Davenant, we were under a much better Discipline, we were obliged to make our Study our Business, which our young Men do not think it their duty now to do; for they scarce ever mind a Word of their Parts but only at Rehearsals, and come thither too often scarce recovered from their last Night's Debauch[ ... ] They think it a superfluous Trouble to study real Excellence, which might rob them of what 49

they fancy more, Midnight, or indeed whole Nights Debauches, and a lazy Remisness in their Business. (p. 15) Betterton further asserts that "it will be no improper Method first to consider, What Regard an Actor ought to have to his Conduct off the Stage, before we treat of what he is to do upon it'' (p. 18). This is perhaps a not unusual requirement of an actor in a theatre tradition where the acting style is presentational rather than representational. Since, in that former tradition, the actor presents rather than becomes the character, theoretically his own identity should be always visible behind the characterization.1 Betterton explains why the contemporary audience should expect the performer's offstage demeanour to be commensurate with his roles:

For to hear Virtue, religion, Honour recommended by a Prostitute, an Atheist, or a Rake, makes them a Jest to many People, who would hear the same done with Awe by Persons of known Reputation in those Particulars. (p. 19) Even "Mr. Collier," the stage's "most formidable Enemy," Gildon is quick to point out, recognized that the theatre, despite its shortcomings, was "the most efficacious means of encouraging Virtue, and depressing Vice" (p. 18). The stage was capable of these "Moral Lessons" because of its capacity for making "Impressions on the Minds of the Audience" (p. 18). And "because the Instruction is convey'd with Pleasure, and by the Ministration of the Passions, which always have a stronger Remembrance, than the calmer

Precepts of Reason" (pp. 18-19).

1 Although the concept of acting a fully rounded character is usually dated from Stanislavski, earlier evidence suggests that this kind of acting was not unknown. Richard Flecknoe speaks of Burbage being a "Proteus," who "so wholly transforming himself into his Part, and putting off himself with his Ooathes, as he never (not so much as in the Tyring-house) assum' d himself again until the Play was done." (Richard Flecknoe, A Short Discourse of the English Stage, 1664; New York/London, Johnson Reprint Corp., n.p. 50

The "Lives and Characters of those Persons, who are the Vehicles," as Gildon calls the actors, "of these Instructions, must contribute very much to the Impression the Fable and Moral will make" (p. 19). Actors must therefore have the "greatest and most nice Care of their Reputation ... for on that their Authority with the People depends" (pp. 19-20). Males and females should ''be really virtuous if they can, if not, at least, not to be publickly abandon' d to Follies and Vices, which render them contemptible to all" (p. 22). Male actors should avoid drunkenness and debauchery; females, who are especially vulnerable now that they are on the stage as actors, should guard their honour and avoid becoming kept women for financial advantage (pp. 22-23). "And when they gave us the most noble Examples of Virtue in their real Life," asserts Gildon, "they were most pleas' d with the Representation of noble Examples on the Stage" (p. 14). That the private lives of actors were well known to theatregoers in the period under consideration is corroborated by sources like Pepys' diaries and other contemporary sources like A Comparison Between the Two Stages. Pepys pursued backstage talks with his particular favourite, Mrs. Knepp, enquiring about her art and learning about the backstage world.l This interest in the actors lives and reputations is further illustrated by Critick and Sullen, who talk obliquely and daringly of the actresses at Betterton's Lincoln's Inn Fields:

Sull. But does that Romantick Virgin still keep up her great Reputation? Crit. D'ye mean her Reputation for acting; you understand me---

1 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, edited by R.C. Latham & W. Matthews, London: Bell & Sons, 1970-83. 51

Crit. I do; but if I were to be sav' d for believing that single Article, I cou'd not do't: 'Tis all, all a Juggle, 'tis Legerdemain; the best on't is, she falls into good Hands, and the secrecy of the Intrigue secures her; but as to her Inno­ cence, I believe no more on't than I be­ lieve of John Mandevil. 1 In fact Mrs. Bracegirdle (1671-1748), the "romantick virgin" referred to above, generally enjoyed a virtuous reputation, as was reflected in the virtuous roles she played on stage. ("[A] haughty conceited Woman," Critick complains of Mrs. Bracegirdle, "that has got more Money by dissembling her Lewdness, than others by professing it.")2 Mrs Barry (c.1658-1713), on the other hand, well deserved what Sullen and Critick have to say about the unidentified actress they nickname "Cleopatra": "In her time she has been the very Spirit of Action every way; Nature made her the delight of Mankind; and till

Nature began to decay in her, all the Town shar'd her Bounty." 3 Chetwood reports that in Tate's Lear, Mrs. Barry as Cordelia protesting her "virgin innocence" was howled down with laughter by the audience. 4 She was better known for her strong manipulative women than she was for her stage virgins. It was after all, that epitome of rakes, Lord Rochester, who is said to have taken a special interest in Mrs. Barry and to have taught her how to act, in addition to making her his mistress. 5

1 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, pp. 17-18. 2 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 199. 3 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 18. When they turn to the question of the young actresses at Drury Lane, Critick and Sullen are even more scurrilous than they were of those who followed Betterton to Lincolns-lnn-Fields, see pp. 19 ff. 4 William Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, London: W. Owen, 1749, p. 28. 5 "Memoirs of Mrs. Barry," in Edmund Curll, The History pf the English Stage from the Restauration [sic] to the Present Time, Including the Lives, Characters & Amours of the most eminent Actors & Actresses, with instructions for Public 52

Betterton himself, as man and as actor, was well qualified to speak on both the artistic and the moral aspects of the theatre, since his professional and private lives were generally thought to be correspondingly exemplary. Even the scurrilous Critick in A Comparison Between the Two Stages maintains that "Batterton [sic] is a very honest Fellow."l Indeed, Betterton seems to have enjoyed throughout his career a consistently laudable public character; as early as 1662 Pepys recorded that his barber spoke of Betterton being a "very sober, serious man, and studious and humble." 2 Gildon is aware of Betterton's generally well known virtues and he makes use of them in establishing the verisimilitude of the persona Betterton in the pages of his treatise. Gildon endows his ''Betterton" in the Life with the personal traits his readers knew belonged, or would accept as belonging, to the respected tragedian. For example, the fact that Betterton was widely reputed for his humility is exploited by Gildon when he refers to Betterton's declining, "with graceful modesty," to offer his own thoughts on acting, choosing instead to provide his host with the writings of a learned friend (p. 17). In addition, a further example is when Gildon passes on his "friend's" opinion of Betterton's excellence to him: Gildon emphasizes, such was the actor's modesty, that Betterton was "a little uneasy with my Complement [sic] " (p. 12). Just as in recommending his system of acting, "Betterton" humbly [my italics]

Speaking wherein the Action & Utterance of the Bar, Stage & Pulpit are Distinctly Considered, by Thomas Betterton, London, 1741, pp. 15-16. 1 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, London: 1702; Garland, New York, 1973, p. 14. 2 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, edited by Robert Latham & William Matthews, Vol. III, p. 233. 53 admits that he has not been able in his own performances to live up to all the nostrums he offers Gildon's readers. Gildon even alludes to Betterton's wife's off-stage reputation, which shone with a lustre to match her husband's. Early in Charles II's reign, Betterton had married Mary Saunderson, who in addition to possessing ''by Nature those Gifts which were requir'd to make a perfect Actress, added to them the Beauty of a virtuous Life, maintaining the character of a good Woman to her old Age" (p. 7). Their marriage survived as long as Betterton's acting career: Mary who had been not only a wife but a fellow performer, died in 1711, one year after her husband. Betterton was loyal and faithful to his wife, apparently eschewing the rakish and libertine behaviour of the Caroline court. Mary, as his wife, was protected from the fate of many of her fellow actresses who became kept women, or who remained as actresses whose reputations were always open to speculation. Mary Betterton was at one end of the spectrum of Restoration actresses; Nell Gwynn was at the other. Like his wife's, Betterton's reputation was generally irreproachable. It is hard to find evidence of any fault in Betterton. However, Robert Gould's satirist's eye saw beneath Betterton's respectable veneer to the "Lucre, Lust/ and Pride,/ And Knav'ry, which in vain He Strives to hide."l Less harshly, Sullen in A Comparison Between the Two Stages, describes Betterton as "being a cunning old Fox." 2 John Verbruggen, an actor who in 1696 joined Betterton's Lincoln's Inn Fields company to replace William Smith, in a petition to the Lord Chamberlain in 1698, accused Betterton of

1 "The Play-house, A Satyr," reproduced in Montague Summers, The Restoration Theatre, New York: Humanities Press, 1964, p. 313. 2 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 41. 54 paying him less than his promised 20 s. a week. In fact Betterton had quite generously given up a quarter of his one and a half shares to Verbruggen. It looked bad for Betterton when his fellow sharers accused him (along with Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle) of not letting the books be seen and of keeping profits to themselves. 1 In 1703, three separate complaints were made against Betterton's management, a role which at the turn of the century the Lord Chamberlain, because of the financial and other problems of the company, had forced Betterton to assume on his own shoulders. 2 Mary Baldwin protested against the manager's handling of actor's benefit payments; Thomas Doggett against Betterton's unfairness and broken promises; and the French dancer L' Abbe asserted that she left Mr. Betterton "uniquement par un motif d'honneur tout par, le dit Sieur Batardon m'ayant toujours [sic] manque de parole."3 Betterton certainly was not known for his financial abilities in later life; by contrast, in 1662 Pepys declared that Betterton was rich already "with what he gets and saves." 4 In the 1690s, however, Betterton suffered several personal financial setbacks which contributed to keeping him on the stage long beyond his due retirement and bringing his wife out of hers. As to what L' Abbe means by "un motif d'honneur" one can only guess. Gildon claims that Betterton was against the contemporary trend of importing French dancers; and he further complains that undue "Deference has been paid to L' Abbe, Balian, Subligniy, and the rest, than to Otway, Shakespear, or Johnson "(p. 155). Downes claims that

1 Allardyce Nicoll, A History of the English Drama, 1660-1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, I, pp. 384-5. 2 R. Lowe, Thomas Betterton, London, 1891, p. 157. 3 Nicoll, A History of English Drama 1660-1900, II, pp. 288, 291-92. 4 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol III, p. 233. 55

Betterton "to gratify the desires and Fancies of the Nobility and Gentry; procur' d from Abroad the best Dancers and Singers ... who being Exorbitantly Expensive, produc'd small Profit to him and his

Company, but vast Gain to themselves." 1 So perhaps there was animosity between Betterton, the champion of serious drama, and the dancers he was forced to hire as a result of public demand.2 Indeed the charges were laid against Betterton in the early eighteenth century, during particularly financially disastrous times for the theatre. But all the foregoing instances reflect pragmatic business practice rather than suspect personal ethics on Betterton's part. The only morally substantial charge against Betterton was his being fined along with Mrs Bracegirdle and Ben Johnson in 1704 for the use of unseemly language on stage. Having already revealed this much information in A Comparison Between the Two Stages, Sullen refuses to pronounce the words they uttered-(in fact it was the name of God)-but he does tell us that Johnson was let off, while Betterton and Bracegirdle were fined.3 Betterton and his fellow actors were reported for their transgression, which did not go unpunished, not surprisingly, in the morally censorious aftermath that followed Collier's "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage," which appeared in 1698. Gildon perhaps makes an indirect reference to this incident when he has Betterton point to the undesirable practice of actors who espouse an "open Contempt of Religion, and making Blasphemy and

1 John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, London: 1708; Garland, New York, 1974, p. 46. 2 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, pp. 41 ff. document Rich's trying to match Betterton's Shakespeare productions with his own featuring Ben Jonson; pp. 46 ff. threat of the opera and other foreign imports. 3 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 143. 56

Profaneness the Marks of their Wit and good Breeding" (p. 20). Moreover, and somewhat ironically in the circumstances, Gildon's Betterton is made to caution young actors against mistaking profanity for wit:

I would have no Man ... so fond of his own opinion, as to imagine that a dull Ridicule on things sacred will pass for wit with any Man of Sense or Probity; nor would I havehim thunder out a Volley of Oaths and Execrations to supply the Emptiness of his Discourse, with a Noise that is offensive to all Mens Ears, who are not daily conversant with the Refuse of Mankind, but acquainted with good Manners and good Breeding[... ] (pp. 21-22) It was the task of Betterton and his fellow tragedians to produce what Dryden called "concernment'' in their audiences for the "terrible example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest quality"; for:

... when we see the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works us to be helpful to, and tender over the distressed; which is the noblest and most god-like of moral virtues. 1 The dramatis personae of the principal tragedian's study were more often than not the "virtuous" and the "greatest''-potentates, emperors, conquererors, kings and princes-heroic figures who were mostly to be found in the distant realms of history and myth. It would seem, in Gildon's eyes, that before the actor could personate one of the elevated subjects of neoclassical tragedy, the establishing in the audience's consciousness of the actor's own native virtue was preconditional. On the hypothetical stage of Gildon's theory, then, the actor wore two personae: that of the social icon and that of the tragedian. The former has already been

1 Essays of John Dryden, pp, 209-10. 57

discussed above, I want now to turn to the latter: the manner in which the tragic actor perceived his relationship with his character­ persona; in short, his aesthetic relationship to his part. In the Restoration tragic repertoire most of the characters that were undertaken by actors of Betterton's rank, as I have already said, were not common or mundane figures of everyday existence; they were princes and gods, figures of myth and history: what Gildon called "Established Heroes" (p. 36). And, while they were all heroic, and stereotypical-by dint of their being "established"-to the modern sensibility, the passions appropriate to each character had to be varied and adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of the individual persona: accordingly, Gildon gives this instruction of the actor:

As he now represents Achilles, then Aeneas, another time Hamlet, then Alexander the Great and Oedipus, he ought to know perfectly well the Characters of all these Heroes, the very same Passions Differing in the different Heroes as their Characters differ: the Courage of Aeneas, for Example, of it self was sedate and temperate and always attended with good Nature; that of Turnus join'd with Fury, yet accompany'd with Generosity and Greatness of Mind. The Valour of Mezentius was savage and cruel; he has no Fury but Fierceness, which is not a Passion but a Habit, and nothing but the Effect of Fury cool'd into a very keen Hatred, and an inveterate Malice. Turnus seems to fight to appease his Anger, Mezentius to satisfy his Revenge, his Malice and barbarous Thirst of Blood. Turnus goes to the Field with Grief, which always attended Anger, whereas Mezentius destroys with a barbarous Joy; he's so far from Fury, that he is hard to be provoked to common Anger [... ] (p. 35) Although these established characters have been reinterpreted down the centuries in many literary forms, in the fine distinctions Gildon draws between the courage of Aeneas and that of Turnus; and additionally, between Turnus and Mezentius, he demonstrates that temperamental differences, in other words refinements of 58 individual detail, are possible and still necessary even in the case of typological characters. The conceptual foundation of such typological personae was neoclassical universalism; and this determined the kind of "nature" that the actor had to represent in his characterization. Gildon declared that the "Stage is or ought to be an imitation of Nature in those Actions and Discourses which are produc' d betwixt Man and Man by any Passion, or any Business, which can afford Action" (p. 72). Man in his most enduring and universal aspect is what is meant here; the immutable in human nature which Thomas Rymer clarifies in the following statement:

Certain it is that Nature is the same, and Man is the same he loves, grieves, hates, envies, has the same affections and passions in both places [Athens and London], and the same springs that give them motion. What mov'd pity there, will here also produce the same effect. 1 Human nature, as understood in neoclassical terms, was the same etiologically in antiquity as it was in the time of Gildon and Rymer. "Now what he represents," says Gildon, "is man in his various Characters, Manners, and Passions; ... A Patriot, a Prince, a Beggar, a Clown, &c." (pp. 33-34), and although each type had its associated decorum: "a slave, with base thoughts and servile inclinations; a prince, with a liberal heart and air of majesty; a soldier fierce, insolent, surly, inconstant; an old man, covetous, wary, jealous,"2 there are degrees of differing intensity within the passions. A young

1 The Critical Works of Thomas Rymer, New Haven: Conn., 1956, p. 19. 2 Rene Rapin translated by T. Rymer, in The Continental Model: Selected Cultural Essays of the Seventeenth Century in English Translation, edited by Scott Elledge and Donald Schier, rev. ed., New York, 1970, p. 285. 59 soldier's anger, argues Gildon, is different to an old soldier's, just as the bravery of a young will differ from that of an old campaigner. Since the prototypes of these personae or characters are deduced from a body of human understanding which is as old as classical humanity itself, they do not have to be newly invented by the actor. That is the reasoning behind neoclassicism. Rather, they have to be relayed and passed on intact by successive generations of artists, who try to preserve the features of their original creation. The tragic or serious dramatis personae of the Restoration and eighteenth century theatre mostly originate in a mythical or historical past. Therefore since they had all already been created, they continued to exist, as it were, in some eternal pantheon, whence these mythic personae could be called forth as required and reincarnated anew from one age to the next. These timeless masks or personae did not need recreating or reinventing: they needed relaying, like a baton passed on through successive generations in a cultural relay. The actors job then was to discover the source of creation of each personae and reconstitute it according to its original specifications. In terms of comprehending the prototypes of neoclassical personae there were two sources for the actor to consult: one was the playwright or the literary original, the other was the actor who had previously played the role. In the case of the former, the playwright was under the same historico-mythical constraints to conform to the already established tradition or fact of a character. Rowe was praised in his Tamerlane, for having "describ'd Bajazet most exactly as the Histories have left him," and details of the plot 60

are measured against "the Histories of the Ottoman Emperors."1 But where the dramatist has failed to supply the actor with a complete picture of his character model, Gildon sanctions the actor going to the very classical sources used by the playwrights themselves. "To know these different Characters of Established Heroes," Gildon says, " the Actor need only be acquainted with the Poets, who write of them; if the Poet who introduced them in his Play have [sic] not sufficiently distinguish' d them" (p. 36). In other words, if the character of a traditional hero is not sufficiently drawn, then the actor can consult the corpus of classical literature from which the heroic character derives. Like the actor who follows after him, the playwright is merely an interpreter of the original model. In the theatre, the playwright was commonly consulted by actors at the initial reading rehearsal as to his intentions (or desiderata); and, in the absence of what we today know as the director, in the Restoration and eighteenth century theatre the playwright gave the actors notes on interpretation and delivery. Usually the playwright operated as first reader. Contemporary evidence records that Dryden is reputed to have read badly and to have feared mouthing his own words in public. Nathaniel Lee, on the other hand, was a brilliant reciter and earned the following praise of an actor who was to play the part of Alexander in Lee's play: "If only I could act it as well as you read it.... " 2 Gildon, who held listening to the playwright to be highly important, (he was a minor playwright himself), 3 condemns actors who do not heed the

1 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, pp. 191, 193. 2 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 68. 3 See The Plays of Charles Gildon, edited by Paula R. Backsheider, New York & london: Gatrland Publishing, Inc.,1979. 61

writer's advice and has the persona "Betterton" deliver the following tirade against such transgressors:

They take it therefore amiss to have the Author give them any Instruction; and though they know nothing of the Art of Poetry [synonymous with Drama], will give their Censure, and neglect or mind a Part as they think the Author and his Part deserves. Tho in this they are led by Fancy as blind as Ignorance can make it, and so wandering without any certain Rule of Judgment, generallyfavour the bad, and slight the good. Whereas it has always been mine and Mrs. Barry's Practice to consult e'n the most indifferent Poet in any Part we have thought fit to accept of; and I may say it of her, she has often so exerted her self in an indifferent Part, that her Acting has given Success to such Plays, as to read would turn a Man's Stomach[... ] (p. 16). When the playwright was not available to consult, and this problem originally arose in the Restoration which was the first epoch in English theatre history to restage plays from earlier times, then actors who knew actors who had known the playwright were sought out and their original knowledge solicited. Writing of Betterton's Hamlet in 1662, Downes recounts how the interpretative line of the role survived the theatrical darkness of the Civil War:

Sir William [Davenant] (having seen Mr. Taylor of the Black-Fryars Company Act it, who instructed by the Author Mr. Shakespeur [sic]) taught Mr. Betterton in every Particle of it; which by his exact Performance of it, gain'd him Esteem and Reputation, Superlative to all other plays. 1 Indeed, when Betterton played Henry VIII, the advice on playing the part is said to have come indirectly from Shakespeare himself. "Mr. Betterton," records Downes, was "Instructed in it by Sir

1 John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, edited by Montague Summers, London, n.d. [1928], p. 21. E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, a study of facts and problems, 2 Vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930, II, p. 263, argues that Shakespeare could hardly have instructed Taylor, since Taylor did not join the King's Company until1619. 62

William, who had it from Old Mr. Lowen, that had his Instruction from Mr. Shakespeare himself." 1 Furthermore, Colley Cibber mentions that Betterton's wife, Mary Saunderson, was instructed in her famous Ophelia after the manner of the boy-players who performed the female roles in Shakespeare's time. "Sir William Davenant gave her such an idea of it as he could catch from the boy-Ophelias he had seen before the civil wars." 2 Following the established tradition in acting is regarded by Lily B. Campbeli3 as one of the chief features of the classical styles of acting which preceded Garrick; this period, which Campbell dates from 1660 to 1741, includes Betterton, Booth and Quin. The principal roles in the repertory were jealously guarded by the leading actors of the day in whose hands they resided. Each generation had an actor with whom it identified its Othello, or its

Lear, its Macbeth, its Alexander, and so on; 4 and this propri­ etorialism of the major roles was relinquished only on the actor's death or eclipse by a superior player. The perceived right to ownership of a persona among the actors often sparked fierce competition between the playhouses; such as the rivalry that existed between Lincoln's Inn Fields and Drury Lane in 1695. Betterton's "new company'' announced The Old Batchelor for Monday and Hamlet for Tuesday at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Powell at Drury Lane, the abandoned house so to speak, announced Hamlet for Monday. When Betterton followed suit, Powell backed down and instead offered The Old Batchelor, playing

1 Roscius Anglicanus, p. 24. 2 Colley Cibber, quoted in Thomas davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, III. (1785), p. 75. 3 Lily B. Campbell, "The Rise of a Theory of Stage Presentation in England During the Eighteenth Century," PMLA, XXXII 1917, pp. 163 ff. 4 Cibber, Apology, p. 56. 63

Heartwell himself. What this shows is the strong possession of the role of Hamlet which Betterton had in the eyes of the public and of his astute rivals. Powell in opting for the Old Batchelor had selected the lesser of two rivals, for Betterton was also well established as Heartwell, which is acknowledged inversely perhaps, by the fact that

Powell played the role in direct imitation of Betterton's Heartwell. 1 When Betterton came into his own as a capital performer in 1682, he was a member of the united company where his "merit ... shone with unrivalled lustre"; moreover, he is said to have "survived the great actors [Mohun and Hart] on whose model he had formed himself." 2 There is further evidence of other actors whose are praised for inheriting the models of their predecessors. In the Roscius Anglicanus "Mr. Johnson " is praised as "a true Copy of Mr. Underhill," and "Mr. Wilks" is declared to be "indeed the finisht Copy of his famous Predecessor, Mr. Charles Hart." 3 Of course Betterton like all truly great actors was able both to learn from and transcend his models, and accordingly was "at liberty to discover his genius to its full extent, by replacing many of them with advantage in these very characters, in which during their life­

times, they had been thought inimitable ...." 4 However, lesser actors who depended on parroting the styles of their more successful colleagues were confined within their limitations and re­ duced to mediocrity. Speaking of the major players of the 1696

company of" those few young ones that remain'd behind" 5 at

1 A History of the Theatres of Great Britain and Ireland, II, 1761, 1771; rep. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 38. 2 Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, III, p. 159. 3 Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 51, 52. 4 A History of the Theatres of Great Britain and Ireland, II, p. 85. 5 A Comparison Between the Two Stages, p. 7. 64

Drury Lane after Betterton had led his experienced players back to Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he was so intimately connected, Cibber stresses that they were each of a "different stile," and "not mere auricular imitators of one another, which commonly is the highest merit of the middle rank." 1 Clearly then, there is a line to be drawn between those actors who, within the accepted conventions of the time, acquired the persona of a role from its previous incumbent, preserving, as far as it was possible to do so, the manner of delivery and accompanying stage business, and those actors who aped "auricularly" the style of the better actors. "Yet can I not allow of this Imitation in Acting," says Gildon," for when a young Player conceives a strong Opinion of any one of received Authority on Stage, he at best becomes a good Copy, which must always fall short of an Original" (p. 56). Here Gildon endorses the opinion of Dryden who, speaking of the subject of painting, said that "without invention, a painter is but a copier, and a poet but a plagiary of others." 2 Dryden was by no means consistent in his opinion of imitation: he says, on the one hand, that "a copy after Raphael is more to be comended than an original of an indifferent painter" and, on the other, that "Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle . .. or at best, the keepers of cattle for other men." 3 The dilemma of neoclassicism was to be original and yet still be true to neoclassicism's credo "not to make new rules," but to "follow our masters, who understood Nature better than we."4

1 Apology , p. 59. 2 Essays of John Dryden, II, p. 139. 3 Essays of John Dryden, II, p. 139. 4 Essays of John Dryden, II, p. 139. 65

Gildon also insists that "Nature ought to be the player's as well as the Poet's Mistress" (p. 66), but this did not mean a first-hand diurnal experience of the world, since neoclassical nature was elevated and generalized, being thereby located above the mundane. "A Play ... to be like Nature/' Dryden said, "is to be set above it; as statues which are placed on high are made greater than life." He goes on to say, "The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions" should be "exalted above the common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them with proportion

to verisimility." 1 While nature should be elevated in dramatic writing, it should not be idealized, Dryden further observed. The contrary was the case in painting, to which Dryden compared dramatic art in his "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting."2 Whereas the painter can hide blemishes by shadows or choosing the better profile of his subject, Dryden says characters in tragedy should never be "made perfect," but are "always to be drawn with some specks of frailty and deficience." (This reiterates Aristotle's notion that character in drama should not be entirely perfect, and perhaps, with the reference to "specks of frailty and deficience" presages the human touches of personality, which featured in mid-eighteenth century theories of acting like john Hill's.) "The perfection of such stage- characters," continues Dryden, "consists chiefly in their likeness to the deficient faulty nature, which is their original."3 It was this deficiency, of course, which was expected to excite the audience's sympathy for the protagonists, recognizing their common

1 Essays of John Dryden, I, pp. 113-114. 2 Essays of JohnDryden, II, pp. 114-153. 3 Essays of JohnDn;den, II, p. 125. 66 humanity in the vulnerability of greatness and thus ensuring the effect of concernment which was necessary for the purging of the passions. So far in the discussion, I have dealt with two aspects of personaeity in Gildon's treatise on acting. The first is the moral persona which the actor innately brings to his acting; and the second is the notion of character in Gildon's era as a concept of transmitted personae which find their origins in original prototypes. I now want to continue the discussion of personaeity as it relates to what Gildon has to say about the actor's technique. Acting technique of necessity embraces the twin questions of action and utterance. However, because, as an acting theorist and "teacher," Gildon prioritises action first and foremost above utterance, I shall deal with the body separately from the voice, although the voice, like the various constituent parts of the body, all constitute the various elements which together make up personaeity. Personaeity, as it concerns the body as a total corporeal mask, may be viewed as falling under two main headings: the body in repose (unimpassioned) and the body in action (impassioned). The first is the heroic persona which the tragedian wore in repose, or those moments when he was not engaged in a passion; this characterized the actor's physical presence and his general deportment on stage. The second is the personae of the emotions, which, as might be expected, refers to the disposition of the tragedian when possessed of any of the emotional states, which were known as the passions. I want to deal initially with the generic neutral persona, but before I do it is important to contextualise the notion of action inherent in the Life, since, in 67

Gildon's usage of the word, action can be applied as equally to a still body as it can to an obviously moving one. Following Hobbes and Locke, Gildon viewed action as intrinsic to the harmonious, mechanical universe, which is at the basis of his neo-classical, ordered perception of nature:

ACTION indeed has a natural Excellence in it, superiour to all other Qualities; Action is Motion, and Motion is the Support of Nature, which without it would again sink into the sluggish Mass of Chaos. Motion in the various and regular Dances of the Planets surprizes and delights: Life is Motion, and when that ceases, the Humane [sic] Body so beautiful, nay so divine when enlivened by Motion, becomes a dead and putrid Coarse, from which all turn their Eyes. The Eye is caught by anything in Motion, but passes over the sluggish and motionless things as not the pleasing Objects of its View. (25-6) Action is part of the natural order of things, a universal truth, and Gildon clearly underlines the implication that the theatre should reflect this truth. What physicists like Newton were discovering about such laws as the laws of motion, for example, were thought to be also true of human behaviour. The nature of the universe, with its regular, mechanical order, was reflected microcosmically in general human nature, which was naturally governed by the same rules. For the stage to reflect nature, then, it must reflect it through the decorum of action, in regulated and ordered movement. Gildon acknowledges in his Epistle Dedicatory that "the Knowledge of Nature, and the Art of keeping her always in ... View'' has to do with "Harmony, Decorum, and Order, which ought perpetually to shine in such Public Representations"(p. viii). Because of the importance he places on the actor's body, Gildon is very specific about questions of proportion and type. Of the ideal actor, Gildon says: ''He should not be too tall, nor too low 68

and dwarfish, but of a moderate Size; neither over-fleshy, which is prodigious, nor over-lean, like a Skeleton" (p. 139). Since Betterton represents all that Gildon holds exemplary in acting, one wonders to what extent Betterton himself conformed to this physical ideal. Cibber observes that Betterton was "not exceeding the middle stature"; but then Cibber only knew the great actor in the last two decades of the seven or so he lived. Other evidence, however, contradicts Cibber. Betterton played Woodvill in Doggett's The Country Wake; and Woodvill is described in the play as of "a comely figure of six foot high."l Antony Aston, in his Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber, deliberately sets out to correct what he views as some of Cibber's roseate excesses; and on the question of Betterton's physique, points to an "ill figure" and a "corpulent body, and thick legs, with large feet." And yet he still finds Betterton "a superlative good actor."2 The moderate sized actor because of his very averageness more easily facilitates the standardized heroic persona. He brings nothing of his own personality-neither too tall, nor too short, neither too thin nor too fat. He is unexceptional and therefore theoretically able to acquire whatever guise his role requires. The moderate sized actor offers, in terms of the actor's body as text, a blank page on which multifarious messages can be written; the standardly formed actor, thereby, can be credible in most situations, whereas egregious tallness, shortness or corpulency would always be obvious in whatever role the actor played. With respect to the casting of moderate sized actors, Gildon laments that as a custom it

1 B.L. Joseph, The Tragic Actor, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959, p. 33. 2 Antony Aston, A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber , Esq., in Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy (eds.), Actors on Acting, New York: Crown, 1970, p. 114. 69

"is little regarded by our managers or Audience" (p.139), and he cites instances of "a little short Fellow" entering to "act Hector" and the audience barracking "This is Astyanax, but where is Hector?" or "a great tall long Fellow acting Capaneus, attempting to scale the Walls of Thebes " while his sheer height made a ladder unnecessary (p.140). Moreover, in terms of the tenets of neo-classical art, the average physique stood for universal nature, for all men, and so could potentially best exemplify the neo-Platonic beau ideal. 1 But more practically speaking, the actor of average size stands a better chance of fulfilling Gildon's demand that "a Player, therefore, should be of an active, pliant and compacted Body, which may be improv'd by learning to dance, fence and vault'' (140). Here we see then that the compact body is not simply to achieve a ''blank page" on which any "text" may be written, but also that this physique will foster an active and striking mode of expression. Gildon advocates a kind of plastic expressiveness. He writes in admiration of the eloquent gestures of the Roman pantomimes­ gained from his acknowledged reading of Mayne's translation of Lucian-but elsewhere in the Life, Gildon defends legitimate drama against contemporary English pantomime (p. 14), which was first introduced into England by John Weaver in 1702. However, pantomime did not present a strong challenge to orthodox drama until the 1720s under the enterprise of John Rich. 2 Gildon's emphasis on action demanded that the actor must possess an harmonious, dignified and ordered body: this ideal was to be found in Graeco-Roman statuary. The physical heroic figure

1 Cp. Hughes, "Art and Eighteenth-Century Acting Style; Part I: Aesthetics," Theatre Notebook, XLI, 1987, p. 5. 2 Nicoll, A Riston; of English Drama 1660-1900, II, pp. 252-3. 70

(or body-persona) was to be based on a close observation of extant models of classical art and sculpture. The role of art and sculpture in eighteenth century acting is well known to theatre historians, and has been recently brought into prominence by Hughes. 1 The concept of art in acting, of both painting and sculture, is central to my reading of personaeity in Gildon's writing. The idea of the actor painting and sculpting his part, (I prefer sculpting as a metaphor, as I shall explain below), is pivotal in understanding Gildon's concept of the body as heroic persona. Although persona in its literal sense more often refers to the mask an actor wears, an extension of the face, persona can also mean metaphorically the whole body. In Gildon's time, however, this understanding was more actual than metaphorical: the whole body acted in unison to reflect, by way of physical transformation, internal thought processes and affections. What was conceived in the mind was painted or sculpted in the body; this was an automatic process, which was, furthermore, no more than a reflection of the surviving, post-Galenic psycho­ physiological thinking of the time. As with the humours theory of emotion, internal movements produced "spirits" which were converted finally in the mental chambers into physiological messages which turned the body into an external manifestation of interior emotion. It is therefore easy to understand why Gildon emphasized the actor's ability to transfigure and transmute his physical person.

1 Hughes, "Art and Eighteenth-Century Acting Style; Part II: Attitudes," Theatre Notebook XLI, 1, 2 ,3, 1987. See also Shearer West, The Image of the Actor, Verbal and Visual Representation in the Age of Garrick and Kemble, London: Pinter Publishers Limited, 1991. 71

Gildon legislates that the actor "ought not to be a Stranger to Painting and Sculpture, imitating their Graces so masterly, as not to fall short of a Raphael Urbin, a Michael Angelo, &c." (p. 139). Later in the century, others, including Hogarth and William Cooke point to sculpture and painting as models for actors; and, in the middle of the century, Greek sculpture is recommended in Roger Pickering's acting treatise. 1 A contemporary of Gildon's, Barton Booth, Betterton's protege and successor, reflects Gildon's advice on studying classical art, as the following observation of Theophilus Cibber indicates:

Mr. Booth's Attitudes were all picturesque.-He had a good Taste for Statuary and painting, and where he could not come at original Pictures, he spared no Pains or Expence to get the best Drawings and Prints: These he frequently studied, and sometimes borrowed Attitudes from, which he so judiciously introduced, so finely executed, and fell into them with so easy a Transition, that these masterpieces of his Art seemed but the Effect of Nature.2 In another instance of actors modelling themselves on art poses, Cibber senior observed of Nicolini, the opera singer: ''There is scarce a beautiful Posture in an old Statue, which he does not plant himself in, as the different Circumstances of the Story give occasion for it."3 The use of ideal models from the heritage of western art is especially applicable to the embodiment of the non-impassioned presence of the actor. This non-impassioned or neutral position constitutes a persona, indeed a statue-persona, which, while

1 Roger Pickering, Reflections Upon Theatrical Expression, London: W. Johnston, 1755. 2 Theophilus Cibber, "The Life and Character of the Excellent Actor Barton Booth, Esq.," in The Lives of the Poets of great Britain and Ireland, Vol. IV,London: 1753, p. 51. 3 Cibber, Apology, p. 50. 72 neutral, must still suggest the heroic dignity and qualities of the tragedian. Although Gildon does not make a unilateral statement on the statue-persona of the actor, his scattered observations on the placement of the head, the use of the torso and hands, and the positioning of the body, may be re-assembled to form an overall impression of his position on this subject. The conglomerate picture which results bears close comparison with those two classical statues which were broadly influential in eighteenth century art and theatre-the Farnese Antinous and the Belvedere Apollo. The Apollo is the classical Greek sculpture which William Cooke instances as a model for actors in his The Elements of Dramatic Criticism (1775).1 And the Dutch actor and painter, Jelgerhuis, recommends Greek art in general along with the Antinous in particular as a desirable model for actors in his acting treatise, Gesticulatie en Mimiek,2 which was published in 1827 and represents the recrudescence of neo-classical aesthetics in the late eighteenth/ early nineteenth centuries. The Antinous and the Apollo enjoyed a long currency of influence in classical theatre history, and Gildon provides us with evidence of their influence in the English theatre in the late seventeenth-early eighteenth century. The head, according to Gildon, "ought not to be lifted up too high, and stretched out extravagantly, which is the Mark of Arrogance and Haughtiness," (unless of course the actor is required to portray such presumption):

1 Hughes, "Art and Eighteenth-Centruy Acting Style; Part II: Attitudes," Theatre Notebook XLI, 1, p. 1. 2 J. Jelgerhuis, Theoretische Lessen over de Gesticulatie en Mimiek, Amsterdam: 1827; reprinted Uitgeverij Adolf M. Hakkert: 1970, pp. 18 ff. 73 Nor on the other side should it be hung down upon the Breast, which is both disagreeable to the Eye, in renderingthe Mien clumsy and dull; ... Nor should the Head always lean towards the Shoulders, which is equally rustic and affected, or a great Mark of Indifference, Languidness, and a faint Inclination. (pp. 58-9) Gildon advised that "the Head in all the calmer Speeches, at least ought to be kept in just Natural State and upright position (p. 59). This meant the head should neither be "without motion" nor "always throwing itself about on every different Expression"(p. 59). The head:

[... ] must therefore, to steer between this Scylla and Carybdis, and shun these ridiculous Extremes, turn gently on the Neck, as often, as Occasion requires a Motion, according to the Nature of the thing, turning now to one side, and then to another, and then return to such a decent Position, as your Voice may best be heard by all or the Generality of the Audience. (p. 59) Although the very practical necessity of vocal projection is served here, we must also notice that asking the head to "turn gently on the Neck" is part of the harmony and grace of action required by the controlled statuesque posture. Graeco-Roman statues like the Belvedere Apollo and the Farnese Antinous never look directly at their audience-never straight ahead, that is to say, their heads are turned to one side, suggesting motion in marble. With his head in the "decent Position" described by Gildon above, the tragedian was best disposed to monitor his physical mechanism-his body-as-persona. "In short," says Gildon to the actor, "your Hands must always be in View of your Eyes," and ''Your Arms should not stretch out sideways, above a half a Foot from the Trunk of your Body, you will otherwise throw your Gesture quite out of Sight, unless you turn your Head also to pursue it, which would be very ridiculous" (p. 77). It is important that the 74 actor be able to superintend his physique, to know exactly what attitudes he is striking, and what portraits of the passions he is painting; furthermore, to know, and be able to make the necessary adjustments, that he is not departing from grace and dignity, as conditioned by the principle of bienseance. For example, ''In lifting up the hands to preserve the Grace," Gildon warns,"you ought not to raise them above the Eyes; to stretch them farther might disorder and distort the Body'' (p. 76), in addition to removing the hands from the actor's controlling view. Moreover, Gildon cautioned the tragedian against"bending a Bow, presenting a Musquet, or playing on any Musical Instrument, as if [he] had it in [his Hands]"; in addition he also proscribed "any lewd, obscene or indecent Postures" (p. 78). Generally speaking, Gildon legislates that the head should follow the hand movements: "the Head ought always to be turn' d on the same side, to which the Actions of the rest of the Body are directed [... ]." The exception to this injunction was "when" the hands "are employed to express our Aversion to Things, we refuse, or on Things we detest and abhor; For these Things we reject with the Right Hand, at the same time turning the Head away to the Left" (p. 59). Achieving this controlled poised statuesque persona also required, in addition to the head, that the hands, those "most habil Members of the Body" (as Gildon termed them; p. 47), should similarly be disciplined. It is, Gildon affirms, "impossible to have any great Emotion or Gesture of the Body, without the Action of the hands"(p. 76). The hands convey boundless signals:

Do we not by the Hands desire a thing? Do we not by these promise? call? dismiss? threaten? act the Suppliant? express our Abomination or Abhorrence? our Fear? By these do we not ask Questions? deny? 75

shew our Joy, Grief, Doubt, Confession, Penitence, Moderation, Plenty, Number, and Time? Do not the same hands provoke, forbid, make supplication, approve, admire, and express shame? Do they not in shewing of Places and Persons, supply the place of the Adverbs and Pronouns? (pp. 47-48) Like the head, we could say that the hands too must steer between their own Scylla and Carybdis: between "varying themselves as many ways, as they are capable of expressing things" (p. 73), and letting the "hands hang down as if lame or dead," which is not only "disagreeable to the Eye" but also it "argues no passion in the Imagination" (pp. 76, 77). A neutral position for the hands, which served the actor when "unembarrassed by a passion," was necessitated by the innate volubility of the hands. It would seem, that in an effort to keep their hands elegant but non-expressive, actors held them close to their chests, occasioning the criticism of Betterton by his fellow and inferior colleague, Antony Aston, that the great tragedian frequently rested his hands on his stomach) Like an "ill-sheath'd knife" the hands, said William Chetwood speaking generally in 1749 after twenty years as the prompter at Drury Lane, "will most hurt [their] master."2 Aston also noted of Betterton, who apparently tried to sheath his "knife" unsuccessfuflly: "His Left Hand frequently lodg'd in his Breast, between his Coat and Waistcoat, while, with his Right, he prepared his Speech." 3

1 Antony Aston, A Brief Supplement, in Actors on Acting, p. 114. 2 W.R. Chetwood,A General History of the Stage, London:W. Owen. 1749, p. 30. 3 Aston, A Brief Supplement, in Actors on Acting, p. 215. The business of preparing to speak with the right hand is based on the notion that action precedes utterance, so that, as Gildon said, "you must end it when you have done speaking" (p. 75). 76

The right hand was more important than the left and considered to take precedence whenever a single hand gesture was required. Such occasions were spelt out by Gildon as:

When you speak of your self, the Right not the Left Hand must be applied to the Bosom, declaring your own Faculties, and Passions; your Heart, your Soul, or your Conscience, but this Action generally speaking, should only be apply'd or express'd by laying the hand gently on the Breast, and not by thumping it as some People do. The Gesture must pass from the left to the Right, and there end with Gentleness and Moderation ... (p. 75) The right hand in all other cases was always to be employed rather than the left except when its use offended against reason, as in "Rather than be guilty of so foul a Deed, I'd cut this Right Hand off," where the left hand would logically be required as the indicator. Conventionally, in the theatre as in life, the right hand had pre-eminence, and actors were expected to make it their upstage hand for gesticulation, which was only possible by being in a stage left position. Actors on stage right would find this difficult, and probably were quite pragmatic in the situation. Roach finds an untenable instance of this principle in Peter Paul Rubens' "Decius Mus Addressing the Legions," showing the central figure gesticulating with his right hand in a "downstage" position. 1 Roach also refutes the notion that the primacy of the right hand is formal or conventional, saying that in keeping with the Galenic theory of humours, "If the actor gestures vehemently with his left hand alone, the agitated vital spirits explode out of the left ventricle, and he loses expressive control." 2 While this explanation is plausibly

1 Joseph R. Roach, The Player's Passion, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987, p. 54. 2 Roach, The Player's Passion, p. 55. 77 true, and perhaps explains the conventional endorsment of right­ handedness, I suspect that right hand predominance had simply become formal etiquette by Gildon's time. While there were logical occasions for the use of one hand, it was preferable for both hands to be used in conjunction with one another, thus providing, in this example from Gildon, symmetrical balance and counterpoint:

In the Beginning of our solemn Speech, or Oration, as in that of Anthony on the death of Caesar, or of Brutus, on the same Occasion, there is no Gesture at least of any Consideration, unless it begin abruptly, as Of Jupiter, oh! Heav'ns! is this to be born? The very Ships then in our Eyes, which I preserv'd, &c. extending here his Hands first to heav'n; and then to the Ships (p. 74). In this case, presumably, both arms were extended with the palms turned up, as if to implore the heavens, and then they were lowered to indicate the ships within the scene. This symmetrical employment of the arms was an embodiment of balance and rationality in the theatre of the age of reason. It is perhaps ironical that the foregoing discussion of head, torso and hands has highlighted movement, while I am trying to propose an argument that Gildon supports the notion of the actor's body as statuesque persona. It is not that Gildon wants the actor's body to be, to use his own words, "fixt like a Pillar or [indeed] a

Marble Statue" (p. 57); but rather that he is trying to impose rules suggesting that: "The place and Posture of the Body ought not to be chang' d every Moment, since so fickle an Agitation is trifling and light [... ]" (pp. 57-58). This remark of Gildon found its justification in actors like Robert Wilks, a contemporary of Betterton's, about whom it was recorded: "His Feet never stand still; he is like the Pendulum of a Clock, perpetually shuffling from one side to 78

t'other." Wilks's "affected levity in his Heels" made an antithetical contrast with his fellow actor, Philip Griffin, who was exactly the opposite by being "Stiff and Formal."1 Gildon wanted neither capricious nor unvarying movement:

[ ...] since God has so form' d the Body with Members disposing it to Motion, that it must move either as the Impulse of the Mind directs, or as the necessary Occasions of the Body require.This heavy Stability, or thoughtless Fixtness, by losing that Variety, which is so becoming of and agreeable in the Change and Diversity of Speech and Discourse, and gives Admiration to everything it adorns, loses likewise that Genteelness, and Grace, which engages the Attention by pleasing the Eye. Being taught to dance will very much contribute in general to the graceful Motion of the whole Body, especially in Motions, that are not immediately embarrass' d with the Passions (pp. 57-8). Grace is as important as expressiveness (hence Gildon's above recommendation of fencing, vaulting and dancing), and, it may be argued, this very grace is integral to the subliminal message Restoration acting provides to its audience. In terms of the management of the body, gracefulness represents a moderation of movement and action akin to the moderation which is so desirable in the controlling of the emotions and of one's demeanour in general. Reason and gracefulness are arguably the message and the style of Bettertonian and, by extension, of Restoration acting in general. The picture of the actor's physical neutral persona which Gildon draws, is a somewhat incomplete one; presumably Gildon was able to rely on a readership aware of the theatre conventions of its own time to fill in the blanks for him. For us, however, it is

1 A Comparison Between the two Stages, p. 140. r;:;:------_.- --- _:-__:-::.___:=;:--~;:;;.--,...;..:;;;~-t I

Fig. 2 "A wholly wrong figure," Franciscus Lang, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica. Munich: Society of Jesus,l727. Rpt. : 1975. ~---- ~--~-~------=--]

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Fig. 3 Rear view of correct stage stance, Franciscus Lang, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica. Munich: Society of Jesus,1727. Rpt. : 1975. j .I I

i,

Fig. 4 Front view of correct stage stance, Franciscus Lang, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica. Munich: Society of Jesus,1727. Rpt. : 1975. 79

necessary to go beyond Gildon and consult parallel texts, both iconographical and literary. These include a Jesuit acting manual, a royal portrait of James II, and an eighteenth century dance manual. Let us start with the Jesuit, Franciscus Lange, who provides visual and written evidence for comparison. The German Jesuit's Dissertatio (1727) provides pictorial evidence of the right and the

wrong way to stand on stage. Figure 2, 1 Lange calls "a wholly wrong figure": "the soles are placed in a certain way in a straight line, when they should be placed turned away from one another. Whence the position of the whole body appears wrong, so that the actor stands just as a tree trunk and a lifeless statue."2 (This last simile is reminiscent of Gildon's above quoted expression "fix'd like a Pillar or Marble Statue.") In figure 2 the eye of the beholder is offered little diversion: the symmetrically disposed open arms and parallel placement of the feet, supplement the blunt, frontal address of the head to render a blockish appearance. In figures 3 ( a rear view of the position under discussion) and 4, 3 however, the eye travels curvilinearly, playing along an outstretched hand, recoiling along the opposing and crooked arm. The feet are open and angled to each other, with one leg forward and bent slightly; the head is somewhat angled. The effect is one of diversity and counterpoint: a backward placed limb balanced by a forward one; a straight member by an angled one. The eye, in other words, follows an "S" line, not one of unrelieved perpendicularity.

1 See Fig. 2. 2 Dene Barnett, "The Performance Practice of Acting: the Eighteenth Century; Part III: The Arms," Theatre Research International, 1978, p. 85. 3 See Figs. 3 & 4. 80

When we tum to the Henri Gascar portrait of James, Duke of

York, as Lord High Admiral, 1 we see a figure in a pose which is reminiscent of Lange's correct stage posture above and of the Belvedere Apollo, which seems to have been universally informative of most neoclassical depictions of the heroic personae across various forms of art. Indeed, James is standing in much the same posture as would have been assumed by ordinary gentlemen having their portraits painted. In the period under discussion, there existed an established connection between the theatrical and the social arts. 2 As we have already seen, Gildon recommended fencing, dancing and vaulting for actor training: the same training, perhaps vaulting was optional, was de rigeur for gentlemen in need of acquiring the social graces. 3 In the case of the James II portrait, however, it is important to note that James and the anonymous figure in the Lange templates are both wearing the costume a la romaine, which was of course the stage tragedian's standard wardrobe. Perhaps it can be suggested that only royalty was fit to emulate the tragic-heroic garb. In the portait, James is accoutred in the Roman breastplate, tragic kilt and geaves; the rest of his armour lies about while a ganymedean youth proffers the hero's plumed helmet. James is costumed like a tragedian yet he stands in the studied casualness of a Restoration beau. The stance exemplifies everything Gildon meant by his phrase "graceful Motions," and such a pose may also be seen in Tomlinson's manual

1 See Fig. 5. 2 See F. Nivelon, The Rudiments of Genteel Behaviour, London, 1737. 3 Woods, Garrick Claims the Stage, Ch. 1 passim, develops the notion that the prominent actor of a given age achieves that prominence because the audience places him there as a representative of their cultural values, thereby establishing a resonance between acting and its social world. 81 of dance, The Art of Dancing (1735), which identifies a number of postures of elegant neutrality, such as Gildon stipulated in the above statement. I shall instance one of these: Tomlinson's so-called fourth dance position, because this stance bears comparison with the pose we have already discussed with regard to the Duke of York's portrait:

... if the inclosed Foot be moved open from the other, sideways, to the Right or Left, about the Distance of half a Foot, or as far as, in setting it down to the Floor, the Weight of the Body resting on the contrary Foot is not disordered by it, with the Toes handsomely turning out, the Hat under one Arm, and the other in some agreeable Action, the Head also turning a little fromthe Foot on which the Poise rests, this we stile [sic] the Fourth Position open, and it may be very justly esteemed a most genteel and becoming Posture.l In the Duke of York portrait, the left arm supports a draped robe to set off the costume and the figure, while the right hand is engaged in the "agreeable Action" of resting on a walking cane, as one might see in the Mall or St. James's. Although not exact in every detail, the spirit of Tomlinson's fourth position is honoured in James's stance. And more importantly, the Duke's head is gracefully turned to the right, which position Tomlinson declares "compleats a most Heroic Posture."2 Indeed it is apposite to the present discussion that Tomlinson describes the fourth ("standing") position as appropriate both to dancing and to entering "upon the Stage of Life."3 Tomlinson's choice of metaphor-"upon the Stage of Life"­ underlines the close reflexivity that existed between the stage and

1 Kellom Tomlinson, The Art of Dancing, "First Design'd in the Year 1724," London, 1735, reprinted Greg International, (1970), pp. 4-5. 2 Tomlinson, The Art of Dancing, p. 4. 3 Tomlinson, The Art of Dancing, p. 3. 82

polite society at the time. It is little wonder, therefore, that Gildon recommended that aspiring actors learn dancing. The arts that informed concepts of beauty and decorum in the theatre, were the same arts that informed the social graces of the broader fashionable society. Gildon might have known of the Gascar portrait; he might have heard of Lange's Dissertatio, although its English translation was not until 1735, much the same time as Tomlinson's The Art of Dancing, of which he surely would have been ignorant. The question of influence is not important here, what matters is that all of the above sources reflect the influence of the same neoclassical aesthetics as do Gildon's acting treatise; they are all an expression of the one zeitgeist. The heroic physical attitude that we have seen above, I would argue, was the universal persona as far as the Bettertonian actor was concerned. This persona subtended every emotional state the tragedian inhabited. In anger, love, despair, or whatever emotion, it was still a condition that was informed, in stance and attitude, by the generic heroic persona of the tragedian. In addition to his passions, the heroic persona also described the actor's standing position and his walking motion. The philosophy behind the latter, the tragic strut, noted for its large looping, pompous strides, was to convey the dignity and majesty of the heroic personage. The appropriate stage deportment of the tragic actor was regal and heroic: marked by dignity, stateliness, and other such princely virtues which conformed to the notion of the heroic ideal. In John Crowne's Henry VI, the Queen comments on Gloucester's recent assumption of the mantle of majesty and how self-consciously he wears it: 83

With what a Majesty he bears himself? How proud, how peremptory, how unlike himself? We knew the time when he was mild and affable, And if we did but glance a far-off look, Immediately he was upon his knee, That all the Court admir' d his great Humility. But now he frowns, and passes stiffly by, Scorning to shew us any regard at all.l In fact, Gloucester's transformation is remarked by all, and summed up by Suffolk who declares: "In short, all his demeanour is of late/

So raging, haughty, frantique and intolerable ...".2 The tragic walk was in fact based on the carriage which was expected of monarchs and princes in the world beyond the theatre, as is described by Thomas Wright in the following extract:

To walk majestically (that is, by extending thy legs forth, and drawing the body back, with a slow and stately motion) in all men's judgement usually issues from a proud mind and therefore deserves dispense, except in a Prince, a General of an army, or a soldier in sight of his enemies ... 3 Wright is not talking about the stage here, but about the protocol expectations of authentic regal deportment in the seventeenth century. The strut was a stage cliche for the regal carriage during the Restoration just as it had also been in earlier times, as the evidence in Shakespeare's plays shows. 4 Strutting was an easily parodied convention, but the actor taking large, looping steps (in part, perhaps because of the rake of the stage) before speaking his lines was part of the tragic conventions. Other features-the look and the air of a person­ accompanied the walk, conveying the right note of majesty. In All

1 John Crowne, Henry VI, the First Part, London: printed for R. Bentley & M. Ma~e~ 1681,p.38 2 Crowne, Henry VI, p. 39. 3 Wright, The Passions of the Mind, (1601), pp. 214-15. 4 Macbeth, V. v., 25, just to cite one example. 84 for Love, Serapion remarks these qualities, noting them as Ventidius' s stately and inherently "regal" features: But, who's that Stranger? By his warlike port, His fierce demeanour, and erected look, He's of no vulgar note .I "The Stage," a poem of 1713, speaks of Betterton's ''Majesty'' and his "judicious Action"; also of Booth's "awful Port and lordly Mein [sic]." "'The pleas' d spectator," who was delighted by Booth, also "dreads a King in Keene." Presumably this meant that Keene was able to convey the awesomeness of majesty in his deportment and carriage. Actors even outshone real kings in this regard: Downes reports that Hart portrayed "Grandeur and Agreeable Majesty" so well ''That one of the Court was pleas' d to Honour him with this Commendation: that Hart might Teach any King on Earth how to comport himsel£."2 To this point we have dealt with two different aspects of the tragic personae, both of which fall under the category of unimpassioned acting. Unimpassioned though the "standing" and the "walking'' positions may be, it would be wrong to regard them as expressions of non-acting, because in both of these modes it is necessary for the actor to convey or present the dignity and grace which befits the heroic personaeity, and that is the rudimentary task of the heroic actor. The tragedian's concentration is required to be directed to conveying that presence. However, because of our modern concept of what being in character means, it is easy to think of the modes of tragic unimpassioned acting as being out of

1 Dryden: the Dramatic Works, edited by Montague Summers, 6 Vols., New York: Gordian Press, 1968, IV, p. 193. 2 "The Stage: A Poem Inscribed to Joseph Addison, Esq.," London, 1713, pp. 24, 27, 28. 85 character. Indeed, there is much criticism in the eighteenth century, both written and pictorial, of actors who find the audience more diverting than their roles when they are not acting an emotion.l It is misleading to think of non-emotional moments on the Restoration and eighteenth century stage as in-character by way of an understanding of character based on personality, when, as I have been suggesting, the relevant concept of character is one based on personaeity-or ethos, which in Greek rhetoric implies an ideal excellence, such as the heroic ideal. The heroic ethic overrode the presentation of the tragic figure in Bettertonian acting; the passions or emotions were offered like arias within that framework. They did not determine and colour the framework itself: anger, love, fear-whatever emotion-had to be presented through the frame of the heroic persona. The difference between pathos, or emotionally based character, and ethos, or idealized paradigm, is the essential difference between personality and personaeity. I want to turn now to the question of impassioned acting; and, to consider personaeity in the light of the passions themselves. Since personaeity is concerned with the presentation of surface representations through body or external personae, it is important to note that the passions derive their origins internally-in the mind. Reflecting the then universally understood terminology of the medieval moral philosophers, Gildon refers to the passions as the "Affections, and habits of the Mind" (p. 40); and in fact directs the apprentice actor to study ''Moral Philosophy" (p. 36):

The Player ... ought to form in his Mind a very strong Idea of the Subject of his Passion, and then the Passion

1 See below, pp. 180 ff. 86

it self will not fail to follow, rise into the Eyes, and affect both the Sense and Understanding of the Spectators with the same Tenderness [... ] (p. 66). Gildon traces the lineage of this principle back to Elizabethan times, quoting the well-known passage from Hamlet where the Prince marvels, as does Gildon himself, at the ''Player's" passion for Hecuba; at the "Soul forc'd to his whole Conceif' so effectively that, we see:

his Visage warm, his Eyes flow with Tears, and Distractions spread over all his Face; nay, then will his Voice be broken, and every Faculty of his Body be agreeable to this strong Emotion of the Soul (p. 71). This paraphrase of Hamlefs musings on the Player's passion, Gildon confidently asserts, "contained all that can be said of Action, Looks and Gesture" (p. 71).

It follows from Gildon's assertion that while action, looks and gesture constitute external personation, they are only as compelling as the power of the mental conceptualisation behind them. Gildon quotes from one of Buckingham's verses to clinch the argument, applying Buckingham's words to the duty of actors, who:

[... ] must look within to find Those secret turns of Nature in the Mind; Without this Part in vain wou'd be the whole, And but a Body all without a Soul (p. 40). Buckingham's last line here is particularly important to emphasize the connection between the actor's physical expression and his innermost processes. 'When you are therefore to speak," Gildon as­ serts, "you ought first with Care to consider the Nature of the Thing of which you speak, and fix a deep impression of it in your own Mind, before you be throughly [sic] touch' d with it your self, or able by an agreeable Sympathy to convey the same Passion to another" (p.113). 87

Gildon does not expand on what he means exactly by "throughly touch' d," but, given the sources in Roman rhetoric on which he draws, I suspect it has something to do with Quintilian's notion of visiones, which were used by rhetoricians to picture mentally the passions they wished to convey.l Although he does not provide specific details of the inner workings of the mind, Gildon does describe three kinds of imaginative preparation which an actor may undertake in preparing to act a passion. In addition to the "strong conceit'' approach described above in relation to Hamlet, there is the "working your self up by a strong Imagination, that you are the very person and in the same Circumstances, which will make the Case so very much your own that you will not want Fire in Anger, nor Tears in Grief" (p. 71). (This last technique is curiously prescient of Stanislavski's concept of "given circumstances"; however, we would find vast differences in detail were it appropriate to pursue the comparison here). Thirdly, there is following "what the Ancients practis' d in heightening their Theatrical Sorrow, by fixing the Mind real Objects" (p. 71). Of the various means the ancient actors employed ''bringing this pas­ sionate Tenderness [Grief] to a Perfection," the most efficacious was that "They kept their own private Afflictions in their Mind, and bent it [sic] perpetually on real Objects, and not on the Fable, or fictitious Passion of the Play, which they acted" (p. 68). As an example, Gildon cites the now often anthologised account, which has been already mentioned in the introduction above, of Polus, who

had refrain' d the Stage for some time, after the

1 The Player's passion, pp. 24, 26, 28, 40, 223. 88

Death of a beloved Son, for the Grief for that Loss had so sensibly affected him, and thrown him into such a Melancholy, that he had no Thoughts of ever returning to his Theatrical Employment; but being at last once more on the Stage, and oblig'd to act Electra carrying the suppos'd Urn of her Brother Orestes, he went to the Grave of his beloved Child, and brings his Urn on, instead of the suppos'd Urn of Orestes; which so mov'd him, and melted his Heart into such Compassion and Tenderness, at the Sight of that real Object of Sorrow, that he broke out into such loud Exclamations, and such unfeigned tears, as fill' d the whole House with Grief, Weeping, and Lamentations (pp. 68-9). Tears are particularly infectious. "For if the Grief of another touches you with real Compassion, Tears will flow from your Eyes, whether you will or not'' (p. 68). The "Art of Weeping," was study'd with great Application by the ancient Players," Gildon contends, and " they made so extraordinary progress in it, and work' d the Counterfeit to near a Reality, that their faces used to be all over blurr' d with Tears when they came off the Stage" (p. 68). With respect to his favourite actress, the incomparable Mrs. Barry, whom Gildon thought "always enters into her Part, and is the Person she represents," we have the corroboration of the actress herself, admittedly reported at second hand (and by Gildon):

Thus I have heard her say, that she never said, Ah! poor Castalio! in the Orphan [by Thomas Otway], without weeping. And I have frequently observ'd her change her Countenance several Times as the Discourse of others on the Stage have affected her in the Part she acted. This is being thoroughly concern'd, this is to know her Part, this is to express the Passions in the Countenance and Gesture (p. 40). Gildon firmly believed that Mrs. Barry's acting was "produced naturally by the sentiments of the part," and that she was clearly following Horace's well known injunction, "si vis me flere ...": "if 89 you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself."l To Gildon, Mrs. Barry always entered into her part and was in fact the person she represented. In the Restoration and early eighteenth century theatre, where I maintain, using Gildon as the chief authority, personaeity not personality prevailed, private experience was not valued for itself ,(that is a post-romantic concept), but only in so far as it could assist in counterfeiting feeling appropriate to the part. The fact that Gildon acknowledges at least three forms of emotional preparation indicates that it was the product not the process which counted. In other words, the rightness of external form necessarily revealed the correctness of internal conceptualisation; but also, that the external form was ultimately more important than the route chosen to achieve it. The aim of acting for Gildon was to produce a character or shape which the audience could read unambiguously; and which would, as a shape or character, serve to inscribe in the audience's minds the same feelings which had initially been stimulated in the actor's head. When an actor "falls into a passion," Gildon says:

Then Nature, if you obey its Summons, will alter your looks and Gestures. Thus when a Man speaks in Anger his Imagination is inflam'd, and kindles a sort of Fire in his Eyes, which sparkles from them in such a manner, that a Stranger, who understood not a Word of the Language, or a Deaf Man, that could not hear the loudest Tone of his Voice, would not fail of perceiving his Fury and Indignation. And this Fire of their Eyes will easily strike those of their Audience, which are continually fixt on yours; and by a strange sympathetic Infection, it will set them on Fire too with the very same Passion. (pp. 66-67)

1 Allan H. Gilbert, Literary Criticism: Plato to Dryden, Detroit: Wayne State U.P., 1962, p. 131. 90

The audience was expected to identify (''by a strange sympathetic Infection") in the actor's performance a strongly externalized physical representation of the affections and passions of the mind, which "set them on Fire ... with the very same Passion." The audience beheld and responded by experiencing the concomitant emotions through sympathetic identification: "for Passions are wonderfully convey'd from one Person's Eyes to another's; the tears of one melting the Heart of the other, by a very visible Sympathy between their Imaginations and Aspects" (p. 71).

There was thought to be a directly automatic connection between the imaginative conception of an emotion and its physical manifestation in the body-especially the face, as we have already seen. In the Restoration theatre, it will be remembered, eye contact with the audience was facilitated by the intimate size of the auditorium and the more or less equal illumination of the stage and the auditorium. Southern observes: "One may well understand that the intimacy represented in contemporary caricatures is not exaggerated."l In the Restoration and early eighteenth century theatre, which shared an intimacy of atmosphere and close relationship between the actors and their audience, the actor's face was the undisputed focus of attention.2

At the heart of any discussion of personaeity is the face. This is fitting, since the persona is an extension of the face; historically, the persona was a fixed expression of character as ethos not

1 Richard Southern, The Georgian Playhouse, London, Pleiades Books, 1948, p. 51. 2 The argument for the eighteenth century use of the face is made by Alan T. McKenzie, "The Countenance You Show Me: Reading the Passions in the Eighteenth Century," The Georgia Review, , 32, 1978, pp. 758-773. 91

personality. Although Gildon is prepared to defer to the ancients in many matters concerning the stage, the use of masks is not one of them. "I confess," says Gildon,"! am extremely surpriz' d at the Antients Use of those Masks on the Stage which they call the Personae; nor could I imagine how they were made, not to destroy that Grace and Beauty of Acting, in the management of the Lineaments of the Face, which by all that we have of that kind must be entirely hid." Gildon then cites the case of Roscius, who is said to have "lost his Admiration amongst the Romans on the Stage, because the Masque on his Face deny' d the Audience the sight of those Motions, Charms and Attractions, which were to be discover' d in the Countenance" (p. 60). Ironically, Gildon disapproves of masks as performance apparatus, which by their very nature present a fixed expression to the world, and yet, at the same time, he recommends a kind of variable use of the face as a "living" mask. ''I think I have found a way," boasts the author of The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, "which, if maturely study' d, would obtain this Variety of Countenance more artfully, and at the same time inspire the Actor better with the Nature and Genius of his Part" (p. 62):

If therefore the Player was acquainted with the Character of his Hero, so far as to have an Account of his Features and Looks; or of any one living of the same Character, he would not only vary his Face so much by that means, as to appear quite another Face; by raising, or falling, contracting, or extending the Brows; giving a brisk or sullen, sprightly or heavy turn to his Eyes; sharpening or swelling his Nostrils; and the various Positions of his Mouth, which by Practice would grown familiar, and wonderfully improve the Art of Acting, and raise the noble Diversion to greater Esteem (pp. 62-3). The persona "Betterton" is given to remark, perhaps not surprisingly, that "coming always on Stage with the same face, put a 92

Force on the Imagination of the Audience to fancy us the same Persons" (p. 62). According to Gildon, not only should the actor shape his face to the physiognomy of his hero, but he must also be able to mould his face to the various personae of the passions themselves. Although each passion, both in moral philosophy and in art, had its unique expression, the problem for the actor, as Gildon saw it, was to capture the various facial expressions in their differing degrees: the complex colourations, nuances and degrees of emotion which the face had to accommodate and which the fixed mask concept denied:

The Countenance must be brightened with a pleasant Gayety on things, that are agreeable, and that according to the degree of their being so; and likewise in Joy, which still must be heightened in the Passion of Love; though indeed the Countenance in the Expression of this Passion is extremely various, participating sometimes in the transports of Joy, sometimes of the Agonies of Grief; it is sometimes mingled with the Heats of Anger, and sometimes smiles with all pleasing Tranquility of an equal Joy. Sadness or Gravity must prevail in the Countenance when the subject is grave, melancholy or sorrowful; and Grief is to be expressed according to its various Degrees of Violence. Hate has its peculiar Expression composed of Grief, Envy, and Anger, a mixture of which ought to appear in the Eye. When you bring or offer Comfort, Mildness and Affability ought to spread o'er your Countenance, as Severity should when you censure or reprehend (pp. 64-5). Facial mobility is the key here: the eyebrows are said to "contract themselves, and frown in Sorrow; to smooth and dilate themselves in Joy; to hang down in Humility, &c." (p. 65). Gildon does not provide detailed descriptions of the pure states of facial passion but, again, these may be inferred from parallel documentation like Fig. 5 Portrait of James, Duke of York, as Lord High Admiral. Henri Gascar. National Maritime Museum. Fig. 6 The Apollo of Belvedere, c. 350-300 B.C. Roman copy. Vatican Museum.

Fig. 8 "Anger," Otarles LeBrun. Fig. 9 "Fright," Charles Le Brun. ,

' £h 0 f I _./ I

/

Fig. 10 "Extream Despair," Charles Le Brun. Fig. 11 11 The Descent of Christ from the Cross," Jordaens. Hamburger Kunsthalle .. 93

Charles Le Brun's A Method to Learn to Design the Passions) which had a wide currency in Europe and was not unknown in England at the time Gildon was writing. Le Brun's A Method to Learn to Design the Passions, which was an illustrated guide for art students to learn to paint the faces of the passions from cartoon outlines, supplies the illustrations (and verbal descriptions) that Gildon neglects, and provides some idea of what Gildon might have meant by the concept of living masks. Moreover, Gildon, who knew of LeBrun's own creative work and presumably his A Method to learn to Design the Passions (1698), recommends LeBrun's painting, the "Tent of Darius," 2 in which we see prominently expressive faces, expectant and fearful, all attending to the central concern, which is the quarrel of Statira and Sysigambis. The faces in the painting echo the cartoons illustrating the various passions in Le Brun' s treatise, which is basically a manual of facial expressions, drawn and described. LeBrun's car­ toons 3 display all the passions, from the serene and tranquil, including joy, admiration and love, where the eyebrows, mouth and eyes are free of agitation, through the progressively more intense conditions of astonishment, grief, horror, jealousy, anger and many more. Let us consider for example LeBrun's depiction of "Extream Despair": how did the actor go about forming his face into this mask

1 Charles LeBrun, A Method to Learn to Design the Passions (1698), trans. J. Williams, London, 1734; The Augustan Reprint Society, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1980, p. 46. The first English translation of LeBrun appeared in 1701: in Shearer West, "Polemic and the Passions: Dr. James Parsons' Human Physiognomy Explained and Hogarth's Aspirations for British History Painting," British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 13 No. 1, Spring, 1990, p. 76. 2 See Fig. 7. 3 See, for example, Figs. 8 & 9. 94 of passion? The answer is perhaps given in LeBrun's accompanying verbal account of the expression:

This Passion may be expressed by the gnashing of the Teeth, foaming at the mouth, and biting of the Lips; the Forehead wrinkled from the upper part quite down; the Eyebrows depressed over the Eyes, and very much bent towards the Nose; the Eyes all on fire and full of Blood; the Pupil seeming unsettled, all hid under the Eye-brow, and, when at the bottom of the Eye, flashing and continually darting itself about; the Eye-lids swelled and livid; the Nostrils thick, open and rising upwards, the tip of the Nose drawing downwards, and and the muscles and tendons very much swelled; as likewise all the veins and nerves of the Forehead, Temples, and of all the four parts of the Face; the upper part of the Cheeks plump, visible and strongly pressed about the Jaw; the Mouth open, drawing extreamly back, and more open at the corners than in the middle; the upper Lip thick, hanging down, and, as well as all the other parts of the Face, of a livid colour; the Hair strait [sic] and standing on end. 1 This is a strong and graphic verbal account, as rich and instructive for the painter as it it for the actor; and LeBrun's description may be compared, detail for detail, with the cartoon of the same emotional state. 2 Extreme though this emotion is, it is interesting to observe that LeBrun makes none of the cautions against excess which Gildon sets down within the Bettertonian heroic code of dignity and restraint. When the mouth is drawn back in keeping with the extremity of the emotion, Gildon warns against distortion: "The Mouth," he says, " must never be writh' d, nor the Lips bit or lick' d, which are all ungenteel and unmannerly Actions" (p. 72). The actor had not only to replicate the facial expression appropriate to the passion it denotes, but also to adjust this emotion

1 Le Brun, A Method to Learn to Design the Passions , p. 46. 2 See Fig. 10. 95 to the character being portrayed, according to the neoclassical conditions of sex, status and relationship. Here Gildon provides us with a detailed example, by pointing to yet another history painting; this time it is Jordaen's "The Descent of Christ." 1 In the following, Gildon explains how those at Christ's deposition, the two Maries, Joseph of Arimathea, and so on, express their grief differently-according to their age, sex, and status, and, not least in importance, their relationship to their Lord:

Thus Jordan of Antwerp, in a Piece of our Saviour's being taken from the Cross ... the Passion of grief of the Virgin Mother is in all the Extremity of Agony, that is consistent with Life, nay indeed that leaves scarce any signs of remaining Life in her; that of St. Mary Magdalen is an Extreme Grief, but mingled with Love and Tenderness, which she always expressed after her Conversion for our blessed Lord; then the Grief of St. John the Evangelist is strong but manly, and mixt with the Tenderness of perfect Friendship; and that of Joseph of Arimathea suitable to his years and Love for Christ, more solemn, more contracted in himself, and yet forcing an Appearance in his Looks (pp. 36-7). In short, the persona of the emotion, in this case grief, has to suit the ethos of the characterization. In the Rowe frontispiece to Hamlet another example of the above may be found-an example which comes not from history painting but from theatre iconography. In the Rowe illustration, we notice that wonder is variously portrayed in the several personae (in the facial and bodily sense of the word) of the characters. Hamlet is surprised, but his surprise is contained within the decorum necessary to a prince. His posture at once indicates surprise and yet is not disordered by what he sees: the chair, knocked over as a result

1 See Fig. 11. 96 of the initial start at the appearance of the ghost, lies there as an objective correlative of astonishment. Hamlet's stocking is undone and hangs loosely upon his advanced right leg. These signs interpret his internal disorder without disordering his aesthetic appearance as actor; for example, his wig is not awry, which would be unbecoming in a tragic hero. His body strikes an attitude of surprise which is both pleasing and plausible. This is the heroic ideal: the emotion expressed according to the prevailing conventions, but expressed with dignity and decorum. The aes­ thetics are not only visually pleasing, but pleasing also because they paint a picture of nobility in control of emotion, and thereby reveal the soul of rationalism. The importance of the countenance in Restoration and eighteenth century theatre cannot be overstated. In the dramatic literature, the number of references to the face and the eyes, which bring the face alive, is legion; although it may seem otherwise, I have only cited a few instances below. References to the face often include the eyes, (it is hard to discuss the two separately); sometimes the eyes are metonymic of the countenance. For the eyes provide a direct conduit to the "affections of the Mind." "Thus when a Man speaks in Anger,"said Gildon, "his Imagination is inflam'd, and kindles a sort of Fire in his Eyes which sparkles from them in such a manner, that a Stranger, who understood not a Word of the Language, or a Deaf Man, that could not hear the loudest Tone of his Voice, would not fail of perceiving his Fury and Indignation." In John Banks's The Destruction of Troy, Polyxena tells Achilles:

You are a God, have Lightning in your Eyes; For when you Dart me with an angry Glance, And send forth Thunder with your awful Voice, A Storm flung from the Rage of Jupiter 97

Is not so dreadful.1 In Nathaniel Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus, speaking to Titus, Brutus invites him to:

Look on my face, view my eyes flame, and tell me If ought thou seest but Glory and revenge, A blood-shot Anger, and a burst of Fury.2 In Mary Pix's Queen Catherine, Isabella entreats her eponymous majesty:

0 fairest, best of Queens! Can you not find in my disordered looks, The tumults of my soul. 3 The eyes were indeed, as was commonly held to be true of Gildon's time and earlier, the window to the soul, which was less of a cliche in Gildon's time than it is in our own. Cassandra invites Cleomenes (in the play of that name), to ''Look on my Eyes; and you may read my Heart." 4 In the Rival Queens, Alexander addresses Statira through her eyes to reach her soul:

0 my Statira! 0 my angry dear! Turn thine Eyes on me, I wou'd talk to them: What shall I say to work upon thy Soul? Where shall I throw me? whither shall I fall? 5 In The Royal Mischief, Bassima fears to reveal the truth behind her eyes: "Or should you stay, dare not to meet my Eyes/With yours, those tell-tales of your Passion."6

1 John Banks, The Destruction of Troy, London: printed for A.G. & J.P, 1679, p. 42. 2 Nathaniel Lee, Lucius Junius Brutus, in Works , edited by Thomas B. Stroup and Arthur L. Cooke, 2 Vols., New Brunswick, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1954-55, Vol. I, p. 330. 3 The Plays of Mary Pix and Catherine Trotter, edited by Edna L. Steeves, 2 Vols., New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1980, I, p. 23. 4 Dryden: the Dramatic Works VI, p. 371. 5 Lee, Works, p. 254. 6 Mary de Ia Riviere Manly, The Royal Mischief, London: printed for R. Bentley, F. Saunders & J. Knapston, 1696, p. 25. 98

In conversation with Appius, who has hitherto managed to disguise his true nature, Virginia remarks to Appius that his true tyranny is now showing, and showing first in his face:

Ay, now thou shew'st thy self, Thou art that proud, that stormy Tyrant, Appius, All thy deformity of Mind breaks out Upon thy cruel Face, and blasts my Eyes.l In John Crowne's Henry VI, Gloucester's speech shows this same ability to interpret mind through physignomy:

GLO. Their very Looks are witnesses against 'em. Beauford's red sparkling eyes tell his hearts malice, And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate.2 Gloucester tells Winchester, "You have a fester'd Mind, and 'twill break out;/! saw it in your Face."3 In Dennis's Iphigenia, Euphrosine and Iphigenia notice the approach of strangers and, from their expressions, are able to deduce their internal feelings:

Euph. The foremost wears affliction in his aspect, And the black Cloud that lowrs upon his Brow Seems to declare strange wretchedness of Sorrow. Iph. Yet Sorrow on his Brow majestick sits, And shows that from no common cause it springs. His mien seems earnest, and his looks profound, Like one upon important business bent.4 More than any other part of the anatomy, in fact, the face reveals the mind, especially that heroic quality of mind which was proper in the tragedian. In John Banks's Cyrus the Great Thomyris describes Cyrus as "That Godlike Mein and Presence is enough/T' enslave great kings

1 Appius and Virginia, in The Plays of John Dennis, edited by J.W. Johnson, New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1980, p. 16. 2 Crowne, Henry VI, p. 43. 3crowne, Henry VI, p. 3 4 The Plays of John Dennis, p. 6 99 and awe the barb'rous World."1 In the same play, Cyrax describes Cyrus as "The most Heroick Mind that ever was." 2 The definition of a hero by his mind is attested in Dennis's Rinaldo and Armida :

Why art thou by Fames Hundred Tongues extoll'd? Why by her Golden Trump proclaim'd a Heroe, If thou hast only Brutual force to boast of? 'Tis chiefly force of Mind that makes a Heroe.3 These heroic qualities in his face no more than reflect the nobility of the heroic mind. In Sophonisba, the observation is made: "Our General's mov' d, his angry looks dart fire,/ And noble rage does his griev'd Soul inspire."4 Furthermore, just as the face revealed unalloyed emotional states, so too could it reflect confusion in the looks. Usually one passion was held to predominate at any given time. 5 However, a state of confusion can also be read in the face, reflecting an ambiguity of feeling. In Rowe's The Fair Penitent, Altamont asks his friend Horatio to account for his confused looks:

Now as thou art a Man, Horatio, tell me, What means this wild Confusion in thy Looks? As if thou wert at variance with thy self, Madness and Reason combating within thee, And thou wert doubtful which shou'd get the better.6 Horatio wonders how he is going to explain the outburst of Calista, who has just left the stage accusing him of betraying his friend, Altamont, and of threatening to demolish Calista's reputation with her husband (Altamont) by exposing her past with Lothario.

1 John Banks, Cyrus the Great, London: printed for Richard Bentley, 1696, p. 26. 2 Banks, Cyrus the Great., p. 32. 3 The Plays of John Dennis, p. 21. 4 Lee, Works, p. 102 5 Robertson Davies in Revels History of Drama in English, Vol. VI 1750-1880, p. 155. 6 The Dramatick Works of Nicholas Rowe, Esq., 2 Vols., Westmead, Farnborough, Hants: Gregg International Publishers, 1971, I, p. 37. 100

Horatio is confused because he is going to have to explain to Altamont Calista's accusation that he has wronged her. Another example which illustrates that the face/ eyes could reflect internal turmoil may be found in Tamerlane; when Bajazet and Tamerlane meet, the latter the captor of the former, Bajazet's true feelings are apparent to Tamerlane, who says: "But that I read upon thy frowning Brow,/That War yet lives, and rages in thy

Breast." 1 So automatic was the connection between the internal emotions and the face/ eyes held to be, that in the same play Axalla is surprised that his innermost thoughts are not apparent in his eyes:

Search not too deep the Sorrows of my Breast; Thou say'st, I am indifferent, and cold, Oh! is it possible, my Eyes should tell So little of the fighting Storm within.2 The "fighting Storm within" suggests a turmoil of passions­ warring emotions-rather than the single pure passion which is so clearly limned by the facial templates in LeBrun's treatise which has been referred to already. Just as neoclassicism sought to adduce emotional clarity, to bring specific emotions into clear focus, it must be acknowledged that one finds considerable discussion in Gildon's treatise on the subject of conflicting emotions. The importance of the face in Restoration acting is reflected in the number of rules which Gildon devotes to the employment of the countenance. The face was the first part of the anatomy to register any emotion or inner thought process; before the voice, and before any other part of the body, the eye externalized the mind's

1 The Dramatick Works of Nicholas Rowe, p.67. 2 The Dramatick Works of Nicholas Rowe, p. 67. 101 message, which then spread over the face. It is the "Motions of the Face," Gildon says, "of which we ought to take a peculiar Care, since it is on that, which the Audience or Spectators generally fix their Eyes the whole Time of the Action" (p. 63). Therefore the "Player":

must always be casting his Eyes on some or other of his Auditors, and turning them gently from side to side with an Air of Regard, sometimes to one Person and sometimes to another, and not fix them immovably on one part of your Auditors, which is extremely unaffecting and dull, much less moving, than when we look them decently in the Face, as in common Discourse (p. 65). Gildon condemns the actor who lifts his eyes above the pit to the galleries, "or Top of the House," when they are "engaged in a Discourse of some Heat, as if indeed they were conning a Lesson, not acting a Part'' (p. 66). The actor was expected, by Gildon's dictates, to make eye contact with the spectators and to play to them directly. In the fiery anger of passion, 11this Fire of their [the actors'] Eyes will easily strike those of the Audience [... ] and by a strange sympathetic infection, it will set them on Fire too with the very same Passion" (p. 67). And this was not only so of anger: "for Passions are wonderfully convey' d from one Person's Eyes to another's; the tears of one melting the Heart of the other, by a very visible Sympathy between their Imaginations and Aspects" (p. 71). Not only did the actor have to engage the eyes of the audience, but Gildon makes it clear that it was as important that the actor look at the person to whom he is speaking on stage-to "make the Rest of the Actors on Stage with him at the same Time his Auditors"(p. 65). Since the face was the conduit of internal emotions and thought processes, the actors had to appear to be addressing one another face to face, so that the 102 versimility of communication was conveyed to the spectators, as well as facially addressing the audience so that actual communication was achieved with them. In order to comply with the obligation of addressing both the audience and their fellow performers, Gildon ru1es that the actors had to stand half turned to one another, and half turned towards the audience-standing as if on the sides of a triangle whose apex vanishes somewhere upstage. From this placement, an inward turn meant the actors could behold each other facially, while an outward turn took in the audience.l The openness of the stance also meant that the audience could credit that the actors were in a veritable conversation. This stance would occasion the actor frequently moving his head within a 180 degree arc, more or less, and thus explains why Gildon cautions that the actor should move the head slowly and with dignity as befits the heroic stature of the character he is portraying. Movement with grace and dignity in addition to obeying the motivation of the gesture were equally required of the heroic persona. I want to instance one final aspect of face acting, blushing, which may seem trivial to us today, but I think demonstrates the importance of the face was and of the actors' ability to have a unique control of facial expressiveness. If the evidence of the plays themselves is taken literally, then both male and female actors were

1 This placement of actors is prescient of box set blocking, but I suggest in this case, because of the nature of the Restoration forestage, the physical relationships suggested by Gildon should not be confused with later picture frame stage dynamics. In relation to the Restoration comedies, recent interpretations of pictorial depictions of the staging of plays by Etherege and Centlivre have been read as an argument for "natural blocking'' -certainly within the scenic stage. (Restoration and Georgian England, 166D-1788, Compiled and Introduced by David Thomas and Arnold Hare, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 109-111. 103 able to blush on demand. Blushing was both a social virtue and an acting requirement on the Restoration stage. As a physiological phenomenon, blushing evinces the humours theory, whereby an excess of blood rushing to the head showed as blushing in the face; according to post-Galenic physiology, the idea of emotion engendered in the mind ultimately and directly found expression in the body, especially the face. The result of thinking of shame would transform the body into a portrait of shame, thus, among other physiological changes, occasioning blood to rush to the face causing it to glow red. Blushing, in short, was evidence of the veracity of internal emotional processes of the actor, and a touchstone of his ability to appear truly moved. Furthermore, since blushing in an individual bore evidence of a conscience, it also served to demonstrate the virtue and morality of that person. Here again, we find the aesthetic and the moral being closely allied in Gildon's world. Just how common and conventional a response blushing was, is obvious from the amount of references to it in the contemporary texts. In Dryden's Cleomenes, Ptolemy is shamed in his neglect of kingly duty before another king: he blushes, citing love as his excuse for negligence: Pto. I have been to blame; And you have justly tax'd my long neglect. I am Young, and am a Lover; and how far Fair Eyes may make even King's forgetful. Look, And read my best Excuse. Cleanth. 0 Miracle! He Blushes! [Aside The first red Virtue I have ever seen Upon that Face. 1

1 Dryden: the Dramatic Works, VI, p. 349. 104

In addition to love, anger could equally motivate blushing, as we see in the following speech from Beauty in Distress :

Ric: Oh! how that blush of Rage, that sullen Grace, That scornful smile, now blended with a frown, That soft Emotion, and that wild Beauty Fire my hot blood! It mantles, bubbles, boyls! My full veins swell, and the revulsive Red Whirls flushing o're my Face. Oh I'm all transport! 1 The ability to drain colour from the face seems to have been as necessary as the ability to add it by blushing. Certainly the use of white face make-up in the Restoration theatre would have made the pallor an easier effect to achieve than the blush, unless rouge, which I doubt, were employed in some sort of stage trick. For example, just as appearing to pale can be suggested by a look of astonishment, blushing can be suggested by inclining the head, thus requiring no actual colour change in the face. In Lee's Theodsius, a lowered head is associated with a pallid face; Athenais is farewelling Varanes, knowing they will never meet again, forgiving each other their past transgressions:

Farewell most lovely, and most lov' d of men; Why comes this dying paleness o're your Face? Why wander thus thy eyes? Why dost thou bend As if the fatal weight of Death were on thee? 2 In some cases the actor was required to accomplish both actions-blushing and blanching - the one after the other, as may be seen in this extract from The Royal Mischief:

Selima: 0 I see well the dark Confusion of thy Soul; How the Blood flushes to your guilty Face, Then sinks again, and leaves pale Fear behind. 3

1 Peter Motteux, Beauty in Distress, London: 1698, pp. 44-45. 2 Lee, Works, p. 292 3 Manly, The Royal Mischief, p. 33. 105

This facility for blushing and paling was, like bringing tears to the eyes, commented on and even looked for by observers of acting. Betterton, for instance, was known to be able to accomplish both physiological feats of facial encolouration. One spectator noted Betterton's pallor in the closet scene appearance of his father's ghost. His naturally ruddy and sanguine countenance was observed "to turn instantly on the sight of his father's spirit, as pale as his neckcloth, when every article of his body seemed to be affected with a tremor inexpressible."1 Of course, this ability is probably an indication of Betterton's identification with his role, another feature for which he was generally acknowledged. Identification, here, means that Betterton was able fully to conceive of the idea of a passion so that its outward form or persona was visibly and successfully communicated through his body and voice to those who beheld his performance. Certainly Anthony Aston noted that "Betterton from the time he was dressed, to the end of the play, kept his mind in the same temperament and adaptness, as the present character required."2 Blushing and its converse is only one example of the significance of the face to Bettertonian acting. I want to conclude this section now, before moving on to discuss the voice, by instancing the central importance of the face in the critiques of the period, scant though they are. The facility of Restoration actors in facial acting is further borne out in the contemporary criticism, where it is frequently highlighted. Thomas Wilkes spoke of John Verbruggen "whose eye had an infinity of fire, and who had a great

1 Quoted in Joseph, The Tragic Actor, p. 38. 2 Aston, A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber, Esq. in Actors on Acting, p. 115. 106 command of face." Moreover, the story goes, Verbruggen's look could kill; and he is supposed to have fatally fixed a bailiff with his inimitable ''Bajazet look" in order to secure his freedom.l This may be fanciful not to say apocryphal, but it does give some indication of how an actor's reputation could be built on the success of his ex­ pressive physiognomy. Cibber records that

when the Betterton Brutus was provok' d, in his dispute with Cassius, his spirit flew only to his eye; his steady look alone supply' d that terror, which he disdain' d an intemperance in his voice should rise to. Thus, with a settled dignity of contempt, like an unheeding rock, he repelled upon himself the foam of Cassius.2 Betterton's characteristic restraint and selectivity is once more apparent in his Brutus, another of his successful heroic roles. In this last quoted extract, we can also see how the face, an element of the actor's physicality-"his steady look alone supplied that terror"­ took precedence over the voice, which Betterton "disdain' d" lest "an intemperance in his voice should rise to." * * * Gildon places the voice second in importance to gesture, not because he considered vocalization less significant than gesture­ indeed he concedes that "A Mastery in these two Parts is what compleats an Actor" (p. 33)-but because he was trying to redress the imbalance created, in his view, by the playwrights of his age, who "have erroneously apply' d themselves to write what requires just Speaking, than just Acting'' (p. 81); hence his emphasis on the physicality of the actor. Like the body, the voice offered the actor another persona, Gildon may be interpreted as saying,

1 Thomas Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, (London, 1759), p. 299. 2 Cibber, Apology , p. 62. 107 supplementary to and in sympathy with the various bodily personae, through which to express the concept of character; and, in this regard, affording a hearing to Gildon on the voice, helps to complete the picture of him as a personaeity theorist. Much of what Gildon maintains in respect of the actor's body is also paralleled in what he says of the employment of the voice. Just as there is a neutral position for the body, so there is a neutral voice to be used in acting; just as the actor must alter his personae according to the character he is playing and all that implies in the neoclassical aesthetic, so too the voice must be shaped according to those same principles in respect of the decorum of character; and, just as the passions place certain demands of personaeity on the body, similarly they shape the voice according to their emotional demands. I want to look at each of these issues in turn, ultimately turning to contemporary accounts of vocal usage among Betterton and his contemporaries in order to substantiate Gildon's theory by relevant critical comparison. Let us focus first on what Gildon regarded as the ideal in vocal utterance, just as we have already considered his ideal in bodily expression.When an actor was not in a passion-addressing the audience, commenting on the action, providing narration or exposition-he was expected to govern his voice in ways appropriate to vocal neutrality, comparable to the manner in which the actor was required to place his body in a position of elegant neu­ trality when not embodying a passion. ''In speaking of Things natural, when you design only to make your Hearers understand you, there is no need of Heat or Motion, a clear and distinct Voice and Utterance is sufficient; because the informing the Understanding being here all the Business, the moving the Will 108

and passions has nothing to do" (p. 110). Here the actor might use a level voice, quite different to that tone in which he does justice to the "Turns, Risings, Fallings, and all other Variations suitable to ... the Passions" (p. 102). The neutral voice also found its function in the voice that the actor was to use in the transitions between passions. Of great importance was the manner in which the actor made the adjustment from one voice to another, in and out of the appropriate vocal masks of the various passions. The actor, says Gildon, must not "start out of one tone into another with too remarkable a distinction of the latter from the former; but slide from one to the other with all the Moderation, Softness and Address in the World; else to those, who see you not, it will seem the Speech of some other Person" (pp. 109-10). Gildon recommends a deliberately relaxed vocal state be assumed after a particularly violent emotion:

... when you come to cool on a violent Passion, and recover your self from a transport, you ought to lower the tone of your Voice in such a manner, as may express that languidness of your Faculties and Speech, which the stretcht Extent of your Passion has produc' d (p. 124). This cooling after a passion would serve to highlight and isolate the emotions by relief, while also providing the actor with a respite between emotional stretches:

You must ... begin with a low and modest Voice ... and raise it by degrees up to such a height of Passion and Warmth as may be necessary for your Purpose, and the Energy of the Subject; else first you would put your self out of Breath, for want of a prudent Conduct at your first Start, so that you would be able to return to that Moderation, which allows ways to heighten the rest and more important parts of your Speech to a degree above the Beginning (pp. 124-25). 109

This method of relaxing between passions was apparently exercised by Barton Booth, Betterton's acknowledged successor, who pushed the practice to a near fault. As evidence of this in Booth,Theophilus Cibber recorded, that "he was often subject to a kind of indolence, which some people imagine he affected, to shew that even in his lazy fits he was superious [sic] to every body upon the stage, as if se­ cure of all beholders hearts, neglecting he could take them."1 "A true Medium of the Voice" should be maintained in most cases. Just as a medium body was the most desirable in an actor, the voice should never be strained too high, nor kept too low. (This is the vocal equivalent of never raising the hands above the eyes, and of always keeping the arms in view). "To strain" the voice, says Gildon, "always to the height, would be a Bawling or a Monotony, a Cant, or Identity of Sound" (p. 106). A voice forced "perpetually to the last Extremity,"he further observes, would, like the string of a musical instrument that has been screwed up too tightly, break under the strain. At the other extreme, however, a voice which is too effeminate and soft betrays feebleness, detracts from the energy of what is being said and fails to raise the passion of the discourse in the auditors (pp. 106-107). Here, then, the 11true medium" or level voice of the unimpassioned speaking tone may be seen as a vocal mask of dignity and decorum, comparable to the physical persona which the tragic actor wore in repose. The "true Medium Voice" must avoid monotony which was to Gildon the great enemy of the theatre and to what he termed "just speaking" on the tragic stage. ''We have had some Actors of Figure," says Gildon, "who have an admirable Tone of Voice, the

1 Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 181. 110

Beauty of which they perverted into a Deformity, by keeping always in the very same identity of Sound, in the very same Key, nay the individual Note" (p. 102). Monotony is really a catchment term for all the ills of theatrical delivery which Gildon included in his above quoted reference to "Bawling or a Monotony, a Cant, or Identity of Sound" (p. 106). From this it may be seen that Gildon, for one, lumped all these ills together as monotony. The point is that canting, speaking in cadences, intoning, all qualify as montony if they are, by definition, unvaried and mindless, automatic and repetitive. Furthermore, all of these faults eventuate from a lack of comprehension on the part of the actor, who has failed to sense or understand his text. The age of reason demanded the clarity of the argument of the drama be made manifest by the actor's performance. That "intolerable Vice of Monotony," or "always sounding the same Note on all Occasions, without any or very little Variation" (p. 138), sinned first and foremost against variety, which was the cornerstone of Gildon's acting theory:

... for in Music, so in Speaking, 'tis the Variety, which makes the Harmony; and as for a Fidler or Lutinist, or any other Performer in Music, to strike always the same String and Note, would be far from tolerable Music, that it would be ridiculously insufferable and dull, so can nothing grate the Ear so much, or give the Auditors a greater Disgust, as a Voice still in the same Tone, without Division or Variety (pp. 102-3). A "stiff uniformity of Voice " also "disappoints the Effect of the Discourse on the Hearers" (p. 103). The actor's task is to awaken the passions in the breasts of the audience. Monotony militates against this in two ways. First, "there is no greater Opiate in Speaking, nothing so dull and heavy, as fit to lull us asleep, as a whole 111

Discourse turning still on the same Note and Tone." Secondly, and, because the duty of the tragedian was to act as a moral exemplar, more importantly, a monotonous voice is an unpersuasive one, and has been catalogued as such since the time of Pollux's Onamasticon, from which Gildon quotes:

... the Power of the reasoning Part, the Lustre and Ornament in the Figures, the heart, the Warmth, and Vigour of the Passionate part being express' d all in the same Tone, is flat and insipid, and lost in a supine, or at least immusical Pronunciation. So that, in short, that which ought to strike and stir up the Mfections, because 'tis spoken all alike, without any Distinction or variety, moves them not at all (pp. 102-4). The way to avoid monotony was to vary the voice according to what is required by the passions and the subjects of the dramatic discourse, and to do this in accordance with harmony and beauty. This is, for Gildon, the "Art of varying the voice, according to the Diversity of the Subjects, of the Passions you would express or excite, stronger or weaker, higher or lower, as will be most agreeable to what you say" (p. 105). Each of the passions was heard in a different voice, just as each passion meant a physical transformation of the actor, which, like all other conventions of neoclassical acting, were derived from nature, as Gildon outlines in the following:

Nature tells us, that in Mourning, in melancholy, in Grief, we must and do express our selves in another sort of Tone and Voice, than in Mirth, in Joy, in Gladness: Otherwise in Reproof of Crimes, &c. than in Comforting the Mflicted: Otherwise when we upbraid a Man with his Faults, then when we ask Pardon for our own; otherwise when we threaten, than when we promise, pray or beg a Favour; otherwise when we are in a good humour, the Passions all calm, and the Mind in perfect 112

Tranquillity, than when we are rais'd with Anger, or provok'd by ill Nature. (p. 104) The nature Gildon refers to is, of course, universal, neoclassical nature-what may be termed truths common to all men mediated through the one agent, the actor, not the idiosyncratic experience of the individual per se; nature as it pertains to personaeity not personality. In terms of the voice, then, the appropriate vocal personae of the various passions are to be found in such a catalogue as Gildon provides in the following:

Thus will he best express Love by a gay, soft and charming Voice; his Hate, by a sharp, sullen, and severe one; his Joy, by a full flowing and brisk Voice; his Grief by a sad, dull and languishing Tone; not without sometimes interrupting the Continuity of the Sound with a Sigh or Groan, drawn from the very inmost of the Bosom. A tremulous and stammering Voice will best express his Fear, inclining to Uncertainty and Apprehension. A loud and strong Voice, on the contrary, will most naturally show his Confidence, always supported with a decent Boldness, and daring Constancy. Nor can his auditors be more justly struck with a Sense of his Anger, than by a Voice or frequent taking of the Breath, and short Speaking (pp. 113-14). Although, as we have said, these vocal states were often separated by the neutral voice to highlight their individual impact, evidence from the plays shows that vocal elisions were not unusual occurrences. Boadicea, in the play of that name, observes:

I heard you moan; one while your Voice was faint, And softly murmur' d out your sad Complaint: Then rising to a bold and angry strain, You spoke, as might express extremest Pain, Like troubl'd Seas your noble Rage wrought high, 113

And mounting menac'd the relentless Sky.l Reminiscent of Gildon's remarks about the actor varying his face, after the manner of a malleable mask, to suit his character, the "best actors," asserts Gildon, "change their Voice according to the Qualities of the Persons they represent, and the Condition they are in, or the Subject of their Discourse" (p. 105). Anger, to take just one example from the above quotation, is represented by "a Voice or Tone, that is sharp, violent and impetuous, interrupted with a frequent taking of the Breath, and Short Speaking" (p. 114). But anger is expressed differently according to the age and status of the persons so affected, in keeping with the proprieties of neoclassicism. Two contrasting examples of this may be found in the anger of the young hotblood in Hotspur, and the contrasting anger of Old Ca­ pulet. Hotspur and Capulet are differentiated by age, but bound by their common nobility and their common passion. Decorum requires the dignity of the heroic ideal be maintained, but that their anger be distinguished according to their years. I will consider the two cases separately. In Henry IV, stung by the King's unwillingnes to help his kinsman, Hotspur maintains an energetic anger, seething but contained, surfacing, somewhat rawly every now and then, in the name "Mortimer," the object of the emotion; thereby gaining vitriol but still controlled anger on each successive "Mortimer":

He said he would not ransom MORTIMER, Forbad my Tongue to speak of MORTIMER, But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I'll hollow MORTIMER. Nay, I'll have a Starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but MORTIMER, and give it to him, To keep his Anger still in Motion.

1 Charles Hopkins, Boadicea, London: printed for Jack Tonson, 1697, p. 39 114

Why look ye, I am whipt and scourg' d with Rods, Nettl'd and stung with Pissmires, when I hear Of this vile politician Bullinbrook, &c. (p. 114) Gildon, who has quoted this example on his own behalf, concludes that these are "the Accents of a Man all on Fire, and in a Fury next to Madness" (p. 116). There is a youthfulness in the manner Hotspur builds his anger, without interruption, gaining strength with each ''Mortimer." In addition to the impetuosity of their youthful anger, the lines, Gildon maintains, must also be spoken with an "elevated Tone," because they are the sentiments of a nobleman. The anger of age comes in short sentences, "puffing and blowing," taking his breath "at every Point, as if his Passion had choak'd up his Delivery, and he could not for Anger and Choler utter more Words together" (p. 117). Juliet's defiance of her father's wish she should marry the County Paris, is an example, and, again, it is one whwich is quoted by Gildon himself:

How now! How now! chop Logic? What's this? Proud! and I thank you! and I thank you not! Thank me no Thankings; nor proud me no prouds; But settle your fine Joints 'gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to St. Peter's Church, Or I will drag thee in a Hurdle thither. Out you Green-sickness Carrion; out you Baggage; Out you Tallow-Face (p. 116). The broken utterance, short expressions, abrupt punctutation all indicate the huffing and puffing anger of the old father. There is, moreover, an implicit pause after "thither" in order to accommodate a response from Juliet, which also allows Capulet time briefly to pause before launching himself into the extreme rage of the last two lines, when Juliet's answer is not forthcoming. But 115 this extremity must not jeopardize the dignity inherent in the status of the paterfamilas-a figure of elevated position. In an effort to capture vocally the importance and puissance owed to the noble heroic figure, the common mistake of Restoration and eighteenth century tragic acting was bombast, which mistook loudness for prestige in vocal character interpretation. "Homer," says Gildon making his position clear on the matter of bombast, "never reckoned Stentor among his fine speakers" (p. 85). On the evidence of plays like The Rehearsal (1671), bombastic delivery seems to have been especially identified with the Restoration through the heroic tragedies of the period. According to A.S. Downer, rant was the "commonest method of delivery for tragic verse"l throughout the entire eighteenth century. Certainly, Dryden saw vociferation as an index of poor taste in his preface to Troilus and Cressida (1679):

The roar of passion, indeed, may please an audience, three parts of which are ignorant enough to think all is moving which is noise, and it may stretch the lungs of an ambitious actor, who will die upon the spot for a thundering clap; but it will move no other passion than indignation and contempt from judicious men. 2 Another sally in the same direction was launched by John Crowne in his dedication to Henry the Sixth (1681): "when an actor talks sense, the audience begins to sleep, but when an unnatural passion sets him grimacing and howling as if it were in a fit of the stone, they immediately waken, listen, and stare."3

1 A.S. Downer, "Nature to Advantage Dressed: Eighteenth-Centruy Acting," PMLA, LVIII (1943), p. 1021. 2 Dryden, The Dramatic Works V, pp. 22-23 .. 3 Crowne, Henry the Sixth, n.p. 116

Whether it was due to overblown verses or indiscriminate audiences, out-Heroding Herod was not to be tolerated, as Gildon, who maintained that actors who rely on their lungs alone are like cripples who use horses to compensate for their legs, endorses Hamlet's remonstrance against tearing a passion to tatters; moreover, he shows that the better players managed to avoid this kind of claptrap (pp. 84-5).1 For an instance of this we can turn to ''Betterton's" account of Mr. Goodman in the part of Alexander the Great-a part which Cibber noted for its natural propensity for vainglorious ranting. Gildon's persona-Betterton maintains that Mr. Goodman "always went through it [the role of Alexander] with all the Force the Part requir' d, and yet made not half the Noise, as some who succeeded him; who were sure to bellow it out in such a manner, that their Voice would fail them before the End" (p. 84). Betterton himself was a famous Alexander; one who was recalled by Cibber favourably for keeping the excesses of the role in check. Even Anthony Aston, who ordinarily had some uncomplimentary things to say about Betterton, admits that "Betterton kept his Passion un­ der, and show'd it most'' thereby.2 Betterton is said to have possessed a powerful voice, which makes his restraint in the employment of it all the more exceptional; it would seem that Betterton tried to stay within the "true medium of the Voice," which Gildon advocated. Cibber remarks on Betterton's manly rather than sweet voice; a voice of

1 Acting at the fullest stretch of the lungs was by no means unique to the Restoration: Garrick was said to have reduced himself to hoarseness as Richard III (John Hill, The Actor, 1750, p. 48); Holman, in the Kemble era, was labelled as one to ''bellow, rant and rave,/Like some vile stroller on Acting at the fullest stretch of the lungs was by no means a country stage." (Modern Stage Exemplified, 1788, p. 24). 2 Aston, A Brief Supplement in Actors on Acting, p. 115. 117

more strength than melody. (Aston saw it as both "low and grumbling.")1 Betterton could draw on his resources of vocal strength when it suited the occasion, however. For example in quieting a fractious audience, he "could Time it [his voice] by an artful Climax, which enforc' d universal Attention, even from the Fops and Orange-Girls," Aston recorded.2 Love and Honour, the two staple virtues of heroic tragedy, demanded two distinct vocal personae. "The hero in tragedy," said Farquhar in Love and a Bottle (1698), "is either a whining cringing fool, that's always stabbing himself, or a ranting hectoring bully, that's for killing everybody else."3 And in 1759 Thomas Wilkes could still say that "a turgid vociferation or effeminate whine, accompanied by the most outrageous and unnatural rants, were mistaken for the best display of the heroic and tender passions." 4 Whining and ranting then were misconceived representations of what was expected of the tragedian in the role of the tragic hero and lover. The one was an attempt to achieve what Gildon called the "gravity and composedness expected of a tragedian"(p. 31); the other, the soft and tender addresses of the lover. J.H. Wilson points out that, neither in the heroic tragedies themselves nor in their parodies, are there any stage directions which describe the heroic or the amorous voices of the tragic actor. Not only was this exaggerated style of heroic playing parodied in works like The Rehearsal (1671), The Empress of Morocco (1673), The Mock-Tempest (1674), The Psyche Debauch' d (1675), which were

1 Aston, A Brief Supplement in Actors on Acting, p. 115. 2 In Lowe, Thomas Betterton, pp. 184-5. 3 In J.H. Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage," Studies in Philology, LII, (1955), p. 594. 4 Thomas Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, London: 1759, p. 107. 118 contemporaneous with the short-lived vogue for writing rhymed tragedies, but as late as 1810 when Bombastes Furioso appeared, the genre was still being satirized.l In the tragedies and mock tragedies there was apparently no need to underline the obvious by explicit stage directions. However, there is evidence of the vocal persona of the lover. In Aphra Behn's comedy, The City Heiress (1682), Lady Galliard complains of Sir Charles Meriwell, who courts her in the manner of a stage lover: "would he but leave his whining, I might love him, if 'twere but in revenge," her ladyship wryly remarks.2 A good example of the text designed to lend itself to a whining cant, albeit rather ironically, may be found in Congreve's The Double Dealer (1693):

Ah! why are you so fair, so bewitching fair? 0 let me grow to the ground here, and feast upon that hand! 0 let me press it to my heart, my trembling heart! The nimble movement shall instruct your pulse and teach it to alarm desire. [Aside ] Zoons! I'm almost at the end of my cant if she does not yield quickly.3 Here Careless is instructed to woo Lady Plyant "In a whining tone"; and the seeds of this, albeit ironical, but still protracted expostulation may be seen in a straight version from Lee's The Rival Queens (1677): "0 my Statira! 0 my angry dear!/ Turn thine eyes on me, I would talk to them."4 Another kind of vocal affectation associated with Restoration acting is the nasal twang/ which seems to have been the unfortunate result of the actors/ efforts to achieve the persona of

1 Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage," pp. 596££. 2 Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage, p. 594. 3 Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage, p, 594. 4 Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage, p. 594. 119 vocal dignity appropriate to the tragic hero. 1 Most of the criticism of this mode of delivery points up its flatness, drawing comparisons with bagpipes to suggest the right degree of droning delivery. Joseph reminds us, however, that a twang could also be a "clear, sharp, but melodious, ringing sound such as that made by a posthorn."2 When Reynardson recalled Powell in his satirical poem, "The Stage"

(1713), he said that Powell"twangs majestically full," 3 but it is not certain whether Reynardson had the horn or the pipes in mind. What the comment does show, however one reads it, is that full­ ness of voice and majesty of voice-the vocal persona of heroic character, in effect-were closely allied in the aesthetic consciousness of the time. Just as the body aspired to the ideal of classical statuary, the voice tried to achieve its heroic identity in sonorous fullness. The majestic vocal persona was a mask which the tragedian was expected to wear, but only where appropriate in serious dramas. ''In as consequential manner, and as regular a cadence he used in Pyrrhus, when replying to the embassy of Orestes," Denis Delane is said to have swelled the comic prose of Boniface in The Beaux Stratagem, "that not only blank verse was swelled to a most disgustful monotonous pomposity, but even the common prose dialogue was versified by utterance."4 Of course the serious dramas

1 Those who accuse the Restoration theatre of exhibiting an unfortunate French influence often point to nasality in speaking as proof of the adverse influence of the Stuart court's sojourn in France. But as B.L. Joseph The Tragic Actor, p. 29 argues, the dissenting preachers who were the notorious practitioners of these "fantastic and extravagant tones," which S. Butler placed somewhere ''between singing and braying," provided a convenient and domestic source for this nasality to have sprung from. 2 Joseph, The Tragic Actor, p. 29. 3 "The Stage," p. 27 . 4 Francis Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor, or Critical Companion, 1770, 2 vols. Bell, Rpt. Farnborough: Gregg, 1969, I, p. 477. 120 seldom offered prose dialogue for the actor to speak: the choice was rhymed couplets or blank verse, with the latter predominating historically. ''In Dryden's plays of Rhime," Cibber observes of Stanford, whose delivery was known to differ eccentrically from the rest of the Bettertonian school of actors, "he as little as possible glutted the Ear with the Jingle of it, rather chusing, when the scene would permit him, to lose it, than value it."1 From what one can gather from Cibber's account of Betterton's acting, the great tragedian was able to speak in both a natural and a melodious way; 2 that is to say, Betterton was able to give something that sounded like recognisable speech while still preserving that "poetic glow''3 which distinguishes dramatic verse from colloquial conversation. In his preference for acting style, Cibber favoured sound rather than sense. He even forgave the fustian Nat Lee put into the mouth of his Alexander, saying when those "flowing Numbers come from the Mouth of a Betterton" the audience "no more desired sense to them, than our musical Connoisseurs think it essential in the celebrate Airs of an Italian Opera."4 Gildon was categorical that the tragic voice should be distinct from the operatic one: he argues that there was no place for recitatives in serious drama and lays the blame for this on "Opera's [which] ... have of late been dangerous Rivals of the Drama" (p. 142). Gildon speaks disparagingly of the "emasculating Sounds" of opera, and incorporates arguments from St. Evremond, quoting at length from the latter's letter to the Duke of Buckingham: ''But who

1Cibber, Apology, pp. 80-1. 2 Cibber, Apology, p. 61. 3 The Tragic Actor, p.62. 4 The Tragic Actor, p. 63. 121

can support the dull Tediousness of the Recitativo, which has neither the Charm of Song, nor the agreeable force of good Speaking" (p. 161). This did not mean that theatre diction was without its natural music. In his preface to Fatal Love (1680), Settle commented on the musical quality of theatre utterance: "the Theatre Royal was once all harmony, where the heroic muses sung so sweetly, and with voices so perfectly musical, as few could escape enchantment." Again, in 1692 Settle was still able to observe, in his preface to The Fairy Queen this time, that the chief difference between an opera and a tragedy was "that the one is a story sung with proper action, the other spoken. And he must be a very ignorant player, who knows not there is a musical cadence in speaking, and that a man

may as well speak out of tune, as sing out of tune." 1 Cibber echoes this sentiment:

The voice of a Singer is not more strictly tyed to time and tune, than that of an actor in theatrical elocution: the least syllable too long, or too slightly dwelt upon, in a period, depreciates it to nothing; which very syllable, if rightly touched, shall, like the heightening stroke of light from a master's pencil, give life and spirit to the whole. 2 It must not be forgotten that, while The Life may be regarded as an acting manual, it is also a book of instruction for public speakers in parliament, the law courts and the church. Most of the rules, as has already been mentioned, derive from Cicero and Quintilian on the subject of oratory. Gildon concedes this debt, while observing that the same rules apply for the orator as for the actor, but that in the actor's case he must apply the rules with a

1 Wilson, "Rant, Cant, and Tone on the Restoration Stage, " p. 596. 2 Cibber, Apology, p. 66. 122 more demonstrative performance than the orator: "allow a more strong, vivid and violent Gesture to the Plays, than to either of the other." In other words, the stage is a more exaggerated form of public speaking, and still tied to the ancient rhetorical tradition as a result of this. The synonymity of the actor and the orator dates back to the Elizabethan period; in 1615 John Webster observed that "whatever is commendable in the grave orator, is most exquisitely perfect in him,"1 referring to the actor. What rhetoric taught the scholar, Thomas Heywood said, was a lesson the actor had also to learn:

to speak well, and with judgement to observe his commas, colons,and full points; his parentheses, his breathing spaces, and distinctions [... ] 2 Gildon devotes considerable space to outlining the rules of speaking according to the mechanics of punctuation and figures of speech.3 Most of these have already been seen in Gildon's theory, but more might be said about the instructions the actors found in the words, sentences and figures of speech they spoke. In the Spectator No. 542, John Hughes called on the actors of the early eighteenth century to reform their acting in accordance with the rules of rhetorical delivery as laid down by Cicero.4 Hughes' outcry suggests that the rhetorical tradition was in danger of dying out with Betterton in the early eighteenth century. * * *

1 John Webster, "An Excellent Actor" (1615), in the Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse of Sir Thomas Overbury, ed. by E.F. Rimbault, London: 1856, p. 147. 2 In Actors on Acting, p. 87. 3 The Life, pp. 129, 132, 136. 4 See Joseph, "Acting and rhetoric," Theatre Notebook, I, No. 4, July 1946, p. 44. 123

In the various aspects we have so far considered-the actor's public persona, and the various performative personae of the actor's aesthetic life-control has figured as a recurrent theme: control (sobriety, in fact) in one's private life; control of gesture, in measured, moderate and monitored movements; facial control; vocal control. Betterton's personal acting style was known for its control; for suggesting more by ostensible suppression. None of this is surprising: the world of Gildon and of Betterton is the world of reason and neoclassicism: the theatrical ideal is that of the hero who can control himself and his emotions in the face of various tests of passion's demands. Judging by the evidence of the serious dramas themselves, heroic behaviour was presented on the Restoration stage as restrained behaviour: the hero was subject to passions, but celebrated his native reason by his ability to conquer his emotions through his heroic nature-his reasonableness. This was a post­ humanistic conception which is congruent with the expectations of the age of reason. But even in the Elizabethan period, Hamlet advises the players in his well known admonition-''but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness"l-not to be excessive in the performance of high emotions. Going back earlier still: in the medieval period, excessive conduct, made manifest as excessive performance, was associated with evil. Out-Heroding Herod is an obvious example but no less a telling one, which singles out the villainous, satanic infanticide of the mystery plays and contrasts him to the

1 Hamlet, III, ii, 11 5 ff. 124 forebearing, good figures in Noah-Abraham, Joseph, and naturally Christ. Devils in the medieval theatre were known for their stage excesses. Being out of control was evil in terms of morality and bad in terms of stage performance. Comparisons with the medieval theatre are also made by Gildon's contemporaries, for example, in Wright's Historia Histrionica, where reference to the medieval theatre is made to justify the need for the then present theatre to act as a vehicle of moral worth and value.l In Restoration drama, characters who are out of control are either suffering the dues of poetic justice-that is to say consumed by their own overweaning passions-or they are exotic characters, like Eastern potentates, of whom the Restoration theatregoer expects such outlandish behaviour. In the last scene of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe, Zayda describes Nourmahal's madness in terms both physical and metaphysical:

Zayd. She's lost, she's lost! but why do I complain For her, who generously did life disdain! Poison' d, she raves----- Th'invenom'd Body does the Soul attack; Th'invenom'd Soul works its own poison back. And then Nourmahal herself accounts for her condition in her own words:

Nour. I burn, I more than burn; I am all fire: See how my mouth and nostrils flame expire. I'll not come near my self----- Now I'm a burning Lake, it rowls and flows; I'll rush, and pour it all upon my Foes. Pull, pull, that reverend piece of Timber near: Throw' t on 'tis dry 'twill burn-- Hal hal how my old Husband crackles there! Keep him down, keep him down, turn him about: I know him; he'll but whiz, and strait go out.

1 Historia Histrionica, pp. 15 et seq. 125

Fan me, you Winds: what, not one breath of Air? I burn 'em all, and yet have flames to spare. Quench me: pour on whole Rivers. 'Tis in vain: Morat stands there to drive 'em back again: With those huge Bellows in his hands, he blows New fire into my head: my Brain-pan glows. See, see! there's Aureng-Zebe too takes his part; But he blows all his fire into my heart. Aur. Alas! what fury's this?1 N ourmahal becomes an all consuming conflagration, externalizing her passion so that she is not only capable of objectifying her own agony but also of mastering it at the same time and then directing it as a fantasy of vengeance against her husband. The "raving" scene is standard in Restoration dramas. The madness can be a consuming burning madness, as we have just seen above, and which may be instanced many times over, or it can be alternatingly hot and cold:

Dor. it may be so: I'm strangely discompos'd: Quick shootings through my limbs, and pricking pains, Qualms at my heart, Convulsions in my nerves, Shiv'rings of cold, and burnings of my entrails Within my little World, make medly War; Lose and regain, beat and are beaten back As momentary Victors quit their ground. Can it be poyson! poyson's of one tenour, Or hot or cold; this neither, and yet both. Some deadly Draught, some enemy of life Boils in my bowels, and works out my Soul. Ingratitude's the growth of ev'ry Clime; Affrick, the Scene remov' d, is Portugal. Of all Court-Service learn the common lot; To day 'tis done, to morrow 'tis forgot. Oh were that all my honest Corps must lye Expos' d to scorn and publick Infamy: My shameful Death will be divulg'd alone; The worth and honour of my Soul unknown.2

1 Dryden: the Dramatic Works IV, pp. 160-61. 2 Dryden: the Dramatic Works IV, p. 77. 126

This condition makes no distinction between the sexes; nor should it, since these confessions serve to underline the moral lesson of losing control. Let us consider, for example, Alexander's speech in his poison scene from The Rival Queens :

0 I am shot, a fork' d burning Arrow Sticks cross my shoulders, the sad Venom flies Like Lightning through my flesh, my bloud, my marrow. [... ] Hal what a change of Torments I endure? A bolt of ice runs hissing through my bowels. 'Tis sure the arm of Death, give me a Chair; Cover me, for I freeze, my teeth chatter, And my knees knock together. [ ... ] Hal who talks of Heav'n? I am all hell, I burn, I burn again.1 And yet, in these scenes, and the one I am about to quote below, there is a curious detachment which accompanies the madness: a kind of impersonality within an otherwise intimately personal situation. In the trammels of emotion, the subjects are still able to describe what is happening to them. In Lee's The Massacre of Paris, Marguerite, who is taking a sad leave of her husband but in reality is being thrown over by him for a more politically advantageous marriage recommended by his mother, is in extreme anguish and despair, and yet is still in control enough to give a self-commentary on her condition:

Ah, Guise, ah venerable Lorrain, view me, Behold me on the Earth, I swear I love As never Woman lov'd; I'm all a Brand, With, or without you, I am ne're at rest: Farewel; this Fever of my furious passion Burns me to Madness, yet I say, farewel.2

1 Lee, Works, pp. 279-80. 2 Lee, Works, p. 10. 127

Marguerite is grovelling on the ground and yet is still able to pull herself up, so to speak, to utter "yet I say farewel." And then after accusing Guise of being a "lukewarm lover" in his farewell:

Must to the business of the cursed State, Which will not let you think of dying Marguerite, Who to her last gasp will remember you. But see, I rave again, my Fits return: Yet pity me, for oh, I burn, I burn.l When, however, Marguerite is unable, because beside herself, to editorialize on her condition, the Cardinal provides the commentary here: ''I think I never heard so fierce a Passion:/She's

all Convulsion [... ]" 2 Usually, however, whenever Marguerite is in a fit, a state in which she becomes all convulsion, she is able to describe her condition in a detached manner, "But see, I rave again." In this detachment which the actors exhibit from their emotional embroilment, 3 we can see the essence of personaeity. Theirs are not personalities given over to their personal and specific concerns, what the characters exhibit are the personae of emotions; the character, as does the actor in performance, stands outside of the emotional state which is notionally being portrayed and is thus able to comment upon it. In the Restoration tragedies, detachment in the presentation of passions was upheld as an ideal. It reflects, as has been said above, Shakespeare: Hamlet's advice to the players about not being caught up in the whirlwind of the passions so that control of one's emotions is lost in the process. Now while this may be

1 Lee, Works, p. 10 .. 2 Lee, Works, p. 10.. 3 Michael Goldman, The Actor's Freedom, Towards a Theory of Drama,New York: The Viking Press, 1975, pp. 60-61 speaks of this cool, detached ability for self­ definition in relation to Racine's protagonists. 128

acknowledged as desirable for an actor who is to act convincingly on the stage even today, in the Restoration it was not just an aesthetic ideal but a socio-cultural ideal as well, and the theatre served to embody this ideal because it reflected the society's desires in this ideal. There is a sense here then of holding passion at arms length. Obviously passion on occasions carries away those who are pulled by its extremes. The rational, noble ideal is the golden mean. Sometimes departures from that mean may be documented by those who experience such changes. Or if the experience gets out of hand then there is always someone to point to this effect, just as the Cardinal in the passage above remarks of Marguerite that "She's all convulsion." Or again, in Regulus, when Fulvia goes mad as a result of the eponymous hero's onstage death, an onlooker remarks of her "Alas! she raves!"1 Yet again, in All for Love,Ventidius in an aside observes of Antony's dejection:

How sorrow shakes him! So now the Tempest tears him up by th' Roots, And on the ground extends the noble ruin.2 If the character who is trapped in the whirlwind of the passion is unable to disengage and make his own personal self-commentary, then a convenient bystander is always there to serve this purpose. What the Restoration theatre seeks to underline is the noble or heroic ideal. Even in sorrow, as we have just seen, Mark Antony is not just a ruin but a "noble ruin." In underlining this ideal the theatre makes a contrast between the human side of the protagonist and his heroic nature. In other words, a contest develops between

1 John Crowne, Dramatic Works, ed. by James Maidment and W.H. Logan, 4 Vols., London: H. Sotheran & Co., 1872-74, p. 218. 2 Dryden: the Dramatic Works IV, p. 197. 129

his nobility and his humanity; a contest in which the latter is mostly eclipsed by the former, although sometimes the vice versa is true. In Otway's Titus and Berenice, we see the lover Titus replace the emperor Titus:

When you are nam' d, he's from himself transform' d, And every way betrays how much he's charm' d. Love in his face does like a Tyrant rise, And Majesty's no longer in his eyes.l No suggestion here of the monarch loving like a monarch, but of the tyranny of love which rules a man, who happens to be a monarch, and the effect this has on him as a man. Now in Otway, whose oeuvre historians acknowledge betrays an interest in the sentimental, we are interested in the impact of this conflict on the man, not just on the role player. Reports come that Titus "weeps" and "laments,"2 and that he is agonizing and suffering about deciding between Rome's laws and the dictates of his own heart. When he arrives to tell Berenice they must part, Titus finds a dis­ traught Berenice who is all disorder and distress. Berenice points up the feeling emperor for us:

Ber .... You are an Emperor, and yet you weep! Tit. I grant it, I am sensible I do, I weep, alas! I sigh and tremble too.3 Here, in 1677, is the dawning of the eighteenth century preoccupation with the man of feeling; a sense of the man and his "personality" behind the neoclassical mask.4

1 The Works of Thomas Otway, edited by J.C. Ghosh, 2 Vols., Oxford: Clarendon press, 1932, p. 275. 2 The Works of Thomas Otway, p. 276. 3 The Works of Thomas Otway, p. 282. 4 All for Love introduces Antony in a similar vein: the man bemoaning the hero's status. 130

In Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus, Betterton's Brutus is confronted with the anguish of seeing his son punished. Titus, the son, accuses Brutus of having no fatherly feeling for his plight, "To sit unmov'd, and see me whipt to death? /Where are your bowels

now? Is this a Father ?" 1 Betterton then embarks on a passionate speech which is full of paternal emotion which appears to jettison the hero:

Think that I love thee by my present passion, By these unmanly tears, these Earthquakes here, These sighs that twitch the very strings of life: Think that no other cause on earth could move me To tremble thus, to sob, or shed a tear, Nor shake my solid Virtue from her point But Titus death: 0 do not call it shameful, That thus shall fix the glory of the World. I own thy suff'rings ought t'unman me thus, To make me throw my Body on the ground, To bellow like a Beast, to gnaw the Earth. To tear my hair, to curse the cruel Fates That force a Father thus to drag his bowels. TIT. 0 rise, thou violated Majesty, Rise from the Earth[... ] 2 Titus comments on the vitiated majesty of his father, seeing how his filial expectations denature the monarch. "[V]iolated majesty," then becomes in the son's mouth a telling comment on the heroic, idealized figure whose domestic sentiment lurks underneath it: this is not just a monarch but a father too. However, it is the monarch, not the father, which the son cannot bear to see on the ground. In Alcibiades, the Queen is prompted by her feelings to question the worth of noble titles, thereby questioning the heroic ideal:

Queen. Oh my Ardella, whither shall I turn?

1 Lee, Works, I, p. 373. 2 Lee, Works, I, p. 373. 131

I'm all o're flame, in ev'ry part I burn. Ar. Your Majesty-- Queen. Fool, Majesty! what's that? Th'Ill-natur'd pageant mockery of fate; When her ungrateful sportive pow'r she'd show. Raising us high-- To barr us of the benefits below. But I'le her servile Policy despise, And make her stoop to Loves great Victories) The Queen questions the very notion of majesty on the one hand, when she recognizes the symbol for its cold denial of feelings, but when, on the other, she wants to express those feelings for Alcibiades, she translates his natural virtues as she perceives them into true majesty:

In that brave Alcibiades there swarm So many graces, he's all over charm; Such killing Ayres in each part of him move, His Brow darts Majesty, and his Eye Love: Oh my Ardella, I am lost in thought! 2 Reason is heroic, being in control, a noble and fit state for a ruler and for the dignity of humankind. In Nero, Poppea happens upon Britannicus musing on the life of the soul. She dismisses her attendants, and prepares to move in on the unsuspecting Britannicus:

POP. Musing, and all alone? Syllana, go, The bottom of my Fate I'le quickly know: My Virtues are dethron'd, and passions rule; 0 Heav'ns! my crimes you have reveng'd at fu11.3 Poppea, interestingly enough, identifies loss of reason with loss of virtue, thus underscoring the appropriate moral dimension to being ruled by the passions. It should be remembered here that Gildon declared the moral purpose of the theatre its first duty to

1 The Works of Thomas Otway, p. 114. 2 The Works of Thomas Otway, p. 114. 3 Lee, Works, p. 56. 132

inform and instruct: "the Wit of Man cannot invent any more efficacious means of encouraging Virtue, and depressing Vice[... ] by the Ministrations of the Passions, which always have a stronger Remembrance, than the calmer precepts of Reason" (pp. 18-19). Supporting reason, taking the moderate and sane way, was what the Restoration theatre underlined as exemplary: rather like the ancient Greek virtue of sophrosyne, which meant nothing in excess, choosing the golden mean in behaviour. Heroes and heroines are enjoined, in moments of extreme emotion, to use their reason. In Regulus, the eponymous hero is returning to Carthage to face certain death, and Fulvia who is in love with Regulus sees this as a form of betrayal, to which Regulus counsels, "Dear Fulvia, calm yourself, and use your reason!"l Fulvia receives similar such advice at another point in the play, when Metellus

tells her: ''Y'are rash! command yourself." 2 In Alcibiades, when Alcibiades believes Timandra to be dead, he is beside himself; the not entirely unself-interested Queen gives the following advice: ''Why do you let greifs [sic] distract your Soul? /Call up your reason,

and let passion cool." 3 Gildon's theory of acting is a theory which is appropriate to a canon of dramatic literature that extols well governed behaviour as its heroic ideal. The principles and recommendations to the actor which are laid out in the Life offer the actor a system of acting whereby the movements of the body and the face, and the variations of the voice, may themselves be expressed in a controlled manner; indeed the system is designed so that very passions

1 Crowne, Works, p. 200. 2 Crowne, Works, p. 196. 3 The Works of Thomas Otway, p. 162. 133 themselves may be delineated through a disciplined technique. According to Gildon's rules, the actor's body must eschew the capricious in favour of statuesque and gracious deportment, and the actor's aesthetic self-awareness must superintend the deployment of the hands and arms, never raising the former above the eyes, thereby conveying the received convention of the passions while at the same time fulfilling the gracefulness of the beau ideal. The face must conform to the appropriate personae of the passions, but it must never become distorted or misshapen; nor should the voice be tested at the limits of the vocal extremities, but maintain a medium range. The discipline in this technique both better demonstrates the nature of the passions and shows, in its strictures, that the passions may be conquered and curbed through heroic behaviour; in this way Gildon's theory is a statement of control in both form and function. It is little wonder that Betterton is used as the appropriate persona to epitomize Gildon's theory of acting, because what is recorded of the great tragedian's acting, points to his ability to be theatrically compelling through artistic suppression and restraint. Gildon's treatise is a manifesto of personaeity acting because it de-emphasizes the actor's personality in favour of personaeity. Gildon's largely rhetorical and neoclassical system of acting presents the actor with an architecture of expression: the physical, facial and vocal masks which the actor assumes, are, I have maintained, personae which disguise the actor's intrinsic personality, while allowing him to express the universal configurations of generic identity which is at the heart of Gildon's neoclassical aesthetic. Even the actor's offstage identity, which is important to Gildon's theory in its moral dimension, draws on the public identity of the actor rather than his private personality. Personaeity demands a 134 universal player, moderate in body type and feature, who has the potential technically to configure all aspects of general humanity; and yet, ironically that very genericity is mediated through the singularity and distinctiveness of the individual, in the sense of the single actor-interpreter. While it stresses externality because it is after all a rhetorical and presentational style of acting, personaeity assumes an inner core of conviction and feeling: the body is the character imprint of the mind, and the more persuasive the exterior physicality, the more felt is the internality assumed to be. Such is the transparency of presentational characterization. Chapter II Aaron Hill: The Acting of Classical Emotionalism

At first glance, Aaron Hill's theory of acting seems to move measurably in the personality direction of the personaeity­ personality continuum along which all the theorists under present investigation are being located. His theorizing is almost exclusively dedicated to explaining the passions-the question of emotions in acting-and he avowedly aimed to divest acting of the rules of rhetoric. While it must be acknowledged that Aaron Hill's is perhaps the first attempt in English to deal with acting in its own terms, it is ironical to remark, that in attempting to jettison the rhetorical formulae of earlier theorists Hill has in fact reinvested his theory with its own system of quasi-rhetorical legislation. In short, Aaron Hill looks forward to the individuated emotionalism of the personality end of the continuum, and yet backwards in the direction of Gildon's rationalism and rhetoricism. Hill lays his emphasis on the mental and imaginative preparation an actor should make for the emotions he is to portray, and he must be acknowledged as a pioneer in this regard. "He who would act must think, for thought will find/The art to form the body by the mind." 1 He does not entirely leave bodily gesture and posture to chance, for Hill, like Gildon before him, firmly believes

1 The Prompter, No. 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, p. 127. 136 that the right kind of mental preparation produces the correct facial, vocal, and general physical expression of the emotion under consideration. The difference between Hill and Gildon, is that Hill makes this belief his major preoccupation. For example, Hill says:

Let a man ... recollect some idea of sorrow, his eye will, in a moment catch the dimness of melancholy, his muscles will relax into languour, and his whole frame of body sympathetically unbend itself into a remiss and inanimate lassitude. In such a passive position of features and nerves, let him attempt to speak haughtily and he will find it impossible. Let the sense of the words be the rashest and most violent anger, yet the tone of his voice shall sound nothing but tenderness. The modification of his muscles has affected the organs of speech, and before he can express sounds of anger in his voice he must, by conceiving some idea of anger, inflame his eye into earnestness and newknit and brace up his fibres into an impatience, adapted to violence-and then not only the voice will correspond with the visage, but the step, air, and movement, all, recovering from the languid and carrying marks of the impetuous and the terrible, flash a moving propriety from the actor to the audience that, communicating immediately the sensation it expresses, chains and rivets our attention to the passions we are moved by. 1 The foregoing represents Hill's theory in fine: the body automatically responding to the imaginative conception of the mind, and, as a consequence, affecting the audience with the expressed emotion. In order to look more appreciatively at this theory of acting, it will be necessary to consider the following: first, the extent and diversity of Hill's writings on theatre; the moral purpose he thought the stage should serve; and his objections to the acting of the 1730s, following the termination of the Cibber-Booth-Wilkes triumvirate. Thereafter will follow a discussion of Hill's system of acting the passions, including the role ascribed to feeling, and what

1 The Prompter, No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, pp. 84-5. 137

Hill has to say about breaking the tones of utterance, pausing, emotional transitions and those other features of performance for which Garrick became famous. Unlike Gildon's, Aaron Hill's theories of acting are not conveniently contained within the one volume of work. What Hill has to say about acting is preserved in various literary forms: in prose and verse, in periodicals, letters, and essays, which cover most of the first half of the eighteenth century. During this time, from 1709-10 when Hill was Collier's managing director (for one season) at Drury Lane, to the posthumous publication of his collected Works in 1753, Hill acted as a theatre reformer, playwright, and teacher of acting based on the system which he himself outlined in the 1730s and 40s. 1 In addition to his relentless pursuit of the dramatist's muse, who always eluded him except perhaps in his adaptations of

Voltaire Zara (1736) and Merope (1749), 2 Aaron Hill's next most cherished theatrical interest was management. After the season at Drury Lane in 1709, Hill spent the following year as director of the Opera in the Haymarket, filling both of these positions for a only short period of time in each case. Much later, in 1733, he unsuccessfully tried once again to acquire a share in Drury Lane, which was looking for patentees after the end of the Cibber-Wilks­ Booth regime. Following this disappointment Hill turned to journalism with his (and William Popple's) pioneer theatre journal, The Prompter (1734-36). This was not Hill's first use of

1 For these and other details of Hill's life and career, see Dorothy Brewster, Aaron Hill, Poet, Dramatist, Projector, New York: Columbia University Press, 1913. 2 Hill in fact adapted three of Voltaire's plays: Zaire (1732), Alzire (1736), and Merope (1734). 138

journalism to make theatrical pronouncements. In 1724, in another journal with the equally theatrical title of The Plain Dealer, Hill had already made some comments on the state of the theatre. However, The Plain Dealer, unlike The Prompter, of which half the numbers were about the theatre, was devoted in the main to matters of general interest, rather than the theatre. During the 1730s Hill was most active in theatre, as his critical biographer Dorothy Brewster encapsulates for us:

From 1730 to 1738, when he retired to Plaistow, he was concerned in one way or another with the stage: he wrote plays that were successful, a play that failed, and a play that no manager would produce; he elaborated a theory on the art of acting and practised it on several pupils, one of whom did him much credit; he wrote innumerable letters of advice to young actors and actresses; he had many ideas about national theatres and schools of dramatic art, and several schemes for theatrical management that almost came to something; he took an active part in the discussion over the regulation of the stage; and he published a periodical, The Prompter, in which all his schemes, ideas, and criticisms found expression) In many respects Hill, the great "projector" or engineer of

schemes, 2 had many innovative and revolutionary plans for the theatre. Many of his ideas were far ahead of their time. His pronouncements on scenery and costuming may be viewed in this light: Hill's ideas on historically accurate costuming, worked out principally in relationship to his play Athelwold, or the Generous Traitor,3 anticipate the nineteenth century theatre's interest in scenic antiquarianism. Hill also had revolutionary ideas about management and actor training. In a letter of July 5, 1733 to John

1 Brewster, Aaron Hill, Poet, Dramatist, Projector, pp. 113-4. 2 "The Life of Aaron Hill, Esq.," in Theophilus Cibber, The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland , Vol. V., (1753),Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung Hildesheim,1968, pp. 256 ff. 3 Works I, pp. 140-3. 139

Highmore, the manager of Drury Lane, Hill asked: who is fitter to run theatres-actors or those capable of teaching them how to become actors? 1 Hill unequivocally saw himself in the latter category. He quarrelled with the notion that actors must be "twenty years such, before they can expect to be masters of the air, and tread, of the stage." 2 Traditionally, actors joined theatrical companies as apprentices; learning from masters, they joined as hirelings, later becaming sharers if they were successful, or lived itinerant lives as journeymen if they were not. Hill saw the need and justification for

"academical theatre," 3 or acting academies for actor training. In a letter to James Thompson, of May 20 1736, Hill despaired that his schemes for stage reform had failed to attract the still very necessary royal patronage. 4 When the bricks and mortar of his acting academy did not materialize, Hill became a correspondence acting academy, writing letters to young actors and offering them coaching through the post.5 These letters range in character from the vague and generally helpful to the particular and detailed. Hill wrote a letter to a Mr. Bridgewater who was playing the part of Tamerlane: "Speak like an angel and move like a god," 6 was the inspired direction the letter contained. Generally, however, Hill's letters were practical in nature, and notable for the writer's following up his advice with further letters of observation and assessment. This was truly intended as constructive criticism on his part.

1 Works I, p. 190. 2 Preface to Zara , in The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill Vol. II, p. 25. 3 Works I, p. 194. 4 Works I, p. 316. 5 These letters were mostly written in october and November, 1733; see Works I, pp. 138,146,149,152,155,159,162,165,168,183. 6 Works I, p. 222. 140

The letters Hill wrote were addressed mostly to the amateur and provincial actors recruited by John Highmore, when he found himself with no actors after Theophilus Cibber led off the Drury lane company in revolt to the Haymarket.l This happened at the end of the 1732-33 season, and for the next season Highmore was forced to recruit raw and untried actors. It was to these actors that Aaron Hill became adviser and coach-largely by means of letters. Writing letters to players was a necessity for Hill, who did not like attending rehearsals, 2 where the playwright would conventionally read from his script and give direction to the actors. His preface to Zara, an adaptation of Voltaire's Zaire, reveals that the play was something of a test-case of Hill's acting theory. 3 This may be an overstatement of the position, but Hill did personally coach two of the cast of Zara: one was his highly unsuccessful nephew, Charles Hill; the other became the highly acclaimed Mrs. Susanna Cibber. Davies records that Hill's nephew exhibited a "certain stiffness in action and too laboured and emphatical an emphasis in speaking." 4 In fact he was laughed off the stage, the audience preferring the stage manager to read the part rather than

Charles Hill perform it. 5 If Davies' account of her as an actress is to be taken at face value, one wonders whether Mrs. Cibber required Hill's help at all. Davies speaks of her possessing "that simplicity which needed no ornament; in that sensibility which despised all art; there was in her

1 The London Stage, 1729-1747: A Critical Introduction, pp. xci-xcii. 2 Cp. Hill's letter to Garrick, dated March 29, 1749, asking Garrick to excuse him from the rehearsals of Merope. Works II, p. 349. 3 Preface to Zara, in The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill, Esq., (1760), Vol. II, p. 25. 4 T. Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick London;1808, Vol. I, Ch. 13 passim. 5 Cp. James T. Hillhouse, The Grub-Street Journal, Durham: NC, 1928, p. 204. 141

person little or no elegance; in her countenance a small share of beauty ... the harmony of her voice was as powerful as the animation of her look. In grief and tenderness her eyes looked as it they swam in tears; in rage and despair, they seemed to dart flashes of fire."l What Hill in fact did for Mrs. Cibber is, however, recorded in Davies' Dramatic Miscellanies. "He interlined her part with a kind of commentary upon it; he marked every accent and emphasis; every look, action, and deportment proper to the character, in all its

different situations, he critically pointed out." 2 In other words Hill helped Mrs. Cibber to "mark" her part, or to prepare her role, starting by scoring her script. Further details of this procedure may perhaps be found in a letter he wrote to David Garrick in 1749:

Take a separate note book; as fast as you discern the passions draw black and red lines underneath to distinguish-dramatic passion from complex passion, topic, or reflection. And with the same, mark One, Two, Three, Four etc., in the margin. Each figure refers to its explanation in the notebook. At the same mark, insert what passion, grace or elegance it is; and add all the proper memorandums on the attitudes, rests, breaks of voice, and other beauties, which concern the force you propose to express it with, and which you can refer back to for later use.3 Hill's coaching of Mrs. Cibber, however, was probably more thorough than this. Hill indicated to her "every breath, every pause, every variation in volume and pitch, every gesture and every motion." 4 Mrs. Cibber was used to such rote learning as this in her musical career. She was an Arne, daughter of the composer, and

1 Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Vol. II, p. 109. 2 Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Vol. I, pp. 172-3. 3 Works II, p. 382. 4 Mary Nash, The Provoked Wife: The Life and Times of Sussanah Cibber, (1977), p.89. 142

had been coached to sing in a rote manner by her brother, and by no less an instructor than Handel himself. Her "expressive contralto" was naturally suited to moving the hearts of her audiences.l An account in The Drury-Lane Journal of 1752 of Mrs. Cibber's Lady Macbeth, says, "the muscles of Mrs. Cibber's face are so finely formed by nature to answer the emotions of every passion which agitates the heart, that the effect is most strongly enforc'd

upon the audience." 2 The effects of the heart being muscularly expressed on the face are exactly how Hill envisaged the actor's internal creative process expressing itself outwards, and show here that similar such expectations were shared by journalistic reviewers, thus providing us with a measure of the impact of Aaron Hill's ideas on the theatre world of the mid eighteenth century. * * * If Gildon's writings on acting exemplify the acting of

Betterton, then Aaron Hill's theory of acting 3 may be said to be a prescience, generally speaking, of the acting of David Garrick. Gildon wrote at the close of the Betterton era, while Hill had substantially formulated his theory of acting before Garrick had even appeared on the stage. Garrick made his debut in 1741, but Hill did not see him act until 1744, two years before his Essay on the Art of Acting was published. However, most of what Hill has to say in his "Essay'' had already been worked out ten years earlier in the theatrical periodical The Prompter, 1734-36. After seeing David

1 The Provoked Wife, p. 89. 2 The Drury-Lane Journal, No. 10, March 19, 1752, p. 228. 3 Contained principally in: The Prompter: A Theatrical Paper (1734-1736), by Aaron Hill and William Popple; selected and edited by William W. Appleton & Kalman A. Bumim, New York: Benjamin Blom, 1966; "An Essay on the Art of Acting:, in The Works of Aaron Hill, London, 1754, Vol. IV, pp. 337-396. 143

Garrick as Macbeth, at the prompting of his friend David Mallet, Hill wrote to Mallet in April1740 saying that he was impressed with the actor's natural and easy quality, but that he was suspending judgement until he had a chance to witness Garrick in "the more agitated passions." 1 In 1746, Hill was very quick to apologize to Garrick in a letter dated June 30th for not having recognized his promise from the start, 2 and in another letter to Garrick in 1749 ultimately acknowledged him as the living proof of his theories. 3 Pictorialised and strongly expressed emotions were what appealed to Aaron Hill in the acting of David Garrick. 4 If Gildon's main emphasis is laid on form, then Hill's is placed on feeling (albeit feeling contained within formal frames) in stage performance. Praising Leonidas and Polydor, or the two actors playing those parts in Mallet's Eurydice, Hill observed in a letter to the playwright: "they were touched, and touched their hearers; for they spoke feelingly, that is, naturally, and without that stage vice, their eternal affectation of forced tone, with which they cover and efface the passions, they are endeavouring to heighten." 5 Although Hill here advocates natural and unaffected acting, his is still a formalized approach to the passions, based on study not intuition. "I take the knowledge of the passions," he wrote to an unnamed actor in 1733, "to be the only thing necessary, to make a finished actor."6 Although he owes more to Quintilian and Cicero than he

1 Works II, pp. 233-4. 2 Works II, p. 260. 3 Works II, pp. 351-352. 4 Works II, p. 352. 5 Works I, pp. 45 f. 6 Works I, p. 213. 144 acknowledges, Aaron Hill quite consciously asserts how wrong it is to apply the rules of rhetoric to the art of acting. "[F]or instead of examining nature, they look into Quintilian, not reflecting that the lessons he teaches his orator were directed to the bar, not the stage, and in consequence of that error falling into mistakes and absurdities which are so much the more ridiculous by that pretence of authority whereon they would ground their establishment." 1 One such "absurdity" is the rule, found in Gildon and elsewhere, 2 that the hands should never be raised above the eyes when striking a stage attitude. This is quite understandable in the court-room, Hill reasons, where deference must ever be paid to the judge at the bench. "But what is all this to the player," asks the theoretician, "who is sometimes to act a monarch who has no superior, and in whom actions of menace or sudden transports of indignation carry neither indecorum nor impropriety? Or, how shall he express, with proper gesture, any passionate appeals to heaven, any strong postures of starting and astonishment, without throwing up his arms to a height beyond the rule of Quintilian?"3 Aaron Hill's theory of acting required the availability of the actor's full pantomimic range for "strong postures of starting and astonishment." However, this did not mean that Hill paid no cognizance to the conventions and rules of decorum that we have already seen underlined in Gildon's neoclassicism. On the contrary, in a letter to an actor named Samuel Stephens, who had just played

Othello at the newly opened Covent Garden (1732), Hill wrote cautioning the offending player that he had knelt to Desdemona

1 The Prompter, No. 64, Friday, June 20, 1735, pp. 82-3. 2 See above pp. 72-73. 3 The Prompter, No, 64, pp. 82-83. 145

with his right foot turned inwards instead of outwards as it should

have been. 1 This was still a solecism in Hill's book, even though he did not devote sections of his writing, as Gildon had done, to the placement of the body, the hands, the head, and so on. Hill makes little reference to the actor's neutral posture or stage stance, since he is more concerned with the actor in the grip of passion-and even when he was not, the actor still had to act in the pauses. In terms of general stage deportment, however, Hill endorses

the orthodoxy of the heroic walk, 2 pointing, as Gildon had before him, to the need for the tragic hero to be dignified and stately in his movements. In an undated letter, following a letter of June 30 1746 in which he had also raised the matter, 3 Hill advised Garrick that he had still the "walk of tragedy" to master. 4 In his letter to Garrick of AprilS 1749, Hill conceded that Garrick had surpassed Booth in

"his most strikingly distinguished walk." 5 Booth, for his part, because of the "weight'' he brought to it, had epitomized for Hill all that was desirable in the tragic walk. 'Weight'' contributed the necessary solemnity and dignity to the movement of the tragedian; "weight " was a means of "dignifying natural ease, without ... stiffness."6 Hill visualised Booth as a "deep loaden ship," he was:

too heavy for a common breeze, which therefore, serv' d but to make him roll and heave:- But, in a gale, that threaten'd shipwreck to the cock-boats of the Theatre, he was sure to display his streamers; and sail' d steady and majestic, as if the force of a tempest had just breath

1 Works I, pp. 216 ff. 2 See above, pp. 82-4. 3 Works II, p. 262. 4 Works II, p. 359. 5 Works II, p. 362. 6 Works II, p. 263. 146

enough to move him.l This did not mean weight at the expense of feeling. The walk of tragedy was solemn-"the walk of weight and dignity''- but it

should not be "cold, decalmatory, and soniferous. " 2 Hill wanted both a dignified hero and a feeling hero: heroic, homiletic and emotionalistic. While Hill believed in the formal concept of the elevated tragic hero, he also contributed, through his plays, to the reinterpretation of this concept. Hill felt that the lives and feelings of the traditional heroes and heroines were too remote from their audience to be able to affect them emotionally; he says as much in the Prologue to The Fatal Extravagance :

The rants of ruin'd Kings, of mighty name, For pompous misery, small compassion claim. Empires o'erturned, and Heroes, held in chains, Alarm the mind, but give the heart no pains. To ills, remote from our domestic fears, We lend our wonder, but with-hold our tears. 3 He wrote domestic tragedies in an attempt to enable audiences to identify with the lives and feelings of the protagonists:

... from suchpassions, as our own, Some favourite folly's dreadful fate is shown; There the soul bleeds for what it feels, within; And conscious pity shakes, at suffering sin. 0 ! give attention to the moving scene, And shun what yet may be, by what has been. 4 In the Epilogue to this same play, Mrs. Seymour echoed Hill's sentiments, when she declared, "Say they, of Plays, that men learn

nothing by 'em? I I stand the stage's champion, and defy 'em!" 5

1 Works I, p. 294. 2 Works II, p. 360. 3 Works IV, p. 46. 4 Works IV,p. 46. 5 Works IV, p. 48. 147

Hill strongly believed in the moral teaching of drama. In his Dedication to The Fatal Vision (1716), he openly flatters Gildon and Dennis, joining with them as "men who rightly believe theatre should entertain and instruct." 1 As the last two lines of the above quote show, the moral impact of drama is only a true lesson when the audience can identify with the emotions of the characters. Even in his non-domestic tragedies, in those of his plays where it might be expected that personaiety not personality prevail, Hill ensured moral empathy by revealing the feelings of his heroes as personal feelings, thereby making them accessible to an audience. In order to demonstrate the personal feelings of his characters Hill, as writers before him had done, distinguished between the role and the person who filled it. In The Fatal Extravagance, we meet the hero Bellmour, as we do Antony in All for Love, bent in thought and melancholy. Bellmour is a gambler, whose gambling is behind him; he is now worried about the future of his family and the fate of his friend. Bellmour is a compassionate because contrite figure; his uncle Woodly remarks that he is "Nobly will' d,/ His pitying heart flows out, in generous purposes." 2 Here then are compassion and a noble nature. Hill emphasizes this nobility of feeling, giving Bellmour the following esteemed family lineage:

Why were my ancestors renown' d in war ? Why, with grave judges, have they grac' d the bench, Or, with wise votes, the senate?-In me, must beg-­ Mark that word, Louisa! -in me must beg, That ebbing name, which, through a length of ages, Has given a kingdom honour.3

1 The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill I, p. 147. 2 The Plays of Aaron Hill, edited by Calhoun Winton, New York: Garland Publishing, p. 296. 3 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 300. 148

Bellmour is presented to the audience first as a person and only secondly as a figure with a history of nobility behind him. The heroic facade has been shifted into the background to allow more prominence to the personal character, or indeed persona, of the man. In Hill's Henry the Fifth (1723) again we meet the person behind the princess. We meet Catherine, the princess, in private­ in her pavilion in company with her woman. The Princess is angry-indeed sh experiences a personal anger-at being used as a political pawn to secure peace between England and France. To her maid she puts these questions: Love is too pure to be made to serve political interest; why should she be sacrificed to this Harry Hothead merely to save her country, when none of the men seem willing to oppose the English king?

Prin. Am I, because they call my father Sovereign, To be the slave, the property, of France? Can nothing buy their peace, but my undoing? How nobler were it to quell rage with fury! In arms to check the bold invader's pride, Meet storm with storm, and buckle in a whirlwind! Then, if the dire event swept me away, My ruin, tho' 'twere dreadful, would be glorious: But to hold out a proffer of my person, Poorly, and at a distance! hang me out, Like a shook flag of truce!-oh! 'tis a meanness, That shames ambition, and makes pride look pale! Where is the boasted strength of manhood, now? Sooner than stoop to this, were mine the scepter, I would turn Amazon; my softness hid In glittering steel, and my plum'd helmet nodding With terrible adornment, I wou' d meet This Henry with a flame more fierce than love. I The irony here is that while Catherine (played by Mrs Oldfield originally) is revealing her personal feelings with respect to the

1 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 243. 149 expedient use of her role as princess, she is at the same time revealing her very fitness to fill the mould of the heroic ideal, as instanced in her allusion to becoming an Amazon. "Glittering steel, and my plum' d helmet nodding" is indeed an intimation of heroicism. Ironically, then were the princess a male, and thereby able to fulfil the traditional (warrior's) heroic role, she would express her (womanly) personal feelings accordingly. The logic almost turns back and bites its own tale. Henry the Fifth also offers a better example of the distinction Hill makes between the personal and the formal. In this particular example we also witness the complementary function of the scenic and forestages in exploiting this distinction. In Act III, the scene "changes to a barrier, on a bridge, trumpets from both sides. Enter, on one part, the French King, on the bridge, attended by the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon. &c. below:----On the other side of the bridge, King Henry, with the Dukes of Exeter and York, Scroop, Cambridge and Gray, below : [The Kings embrace over the bar.]"1 This spectacle features the opposing forces in symmetrical opposition. The scene is formal and pageantic as befits the occasion. The two kings exchange formalities looking forward to a mutually satisfactory outcome. Then comes the appearance of the Princess: "Enter the Dauphin on the bridge, leading the Princess in a veil, attended by Charlot." 2 The princess, when she is heard speaks formally, but makes it clear that she has only distaste for England's king as office not as person. But when she hears his voice, she melts

1 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 251. 2 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 252. 150 realizing that Henry is in fact Henry Tudor whom she has already met in the past and thought highly of then:

Support me, Charlot, A sudden mist dances before my eyes. 0, Charlot! this is he! Whom we thought Tudor [To Charlot. Was Royal Henry! What a chance is this? Let me lean on thee to devour his accents, And gaze him thro' at every word, he speaks!l Henry and Catherine confess that their love could indeed conquer the threat of war that exists between their two countries. In other words, they respond to each other as individuals, not as the roles they serve in public life. But then the Dauphin, brother to Catherine, intercedes with knowledge of the French advantage in numbers; the talk turns to strategy and war wins where love pales. The respective kings and their entourages exit. The foregoing action has presumably taken place within the scene, for now "Princess and Charlot come forward on the Stage," occupying the forestage and shifting our focus into a "close-up." The audience now becomes concerned with the intimate reaction of Catherine to what has just happened; and she confesses these private revelations to her woman:

Now is war's raging tide again broke in, And all my hopes are swept away before it: 0, cruel! tantalizing! curse of fortune! In high-try' d malice just to show him to me! Just to convince me what a bliss 'twou'd be, To have him mine; then, drag him ever from me! 2 And now Catherine is as mad with love for Henry as she was hitherto mad with loathing:

1 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 254. 2 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 257. 151

0! What a scorn of danger grac' d his eyes! What wanton gayness sparkled in his smiles, And made even terror charming! Then his courage! With what a clear and equal fire it blaz' d! Not blown about, or spread, by blasts of anger: How manly, yet how tender, was his love! 0! I shall die with flame of my own folly; ...... 0, Charlot! I am mad! I cannot bear the thought! [of Henry's death]horror distracts me!l She is able to share all these private reflections with Charlot (and with the audience) through the intimacy of the forestage. Hill has used the physical nature of the theatre to materialize the distinction he draws between the heroic role and the possibility of feelings within that role. It is important to consider the foregoing examples from Hill's own plays in order to understand that he was practising in his writing what he was preaching in his theoretical papers. These examples further go to show that Hill was deeply concerned to explore the personality content of emotions--the individual source of emotionality. The importance of the one-to-one contact that took place through emotional identification between actor and audience was to ensure the teaching of moral enlightenment, which was still the duty of the stage. * * * As has already been seen in the case of Charles Gildon, the first concern of eighteenth-century theatre neo-classical theorists was the moral duty of the stage. The 1730s, when Aaron Hill was most actively concerned with the theatre, might be said to reflect these moral concerns more intensely than any time previously. The successful and influential London Merchant, which was first

1 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 257. 152 performed in 1731, might be said to have struck the moralizing and sentimental tone which the thirties reflected.1 Hill clearly saw the moral duty of the theatre in educating and converting the public to virtue and good manners. In so doing he no more than reflected the prevailing mood of his age-the mood not of art for art's sake, but of art for its "useful mirth and salutary woe," as David Garrick expressed it well over a decade later. 2 James Mitchell, a friend of Hill's, whom the theorist allowed to benefit financially by claiming The Fatal Extravagance as his own, summed up the moral attitute shared by both men in his Preface to the play. "There are few men of learning," asserts Mitchell,"who do not readily acknowledge Poetry to be the daughter of Religion, and originally designed to tune men's minds to devotion." 3 Tragedy must teach a moral:

The business of the stage, if I apprehend it rightly, is, first, to intend some general and useful instruction, how men may avoid certain mischief in life, by correcting those passions, which must naturally produce them; and, then, to find, or invent, some story, which may serve as an example, for strengthening that precept, and shew a man made miserable by effect of those passions, which must naturally produce them, which the writer would teach the his audience to resist, or keep guard against. Every thing, in a Tragedy, which has not a direct, and visible, tendency to the moral it is writ for, is superfluous, and monstrous; and, however pompously embellished, serves for nothing, but to weaken the instruction and distract the attention, and apprehension, of an audience.4

1 Bernbaum, The Drama of Sensibility, Ch. VIII passim. 2 In Allardyce Nicoll, The Garrick Stage: Theatres and Audience in the Eighteenth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980, p. 98. 3 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 287. 4 The Plays of Aaron Hill, p. 289. 153

This moral and artistic dualism may be seen in the motto which summed up the purposes of Hill and Popple's The Prompter:

------.All the World's a Stage, And all the Men and Women, merely Players. Shakesp. ------When we daily see so many Men ACT amiss, can we entertain any Doubt that a good PROMPTER is wanting?1 This question was asked on the first page of the first number of The Prompter, and it shows Hill proclaiming himself as a "prompter/' both in the metaphorical sense of giving "the word impartially to every performer" on the stage of life, and in the practical, theatrical sense of providing guidance to actors and theatre managers

"whenever the players grow flat." 2 Hill was perhaps the stage's principal moral reformer of his time, and he constantly reminds his reader of the moral aspects of theatrical matters, satirizing mere entertainment whenever possible-as in The Prompter No. 38:

I cannot keep my temper when I hear men of sense submitting to discourse of the theatres as placed only a public diversion. We have too extensive a proof that they are schools of public effeminancy and corruption tho' we know too, as undoubtedly, that they might be the academies of courage, good taste and humanity.3 Paramount in Hill's writings, and perhaps more important to him than to Gildon, is the importance of the stage's effect on its audience. For a theory which stresses the theatre's informative and instructional aspects must take into account the impact which is made on the ladies and gentlemen in the pit, the boxes, and the galleries.

1 The Prompter, No. 1, Tuesday, November 12, 1734, title page. 2 The Prompter No. 1, 1734, pp. 3-4. 3 The Prompter, No. 38, March 21, 1735, p. 40. 154

Hill believed that the power and potential of the stage was limitless; he was disgusted that in the 1730's theatre was in the hands of "Mercenary Undertakers ... having no purpose but gain." ''What instance does not history abound with of the triumphs of persuasive Orators !-What popular fury has not been raised and appeased! What virtue not inculcated! What vice not covered and defended by the art of a powerful speaker working on the passions of his hearers!", he exclaimed in The Prompter No. 30. "Yet how faint is all this power when we weigh it against the strength of the STAGE.-There, that reason which was read with but a cold consent wounds, animates and compels us."1 Hill saw the theatre as having the impact of rhetoric without necessarily belonging to the tradition of rhetoric. In this, his departure from Gildon, who viewed the stage as a stronger form of rhetoric than the bar or the pulpit, is a marked one indeed. For Charles Gildon the difference between the stage and the pulpit was one of degree, but for Aaron Hill it was a difference in kind. Hill demanded a theatre which spoke to the hearts not the minds of its participants; a theatre in which strongly delineated emotions were readily comprehended and experienced throughout the whole auditorium. The desired effect was to engage the sentiments of the audience and to provoke a moral response through emotional in volvemen t. 2 * * * The meaningless and feelingless style of acting which, according to Hill, predominated in the 1730s-a paler version,

1 The Prompter, No. 30, Friday, February 21, 1735, p. 32. 2 L.-L. & F.J. Marker: "Aaron Hill and Eighteenth Century Acting Theory'', Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 61, Dec. 1975, No. 4, pp. 416-427. 155 perhaps, of the style in which Betterton had found excellence thirty years earlier-did not suit the purposes of the stage as Hill conceived of them. Instead of alerting the audience to the passions, the actors of the time lulled them to sleep with their sing-song sameness of speech and their "swing-swang" sameness of gesture. This was what Hill termed the "fruits of the two royal patents!":

A puffed, round mouth, an empty, vagrant eye, a solemn silliness of strut, a swing-swang slowness in the motion of the arm, and a dry, dull, drawling voice that carries opium in its detestable monotony) This was the very antithesis of the acting style Hill advocated, and of which he was a vocal exponent in his writings. Ideally in Hill's view, acting should be varied and intense, providing in high relief the pathos and strongly delineated passions, like those of his own plays-particularly The Fatal Extravagance- and adaptations, which, reflected the increasingly sentimental drama of the period. When Hill described the actors of the 1730s as "the very worst set of actors that ever disgraced the nation!", 2 he spoke as a critical observer and participator in the London stage of some thirty years standing. As early as 1716, in the preface to his play The Fall of Siam, Hill had spoken out against the "horrible theatric way of speaking'' 3 that had become standard of the declamation of the day. Hill's views were just as strong in the 1730s, which might be described as a watershed in theatre history. For a time there had been theatrical expansion, but this was curtailed by the Licensing Act of 1737, which effectively reduced the theatre competition to Drury Lane and Covent Garden once more. There was an increase

1 The Prompter, No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 85. 2 The Prompter, No. 56, Friday, May 23, 1735, p. 66. 3 Dramatic Works I, p. 148. 156 in the numbers of new actors,l but notable among the deaths were Barton Booth and Robert Wilks, two of the triumvirate who had steered Drury Lane through its golden years, 1709-32. An anonymous poem of the period, The Players: A Satire (1733) regretted the loss of:

Oldfield and Wilks, 0 much lamented Pair! To meet such Merit, justly we despair; What Friend to wit but must reflect with Pain, ''We shall not look upon their like again!"2 The actors of the 1730s are presented in this satire as examples of how not to act the passions:

The Hero blusters and looks big, Adventures all, but his full-bottomed wig; He rushes on imperious to the Fight, But first, examines if his Buskin's right.

The Scene is chang' d, soft, plaintive sorrows flow, In all the tender Eloquence of woe The Actor wails, with briny Torrents lav' d, See, the Pathetick Handkerchief is wav' d, Sole Index of Distress! Sadly he keeps ) In one unvary'd Tone, and whilst he weeps,)- Even the flinty ey' d Spectator sleeps. )

When smother' d Rage, or Anguish of the heart, The quivering bitten lip, the suddain Start, And writhing Limbs, should feelingly explain, So deep it sinks in the Performer's brain, Thr' his whole form such strong Convulsions spread Who would not swear him-gilded Gingerbread? 3 There are many more examples, but these are sufficient to show that Hill was not alone in his objections to the actors of the '30s. James Quin, who had made his London debut in1714, was the principal tragedian of the 1730s; he epitomized all the worst "fruits

1 London Stage, 1729-1747: A Critical Introduction, pp. lxxx-ci. 2 The Players, A Satire, London, 1733, n.p. 3 The Players, A Satire, London, 1733, n.p. 157 of the two royal patents" which are quoted above: most notably, the "puffed, round mouth," the "solemn silliness of strut", and the "swing-swang slowness in the motion of the arm." Quin faced competition in John Harper, who was really only a serious threat in Falstaff and similar comically rotund parts; Dennis Delane's promise was dissipated in drink. Old John Mills was a stalwart standby, just as William Millward possessed a formidable Hamlet, but he "could not distinguish noise from passion, and rant from sensibility." 1 Hill was also horrified by managers who allowed erroneous interpretations of the dramatic passions to hold the stage: I have seen poor Mr. Rowe set upon his head, after his death, by these incorrigible displacers of purpose. I have seen Bajazet exchanging the contempt which was meant him by that author for the applause that should have been bestowed on his subduer, while the miserable metamorphosed Tamerlane (hanging down his arms to both pockets as if in fear they might be picked of his part in some of the terrible advances of his enemy) has stood sneakingly passive, as if he had feloniously been robbing some of his brethren, the comic actors, of the air of a sheep-biter! I have seen Belvidera deserve all her misery, and absolving the insensibility of the audience by whining them out of their power to pity her. While Jaffeir, too amorous and humble to outswell the low pitch of his lady has sunk, lovingly, like her, and forgot all those violences, those starts, and frenzies which, in writing the character, must have shaken the poet's heart like a whirlwind, but in acting it are so kind to fall flat enough to fit their speaker and forgo all pretensions to discompose or disorder an audience.2 What had produced this situation, Hill asks: "either the taste of our audiences must be depraved, to a degree of horror; or the judgement of our master-players corrupted, to a degree of pity!" 3

1 Stone & Kahrl, David Garrick: A Critical Biography, p. 25. 2 The Prompter, No. 64, Friday, June 20, 1735, p. 81. 3 The Plain Dealer, No. 80, December, 12, 1724, in The Prompter, p. ix. 158

Ultimately, however, the blame for these "contemptible perversions of character" was laid at the feet of what Hill calls the "unpoetical managers"-managers who have no understanding of the plays they present and allow the actors to reach for the lowest

(often the loudest) appeal to the audience. 1 Gildon had made a similar complaint, when he declared that actors are wrong to think "Noise renders them agreeable to the Audience, because a few of the Upper-Gallery clap the loud Efforts of their Lungs, in which their

Understanding has no share." 2 Furthermore, Hill was opposed to actors being managers because it often meant that tradition played too large a role in the interpretation of plays. 3 Hill wrote to Garrick on AprilS 1749, saying:

... all popular Players, I have ever known, have owed that popularity to some particular new character, wherein the envy of mankind, finding no room to charge their merit upon imitation, was compelled to grant the beauties, they struck out, were of their own production, and so rated their possessors in proportion to that forced concession. 4 Hill reflects something of the eighteenth century "school of taste" in his favouring the tastes of the individual over the established views of tradition. Actors who could interpret their own parts, "scoring" their own roles, was what Hill wanted to see in the theatre. Of Barton Booth, Hill offers this generous accolade: ''He had a talent of discovering the passions where they lay hid in some celebrated parts by the injudicious practice of other actors; when he had discovered, he soon grew able to express them." 5 But these "passions" were still

1 The Prompter No. 64, Friday, June 20, 1735, p. 81. 2The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, p. 15. 3 The Prompter, No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 86. 4 Works II, p. 358. 5 Works, I. p. 293, 294 f. 159

the universally codified catalogue of emotions which Gildon believed in; they were given the individual expression of the actor as a performer, but they were not necessarily an expression of his individuality as a person. This bears on the earlier point already made, which concerned the expression of a persona's private feelings as against the more formal aspects of that (usually heroic) persona. Subsequently, in chapter three, when John Hill's theory of acting is discussed, we shall see that the actor's personality became licensed to express itself on stage without mediation of persona. But now let us return to Aaron Hill's litany of dissatisfaction with the theatre of the thirties. "Affectation and indolence are the two great Gothic pillars which support this false form of a theatre," observes Hill, referring to the theatre of the 1730s. Hill saw himself as a Samson "to pull down the roof upon the heads of our buskinned Philistines." 1 As early as the third number of the Prompter, (Tuesday, November 19th, 1734), when he joined the controversy in the Grub Street Journal over the respective merits of Colley Cibber and James Quin, Aaron Hill singled out specific actors who offended against the principles he espoused. His conclusion was that "Mr. Quin must be confessed to be sometimes wrong in his tragic characters; Mr. Cibber to be always so." Hill, however, did not regard Cibber as a serious tragedian, but rather as a consummate comedian, ''born to be laughed at." 2 Hence, by disparaging Cibber on the one hand, he was really praising him on the other. Cibber simply laughed, while Quin took exception, and, "meeting Mr. Hill in the Court of the Requests, a scuffle ensued between them, which

1 The Prompter, No. 99, Tuesday, October 21, 1735, p. 106. 2 The Prompter, No.3, Tuesday, November, 19, 1734, pp. 5-7. 160 ended in the exchange of a few blows." 1 Thereafter Hill eschewed publicly naming actors in the pages of the Prompter. Instead he chose the names Mr. All-Weight, Mrs. Ever-Whine and Mr. Strain-Pipe to epitomize the three most egregious stage faults of the 1730s. Each of these anonymous characters was charged with being "monstrous," "theatric" and "unnatural," and each of these offences was a cardinal sin in Hill's estimation. Mr. Strain-Pipe, whose voice Hill admits was "sonorous and warbling," lets his sonorous voice follow the melody not the meaning of his lines. It should be the other way around: the sense should lead the cadence. "Would you wait for a swell till the sense should be risen upon, the exclamatory mounting of the sound would life the heart with the accent." 2 Mr. All-Weight, on the other hand, was remarkable for his "deliberate articulation, distinct use of pausing, solemn significance of look, and that composed air and gravity of ... motion." These features could be considered virtues-sometimes; but "to be always deliberate and solemn is an error as certainly, tho' not unpardonably, as never to be so." 3 Mrs. Ever-Whine carried the current fad in music-the "new art of stuttering in music"-into her work on the stage. One particular Mrs. Ever-Whine began the Mourning Bride in this fashion:

Mu--u--sic has cha-a-a-rms to so-o-o-th a savage breast, To so-o-often rocks, or be-e-end the knotted oak. This is Hill's graphic and literal representation of what he described as "whining out good verses in a drawl so unpleasingly extended."

1 Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Vol. I, p. 138. 2 The Prompter, No. 92, Friday, September 26, 1735, pp. 95-6. 3 The Prompter, No. 92., p. 96. 161

Mrs. Ever-Whine did not, it is quite clear, speak "naturally''; rather she squeezed out her emotions, especially in the case of joy, through a "contraction of her windpipe." 1 The most distressing thing to Hill was that the actress he had in mind for Mrs. Ever-Whine had a "most powerful and melodious" natural voice of her own. But it was this very voice which produced the worst kind of affectation, because it denied the essential beauty of her natural condition. This affectation consisted of "mincing" the voice "into a forced and insipid fineness." The same contraction also found sympathy in Mrs. Ever-Whine's face, which was given to being pinched up into the "distortion of a cholic, with a view to looking languid and charming." Hill was so strongly offended by whining that he termed it, rather colourfully, a "kind of vocal circumcision." 2 Even though Hill does not name them, the Mr. All-Weights, the Mr. Strain-Pipes, and the Mrs. Ever-Whines are not difficult to identify. Mrs. Ever-Whine could be either Sarah Thurmond or Mary Heron; Mr. Strain-Pipe was most likely Colley Cibber, who was well known for his nasal twang; and Denis Delane and John

Quin both qualify for Mr. All-Weight. 3 Hill objected to these actors for another reason, too. Their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies obtruded into their performances: Quin's weightiness and Cibber's affectedness coloured whatever characters they attempted. 4

1 The Prompter, No. 14, Friday, December 27, 1734, p. 22. 2 The Prompter No. 99, Tuesday, October 21, 1735, PP. 106-8. 3 The Prompter No. 99, pp. 181, 191, 193. 4The Prompter No.3, Tuesday, November 19, 1734, pp. 6-7. 162

In 1716, in his Dedication to The Fatal Vision, Hill provided an early account of his ideal actor, in terms of the selected characteristics of actors who were well known at the time:

... he must at once be furnished with the several excellencies following: the face and stature, and no more of Mr. Leigh, at the New House; the genteel turn, and softness of address, of Mr. Wilks, together with his brisk, and lively spirit; the majesty of Mr. Keene; the assurance of Mr. Cibber; and, to crown all these, Mr. Booth's sweet voice, just accent, and solemnity of utterance: and to add all, a frequency, and aptness, of expressive gesture; with a visage capable of putting on at will, the lines and marks of every passion. 1 Hill, in a later statement, envisages his ideal as an actor who is

"general, plastic, and unspecificate." 2 Gildon had made a similar such requirement of the actor physically, without necessarily the same emphasis on plasticity. Hill calls for an actor who is not particularized; who has a kind of neuter personality upon which the requirements of his role-the strongly marked passions, in other words-would fit without having to compete with a strong private character. Hill found Cibber "so strong in this characteristical impression upon everything which he does or says, that it is not in his power to divest himself of the distinction."3 Affected roles, like Sir Courtly and Lord Foppington, came willingly and naturally to Cibber in the squeaking, bowing, ogling, dressing, laughing ways he exerted the coxcomb. But Cibber also brought "the same deliberated perversion of gesture" to the "rugged Syphax" in Addison's Cato, Richard III, Iago, and the other such

1 Dramatic Works I, p. 149. 2 The Prompter, No. 3, pp. 6-7. 3 The Prompter No. 3, p. 6. 163 calculating and villainous plotters. 1 In these instances Cibber' s natural bent was entirely inappropriate. Cibber's "unseasonable grimaces" disqualified him for Richard III, as did his "comic shruggings" and "disjointed heavings" which Hill likens to those of

"an unjointed caterpillar." 2 In this, Hill no more than agrees with history: that the coxcomb's motley better became Cibber than did the feathered plumes and the buskin of tragedy. Cibber carried his whole soul in his face. "For his features were narrowly earnest and attentively insignificant. There was a peeping pertness in his eye, which would have been spirit, had his heart been warmed with humanity or his brain been stored with ideas. In his face was a contracted kind of passive, yet protruded, sharpness like a pig, half­ roasted." 3 If an actor is to be able "to put on, at will, the marks and colours which distinguish" the passions, then the canvas on which he paints must be a blank one. But "the very faces of some men are stamped with natural prohibitions":

Thus, for example, mimping mouths, and certain sharpness from contraction of the muscles, cannot possibly express dignity. Neither can tenderness or compassion be looked with any likeness or propriety, by a surly, sour gloominess in the disposition of the features.There is a childish insipidity of visage, a kind of lamentable insignificance which can never represent boldness of majesty. There is a jocose kind of austerity in the air of some faces, a sort of risible tendency to importance, where the gravity is so whimsically counterbalanced by the ridiculous, but the jest is but heightened by an attempt to be serious.

1 The Prompter No. 34, Friday, March 7, 1735, p. 34. William Popple does not agree. Of Cibber he says: "his genius is infinitely comprehensive, and in Iago, Syphax, and Richard the Third he looks as much the villain as in Foppington, the coxcomb." 2 The Prompter, No. 3, Tuesday, November 19, 1734, p. 6. 3 The Prompter, No. 3, p. 7. 164

Between these, too, and tragedy, there lies a natural and unsurmountable barrier. 1 Gravity, dignity and boldness were still in Hill's time the classical hero's sacred trinity, just as they had been in the previous age. If a neutral face was required for putting on at will the marks and colours of the passions, this did not further mean that an actor's face should be necessarily unremarkable. Quite the contrary:

The face of an actor should rather be manly than handsome. Where features are too delicately formed they are swallowed and lost in the distance. Yet the muscles should be marked, not turgid, and the colour of his eye rather anything than black, because in eyes of that colour remoteness and candlelight prevent us from distinguishing any of those impressive variations of look without which there is no difference between a masque and a beauty. 2 Here then was a face which, while it should be without any strong natural characteristics, should be capable of projecting and strongly outlining the features of all the various passions. The rest of the actor's equipment should be equally expressive and versatile:

The voice should be articulate and winding; the limbs not formal and rigid but pliant and facile; the mien disengaged from all composure or adjustment; and the genius unsettled and imitative. His memory should be strong and extensive. He should be learned or a love of reading, and, above all, he must be sober and temperate. 3 Here, too, is a theory of acting which embraces the protean virtues of the art-variation, change, and transformation-with "the genius unsettled and imitative," referring to an emphasis on the

1 The Prompter, No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 86. 2 The Prompter, No. 66, pp. 86-7. 3 The Prompter, No. 66, p. 87. 165

) mental preparation of the actor that was mentioned but not as strongly stressed in Gildon's theory. When Aaron Hill wrote in the 1730s that most of the actors on the stage were shamefully ignorant of the passions, what passions was he referring to? Unlike Gildon who, for the most part, discusses the passions in general, Hill specifically enumerates ten passions in the Prompter No. 66: joy, sorrow, fear, scorn, anger,

amazement, jealousy, revenge, love and pity. 1 Sometimes Hill

speaks of six passions 2 and sometimes, as in a letter to David

Garrick, twelve or fifteen. 3 He never names the twelve or fifteen, as far as is known, but he calles them "complex passions" to distinguish them from the ten dramatic passions above. The six passions referred to were particularly distinctive in their appearance: "capable of being strongly expressed by the look," these were joy, sorrow, fear, scorn, anger, and amazement. Hill goes on to say:

There are many other auxilliary passions which cannot in their own simple character, be impressed upon the countenance yet may be well enough represented by a mixture of two or more of the six capital dramatics. Such are jealousy, revenge, love, pity. The reader might presently convince himself of the truth of this remark and discover, by an easy trial, that jealousy, to express it on the features, requires a combination of three passions-fear, scorn, and anger. Revenge mixes only the last two. Love cannot be looked but with a joy that is tempered by fear. And pity, to express it on the face, must qualify that fear by a mixture of sorrow. 4

1 The Prompter, No. 66, p. 84. "Shame" is added to these in "The Actor's Epitome," Works, IV, p. 76. 2 Prompter No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 84. 3 Works, II, p. 384. 4 Prompter, No. 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 84 166

These passions were not of course Hill's invention, but rather the universally acknowledged emotional inventory of eighteenth­ century psychology, which derived, as has already been mentioned in chapter one,l from the moral philosophy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-indeed their lineage may be traced back even further. The passions were well known and increasingly talked about as the desire for the expression of feeling and sentiment was felt on the stage. In fact, from the publication of William Collins' ode, "The Passions," in 1750, the "second half of

the eighteenth century knew precisely what the passions were." 2

Most discussions of acting talked of the passions, 3 and Hill's uniquely detailed and "scientific'' treatment of them led to the importance of his work being recognized half a century later. In 1821 his "Essay on the Art of Acting," in which the passions are dealt with in categorical particularity formed the substance of a publication entitled, "The Actor, or Guide to the Stage: exemplifying the whole art of Acting; in which the Dramatic Passions are defined,

analyzed, and made easy of Aquirement." 4 It was thought that only one passion could possess the mind

at a time. 5 But this does not mean to say that a passion was simply to be regarded as a ruling passion, or an idee fixe. Hill's definitions of the passions show both their complexity and the way in which he viewed them as detailed working models for actors. It is clear from the definitions given in An Essay on the Art of Acting that many

1 See above, pp. 23-26. 2rhe Revels History of Drama in English, Vol, VI 1750-1880, p. 154. 3 For example, Samuel Foote, A Treatise on the Passions, London: C. Corbett, 1747. 4 Leo Hughes, ''The Actor's Epitome," Review of English Studies, 20 (1944), pp. 306-97. 5 Revels History of Drama in English, Vol. VI, p. 154. 167 emotional elements, usually two or three, made up each passion. This may be seen in Hill's defintions of the various passions: "joy is pride, possessed of triumph"; "Grief is disappointment, void of hope"; "fear is grief, discerning and avoiding danger"; "anger is pride provoked beyond regard of caution"; "pity is active grief for another's affliction"; "scorn is negligent anger"; "hatred is restrained, yet lasting anger"; "jealousy is doubtful anger, struggling against faith and pity"; "wonder is inquisitive fear"; "love is desire kept temperate by reverence." Love is the most complex of all: "a passion," says Hill, "the true name whereof might be Legion; for it includes all the other [Passions] in all their degrees and varieties." 1 So from this it may be seen that although only one passion obtained in the mind at a time, this was by no means a simplistic psychology-as we have already seen in the discussion of Gildon on the subject. 2 Hill firmly believed, as did Gildon before him, that:

every passion has its peculiar and appropriate look, and every look its adapted and particular gesture; that the heart, having communicated its sensation to the eye, every muscle and nerve catches impulse, in a moment, and concurs to declare the impression} In fact, this concept goes back to Quintilian and Cicero, just as do the late seventeenth and eighteenth-century theories of acting. But with respect to Gildon who preceded him, Aaron Hill decidedly changed the stylistic emphases of neo-classical acting with respect to the imaginative preparation of acting. The "absolutely necessary and the only general rule" in acting, says Hill:

1 Works, IV, pp. 341, 347, 349, 352, 358, 360, 362, 364, 368, 372. 2 See above, pp. 89-90. 3 Prompter No. 64, Friday, June 20, 1735, p. 81. 168

To act on a passion well, the actor must never attempt its imitation, 'till his fancy has conceived so strong an image, or idea, of it, as to move the same and impressive springs within his mind, which form that passion when 'tis undesigned, and natural. 1 Once the imagination of the performer had fully assumed the appropriate emotion of his role, the theory said, physical expression followed with automatic certainty. With his characteristic thoroughness, Hill explains what he means by automatic certainty in the following four steps:

1st, The imagination must conceive a strong idea of the passion. 2dly, But the idea cannot strongly be conceived, without impressing its own form upon the muscles of the face. 3dly, Nor can the look be muscularly stamped, without communicating, instantly, the same impression, to the muscles of the body. 4thly, The muscles of the body, (braced, or slack, as the idea was an active or a passive one) must, in their natural, and not to be avoided consequence, by impelling or retarding the flow of the animal spirits, transmit their own conceived sensation, to the sound of the voice, and to the disposition of the gesture. 2 These stages represent, according to Hill, the natural order by which an emotion is generated and expressed. In asking an actor to duplicate this process he is asking him to do no more, argues Hill, than is normal and natural. "So that, you see, the Art of Acting is no more than a connected deduction of these plain and natural consequences." 3 For an example of these "natural consequences" at work, Hill turns, as the eighteenth century often did when it wanted a poet who depicted nature accurately, to William Shakespeare. Hill

1 Works, IV, p. 339. 2 Works IV, p. 340. 3 Prompter, No. 118, Friday, December 26, 1735, p. 140. 169

thinks that Shakespeare in Henry V had aptly painted this picture of anger:

Now imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood; Lend fierce and dreadful aspect to the eye: Set the teeth close, and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath,and bend up every spirit, To its full height.-1 The eighteenth century commonly altered Shakespeare in order to

improve him; 2 Hill was no exception. He wrote to Garrick suggesting that Shakespeare's portrait of anger might be improved

by putting the third line before the second. 3

Now imitate the action of the tiger; Lend fierce and dreadful aspect to the eye: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood; was the "normal" order of cause and effect in Hill's scheme, because the eye registers the message from the imagination before the rest of the body does. Hill explains his scheme, stage by stage, in his own distinctive manner:

1st, the sinews being braced strong, through all the joints of the body, the blood (as a consequence unavoidable) is summoned up, that is, impelled into violent motion. 2dly, The look becomes adapted, and adds fierceness to the passion, by the fire that flashes from the eye. 3dly, The setting of the teeth, and wide expansion of the nostrils, follow naturally-because inseperable from an enraged bent of the eye-brow. And 4thly, The breath being held hard, as interrupted or restrained,by the tumultuous precipitation of the spirits, they must necessarily become inflamed, themselves, and will communicate their ardour to the voice, and motion.4

1 Works, IV, p. 354. 2 Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama, 1700-1750, Cambridge University Press, 1929, pp. 59 ff. 3 Works II, pp. 352-3. 4 Works IV, p. 354. 170

Because Aaron Hill believes that the right kind of imaginative preparation automatically produces the right kind of look, voice and gesture, he correspondingly has very little to say about the use of the hands, the face, the posture, and the voice. This is a considerable point of contrast between Gildon's and Hill's approach to the theory of acting. However, even if Hill's theory is lacking in the particulars of voice and deportment, it does provide a unique and revealing classification of the passions according to their being braced or unbraced: ''braced, or slack, as the idea was an active or a passive one,"l as Hill himself puts it. The notion of braced and unbraced, of active and passive passions, again relates back to moral philosophy, reflecting the notion of either being attracted to or repulsed by objects, which ultimately dervies from Aristotle's pleasure-pain principle. Hill applies the braced/unbraced distinction in the practical rather than the moralistic sense:

Joy is expressed by muscles intense-and a smile in the eye. Anger, by muscles intense-and a frown in the eye. Pity, by muscles intense-and a sadness in the eye. Hatred, by muscles intense-and aversion in the eye. Wonder, by muscles intense-and an awful alarm in the eye. Love, by muscles intense-and a respectful attachment in the eye. Grief, by neither muscles, nor eye intense-but both languid. Fear, by muscles and look both languid-with alarm, in eye, and motion. Scorn, by muscles languid, and neglected-with a smile in the eye, to express the light, or a frown in the eye, for the serious species. Jealousy, by muscles intense, and the look pensive; or the look intense, and muscles languid, interchangeably. 2

1 Works IV, p. 340 2 Works IV, p. 385 171

Not all his contemporaries agreed with Hill in this classification. ''The best philosophers," argued J. Walker, "constantly describe love and pity as melting the soul: but how does this agree with the intense muscles with which Hill marks the expression of both these passions?" Even more trenchantly Walker questions how, in the case of pity, the muscles can be intense and the eye languid at the same time. "[I]s it conceivable that the eye can express an emotion

directly contrary to the feelings of the whole frame?" 1 Whether we agree with Walker that Hill's basing his system on braced and unbraced nerves is a "doubtful hypothesis" is secondary to the point that the braced/unbraced classification signifies a strong interest in a demonstratively pantomimic and highly physicalized style of acting. Like Gildon, Hill places significant emphasis on the importance of the eye to stage communication, but his expressed interest in body posture expresses itself more in the braced than the quiescent posture which is central to Gildon's theory of acting. Perhaps the best example of Hill's ideal posture is provided in the following verbal picture, which is painted in Hill's poem, "The Actor's Epitome":

On the raised neck, oft moved, but ever straight, Turn your unbending head with easy state. Shun rambling looks. Fix your attention high, Pointedly earnest, meeting eye with eye. Spread be your opening breast, oft changed your face, Step with a slow severity of grace. Pausingly warm, (significantly) rise, And affectation's empty swell despise. Be what you seem. Each pictured passion weigh. Fill first your thoughts with all your words must say.

1 J. Walker, Elements of Elocution, (1781; Scolar Press, Merston, 1969), Vol. II, pp. 285 ff, 286, 287-88. 172

Strong, yet distinguished, let expression paint, Nor straining mad, nor negligently faint. On rising spirits let your voice take wing, And nerves, elastic, into passion spring. Let every joint keep time, each sinew bend, And the shot soul, in every start, ascend.1 Much of the expression might seem extravagant, as Dorothy Brewster, Hill's critical biographer points out, 2 but that is Hill's point: an acting style which stresses concentrated, ever-changing, passionate, pantomimic playing. The actor must imagine he is the part he plays; at least, he must imagine that he is experiencing the various passions, one by one, of the role he is performing on the stage. Much of Hill's writings point to this conclusion. "The man who would act any stage character to perfection must borrow the serpent's dexterity to slip out of his skin and leave his old form behind him," 3 said Hill in No. 100 of the Prompter. And in the prologue to the Tuscan Treaty, he wrote in a similar vein:

to act, is, then, to imitate, 'tis true would but each actor, imitating well, learn, from himself, another to excell: search his own bosom! copy from within, seize your attention, and your passions win.4 "An actor who assumes a character," said Hill, "wherein he does not seem to be the person by whose name he calls himself, affronts instead of entertaining the audience." 5 Intropsection has already been discussed in relation to Gildon's theory of acting, but while Gildon recommends the inward search to discover the passions, he does not share Hill's insistence on "seeming to be" the character.

1 Prompter No. 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, p. 127. 2 Aaron Hill, Poet, Dramatist, Projector, (New York, 1913), p. 31. 3 Prompter No. 100, pp. 109-10. 4 Works, III, pp. 19-20 5 Prompter No. 63, Friday, June 13, 1735, p. 78. 173

Hill was interested to lay bare the personality-or evidence of being-that lay within the character, or persona. In a longer version of his poem, "The Actor's Epitome," Hill gives some idea of how the actor should enter his part, of how he should "search his own bosom." "You, who would JOY'S triumphant pride express,/What most you wish, imagine you possess," suggests an invitation to use the imagination in the motivation of a feeling. Furthermore, two lines from the same poem: "But you, who act unhoping GRIEF'S distress,/Touch fancy, with some home-felt wretchedness," and "PITY is active sense of alien grief;/Think, some dear, dying suff'rer begs relief," provide additional examples of the actor's (at least theoretical) use of private experience-some "home-felt wretchedness"- in preparing a role.l While this is perhaps not asking the actor to do any more than Polus was reputed to have done in the case of his grief of a father who had lost a son. Hill goes further, pointing to the use of imaginative projection within the character to establish an individuated sense of passion. With respect to Torrismond's love for Leonora in Dryden's The Spanish Friar, the actor is told to divest himself of his own feelings and personality and to imagine himself as Torrismond really in love with Leonora. In other words, the actor is being asked to make his imagination and personality align with those of the character. Concerning the following transport of Torrismond in the passion of joy,

Oh heaven! she pities me. And pity, still, fore-runs approaching love; As light'ning does the thunder,-Tune your harps,

1 Works, IV, pp. 77, 78. 174

Ye angels! to that sound: And thou, my heart! Make room-to entertain the flowing joy!l Hill gives the actor undertaking this part the following advice:

he must not, upon any account, attempt the utterance of one single word, 'till he has, first, compelled his fancy to conceive an idea of joy. And it would be his natural, tho' most difficult, way, to endeavour the effacement of all note, or image of himself, and forcibly bind down his fancy to suppose, that he is, really, Torrismond-that he is in love with Leonora, and has been bless' d, beyond his hope, by her kind declaration, in his favour. 2 On the evidence of this account, it is tempting to welcome Aaron Hill as the forerunner of Stanislavski. However, this would be a misassumption. For, although the actor is encouraged to imagine "that he is, really, Torrismond," the external features of joy which he produces, the involuntary "marks and impressions" which should appear if nature has been faithfully imitated, are still those of universal joy, as we have already seen in the case of Gildon. The "forehead ... open and raised, [the] eye smiling and sparkling, [the] neck. .. stretched and erect, without stiffness ... [the] breast will be inflated and majestically backened; [the] backbone erect, and all the joints of [the] arm,wrist, fingers, hip, knee, and ancle, will be high strung and braced boldly." The voice, too, will be able to speak nothing but joy.3 Yet, it must be conceded: that while Hill is chiefly interested in the replication of the conventional passions, he wants these to be invested with all the verisimility and conviction that the individual actor can muster. In brief, he wants the actor to a

1 Works IV, pp. 342-3. 2 Works IV, p. 343. 3 Works IV, pp. 344-5. 175

duplicate the universal passions from a basis in individuated credibility. Although Hill speaks of the automatic certainty of the right (universally correct) features of the emotion being produced by the right (meaning strong, mental) conception of the passion, he also makes allowance for the use of the mirror, which is further evidence of his interest in product not process. The use of the mirror Hill calls the "shorter road to the same end":

let him not imagine the impression rightly hit until, 'till he has examined both his face and air, in a long upright, looking glass; for there, only, will he meet with a sincere and undeceivable test of his having strongly enough, or too slackly, adapted his fancy to the purpose before him.l Here, then, we can see that while the inner preparation of a feeling is important, ensuring the correct externality of it is more important. In order to assist the actor suffering from a "defective idea" of his passion, Hill sanctions a reversal of the creative process. If, for example, the appropriate external features of joy are not present when the would-be Torrismond consults his image in the mirror, he can adjust his appearance, or annex, as Hill puts it, "the look to the idea." "So, the image, the look, and the muscles, all concurring at once to the purpose, their effect will be the same, as if

they had succeeded another progressively." 2 The underlying assumption in this is that by bracing the muscles and assuming the look of a passion its internal motivation or feeling can be evoked in reverse. This assumption was after all no less than a reflection of prevailing, contemporary psycho­ physical beliefs. In his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of

1 Works IV, pp. 343-4. 2 Works IV, p. 346. 176

Our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful (1759), Edmund Burke observes that we cannot put ourselves in the posture, or attitude of any passion, without communicating a certain degree of the passion itself to the mind. 1 Walker, too, holds that by studying and imitating "those tones, looks, and gestures, that accompany the passions ... we may dispose ourselves to feel them mechanically, and improve our expression of them when we feel them spontaneously." 2 Moreover, modern psychological studies have found agreement with Hill's system of assuming bodily posture to promote emotional concomitance. 3 Hill's shortcut, the use of the mirror as a monitor of the emotions, has been overestimated as a sign of his ignoring unconscious creativity in his theory of acting. 4 Hill did not do this at all; in fact, he always emphasized the importance of subordinating technique to imaginative feeling. 5 When, in his Preface to Zara, he addressed the question of how young actors were to achieve perfection in the art of acting, Hill quickly concluded that '1t required, methought, but the assistance of a lively imagination ..

. ." 6 In a letter to Garrick in 1749, Hill referred to mirrors as "a stiff constraint, upon both mien, and memory." In the same letter he said that a mirror should only be necessary to an actor once, "and

1 E. Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beuatiful, London: printed for R. & J. Dodsley, 1759; Menston: Scolar Press, 1970, pp. 71,241-2. 2 Walker, Lectures on Elocution, p. 280. 3 The obvious connection is with the James-Lang theory which posits that our experience of emotion is the experience of bodily change. But this thinking may be traced back to Descartes and Iessing, in whose company Aaron Hill logically sits. See further, Roach, The Player's Passion, p. 84. 4 George Taylor, "The Just Delineation of the Passions: Theories of Acting in the Age of Garrick", in Essays on the Eighteenth-Century Stage, edited by Kenneth Richards and Peter Thomson, London: Methuen, 1972, p. 64. 5 Joseph, The Tragic Actor, p. 84. 6 Dramatic Works II, p. 24. 177 that time is only till he has attained the habit, by ten great changes in his brow and muscles, to call out upon a moment's warning, any picture of the passions." 1 Moreover, the mirror is relegated to a useful tool, not an indispensable crutch to the actor. The imagination is always the best source from which the passion should spring, but the mirror can have its use particularly in the first few days of mastering an emotion:

For in natural consequence of an impression, muscular and mental, every attitude that offers cannot fail to be a proper one; and those that best become the passion aimed at will arise spontaneously; as fast as they are wanted; just as words invest ideas; more, or less, indeed, expressively, as the conception of their utterer, is a clear or a confused one.2 What is of chief importance to Hill is that the actor should give the appearance of being the character he represents. "An actor who assumes a character wherein he does not seem to be the person by whose name he calls himself, affronts instead of entertaining the audience." 3 'When the actor is cold," Hill asked, "why should the audience be animated?" 4 Even in a style of acting which still stressed, as had Gildon before him, the classical virtues of moderation, nobility, and symmetry, Aaron Hill also required his actor to be alive-warm, vital, and expressive. In this way Hill's theory, while it is formally a classical one, and arguably harks back to Gildon, he still stands as a precursor of romanticism in acting, and simultaneously anticipates aspects of john Hill. Joseph Roach

1 Works, II, p. 378. 2 Works II, pp. 378-82 3 Seen. 75. 4 Prompter No. 95, Tuesday, October, 7, 1735, p. 101. 178 draws a nice distinction between the two Hills, saying, and I paraphrase, that whereas Aaron Hill advocates specific, individual effort on the part of the actor to create universal emotion, John Hill asks that the actor put intuition and his own personal capacity for feeling at the disposal of his art. 1 Aaron Hill demanded that an actor convey what he called "fire." This is a word which crops up again, taking on greater importance than here perhaps, in The Actor by John Hi11.2 Fire not only suggests burning passion but effulgent performance as well. Aaron Hill's extravagant notion of acting may be seen in the imagery in which he talks of the art. In ''The Actor's Epitome," (the longer version): "looks ... lighten"; "limbs ... blaze"; "loos'ning fibres lame the heart''; and, "insult fires the smarting soul/ ... bids the eye-balls/ flame."3 Hill wrote to Garrick, who had successfully appeared in his play Merope: "Mine was a painted fire-your piercing rays,/Lent light'ning, and effulged it into blaze." 4 In "The

Art of Acting," the phrase "theatric blaze" is used. 5 Moreover, in the ideal world which Hill hoped his reforms would bring about, he envisages actors who will be "soul-touched" and acting that would show "passion flaming from the asserted stage." 6 Hill himself wrote as he wanted actors to perform, in a sinewy, hyperbolic fashion, his style and metaphor reflecting the kind of acting he felt desirable.

1 Roach, The Player's Passion, Chs. 2 & 3 passim. 2 The Actor (1755), p.lll. 3 Works, IV, pp. 77, 78 4 Works Ill, p. 65. 5 Works III, p. 387. 6 Works III, p. 391 179

Acting according to this theory is conceived in terms of passionate high-relief, of vivid and startling contrasts of emotion. Hill's bias may be seen in the way he views characterization as a series of contrasting emotions. King Lear, for example, is seen by Hill as "successions of grief, hatred, fear, anger and indignation." Hill was moved to record this analysis in the Prompter No. 95, after he had seen an actor, perhaps James Quin, play Lear in a very cold fashion. "All was calm and indolent, that indifference to the character of Lear left the house in but languid attention," 1 was the judgement of the theorist. The actor failed to do justice to what Hill called the "thunder and lightning" in the play. Hill describes Lear's "most distinguishing mark" as the "violent impatience of his temper"; as "obstinate, rash, vindictive, measuring the merit of all things by their conformity to his will." 2 Lear is someone whose misfortunes are brought about by his inability to bear contradiction: quickly inflaming himself into a frenzy when he is thwarted. As an example Hill gives the passage in Act II, scene iv, where Gloucester reminds Lear of Cornwall's fiery temper and receives the following reply, (misquoted by Hill who has presumably not checked the Tate version which would have been standard at the time):

Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion! FIERY!-What fiery Quality?-Breath, and Blood! Fiery!-the FIERY Duke! Go-Tell the Duke and's Wife-I'd speak with 'em; Now-presently-Bid 'em come forth, and hear me: Or, at their Chamber Door, I'll beat the Drum, Till it cry, Sleep to DEATH. 3

1 Prompter No. 95, Tuesday, October 7, 1735, pp. 101 ff. 2 Prompter No. 95, 1735, pp. 101 ff. 3 Prompter No. 95, p. 103; (misquoted Tate version). 180

The actor in question delivered this speech "without fire, without energy, with a look of affliction rather than astonishment, and a voice of patient restraint instead of overwhelming indignation." 1 The italics, the capitalization, and the emphatic pauses (indicated by dashes), signify the variety, contrasts and emphases which Hill thought should be observed in the speech. Few actors ever managed to live up to the critical expectations of Lear which Hill entertained. Quin felt "neither the tender nor the violent emotions of the soul." 2 However, Garrick, who acted Lear long after Hill had laid down what he required in the role, almost fulfilled all of these requirements. He was inimitable in the part; even Spranger Barry, a creditable Lear in his own right and a contemporary, not to say rival, of Garrick's, could not match Garrick's vivacity and his sustaining of the passions in the role. 3 Wilkes deemed Garrick unequalled in the emotional diversity of Lear:

Whether we consider him seated upon his throne in fullness of a content, which he shares out with infinite complacency among his pelican daughters; raving at the affronts under which they lay him; drenched in the pitiless storm; exposed to all the fury of the heavens; or mad as the vexed winds; whether we view him wearied with vile crosses; or at the last extremity, calling forth all the strength and spirits of an almost exhausted old man, to free himself from the surrounding peril, and save his dear Cordelia, we must pronounce him inimitable.4 And Wilkes provides further evidence of the boldness of depiction that Hill expected in the role. In the mad scene, Garrick came down

1 Prompter No. 95, p. 103. 2 T. Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, II. p. 277f. 3 Thomas Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, London: 1759, p. 235. 4 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 232-3. 181 from one corner of the stage with his old grey hair standing as if it were on end: "his face filled with horror and attention, his hands expanded, and his whole frame actuated by a dreadful solemnity." 1 This is a picture of madness such as Hill might have painted it. ''I am astounded," wrote Wilkes, "and share in all his distresses ... Methinks I share in his calamities ... I feel the dark drifting rain, and the sharp tempest ...." How like Hill is Wilkes when he remarks: "the power of his eye, corresponding with an attitude peculiar to his own judgement [my italics], and proper to the situation, is of force sufficient to thrill through the veins ...." 2 It was important to Hill that the actor should appear to be the person he represented. This amounts to a request for the actor to shut out the audience in a theatre where the performance conditions-the similtaneously lit auditorium and stage, the audience by dint of the stage boxes on three sides of the performers-militated against the actor pretending his spectators and auditors did not exist. 111Tis the thought of the audience, that takes away the natural air of the player," Aaron Hill wrote to an actress on October 24 1733. 3 Hill felt that the principle of ignoring the audience was particularly important, particularly in soliloquies; the actor should give the impression of thinking in solitude during these occasions. In a "speech that is made to ourselves," said Hill, "it is wrong to approach and speak to the pit with "an arch leer of familiarity."

[T]he actor (sometimes moving, sometimes standing) should seem pensive, busied, doubtful. The audience

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage., pp. 234-5. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 234-5. 3 Works I, p. 220. 182

instead of being made the point of his sight, should not here be entitled to so much as a place in his memory. While his eyes ought to first be fixed downward, his hand should be raised, to aid, as it were, his forehead, under the labour of meditation. Then, removing himself a step or two, his eyes and air shift with him to some new situation, but always upwards, oblique, or downward, never outward, or point blank upon the audience. 1 The actor must seem to be alone with his thoughts, which come to him even as the audience watches, "as it were ... under the labour

of meditation." 2 To act these lines:

I am alone! And now, my heart, be just. Strip thyself bare, and, by the world unseen Dare to thyself in thy true shape be known.3 in full acknowledgement of the audience would be tantamount to acting a lie. Well might "an honest lover of truth from some

remote part of the house" cry out "That's a lie!" 4 To move the audience as a result of the apparent reality of their situation on stage, actors "should sweat under a sense of themselves, and passionately labour into the souls of their hearers." 5 To avoid catching the eyes of his audience, Hill advises the actor to "Fix your attention high," 6 that is look over the spectators' heads; or, alternatively, the actor might look down at the stage, thereby giving the illusion of someone bent in thought. This makes a marked contrast with Gildon, who envisaged actors able to look at each other one stage, and directly at the audience when required. To

1 Prompter No. 104, Friday, November 7, 1735, pp. 116-17 2 Prompter No. 104, pp. 116-17. 3 Prompter No. 104, pp. 116-17. 4 Prompter No. 104, pp. 116-17. 5 Prompter No. 104, p. 119 6 Prompter, No. 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, p., 127. 183

Gildon, lifting the eyes above the heads of the audience was a solecism. 1 In the Tatler No. 138, Steele maintained that the actor could only act with grace when he had forgotten the presence of the audience. 2 Presumably Steele's remarks refer to acting generally; Hill, on the other hand, refers specifically to soliloquies. Goethe declared it a "mistaken naturalness for the actors to play to each other as if no third person were present." 3 Obviously soliloquies are not included here; but Goethe generally believed that "the actor must constantly remember that he is on the stage for the sake of the public."4 Of course, Goethe's Weimar stage was contained within a proscenium; his actors were not surrounded on three sides by an audience as were those of Hill's acquaintance. On the Restoration and eighteenth-century stage, when an actor finished talking, he usually finished acting too. He might look around, or divert himself in some other way with the audience on the stage or in the auditorium. Hill complained to Garrick in a letter of April 8 1749, that when actors finish speaking they usually drop their attention.5 In fact, Aaron Hill remarked frequently on actors who "relax themselves as soon as any speech in their own part is over, into an absent inattentiveness to whatever is replied by another, looking around and examining the company of spectators with an ear only watchful of the cue, at which, like soldiers upon the word of command, they start back to their postures, tone over the unanimating sound of their lesson, and, then (like a caterpillar that

1 See above, p. 100. 2 Cited in Duerr, The Length abd Depth of Acting, p. 205. 3 In Actors on Acting, p. 272. 4 Actors on Acting, p. 272. 5 Works II, p. 357. 184

has erected itself at the touch of a twig) shrink back again to their crawl and their quiet and enjoy their full ease till next rousing." 1 But as the eighteenth-century theatre included more pictorial illusionism and psychological realism-even if only in a very elementary and fundamental way-criticism of not keeping in character when silent on stage increased. 2 Hill argued that the "very silence" of a player should be instructed to "talk to the eye of the spectator by a thousand significant gestures, starts, changes, and attitudes, whereby the soul, at work, inwardly throws out marks of its sensation." 3 Hill wrote to an actress whom he had seen playing the role of Imoinda, and dropping character when she had finished speaking. He asked that she should adopt:

The quite contrary way of attending to what is answered, as if you really were Imoinda, and felt, not acted, her hopes, fears and distresses, will charm and engage the audience the more, as it is scarce ever practised. For the same reason, though no face is shown, so much to advantage as yours, it would be proper to refuse us that pleasure for another which will arise from our observing your eye kept fixed upon the person who is speaking to you, or to whom you are speaking. 4 In another of these letters, Hill addressed himself to an actor who was playing Torrismond:

There is another great beauty in a player, who enters strongly into nature, and that is the significance of silent action, where after he has done speaking himself, he attends to what is answered, as if it in good earnest concerned him. This alarms and awakens the audience;

1 Prompter No. 62, Friday, June 13, 1735, p. 78. 2 The London Stage, 1747-1776: A Critical Introduction, pp. xciiff.; Kalman A. Burnim, David Garrick: Director, Southern Illinois University Press, 1961, chs. III, IV passim. 3 Prompter No 62, p. 78. 4 Works I, p. 141 ff. 185

who, on the contrary, grow languid and unattentive, when they observe a negligence in the actors. 1 The actor being praised is Samuel Stephens: the same actor Hill had disparaged as Othello on another occasion. Here, however, Stephens is complimented for listening to his fellow actors. ''It was that impressive attention, with which you listened, while spoke to, and the intent direction of your eye to its proper object on the stage; whereas it is common among modern actors to bestow their looks and their language upon the audience." 2 In addition to this kind of silent action, there is the kind of silence which is a moment of heightened emotion when nature does not permit words. As an example of this, one is automatically drawn to Hill's account of how Mrs. Porter in Southerne's Oroonoko would have played the scene in which lmoinda's joy at escaping the governor is interrupted by her husband's pointing to the dead body of Aboan. 3 Mrs. Porter would have cried out, "Aboan," at this, Hill speculates, "in a sudden surprise." Even that word, "Aboan," would have been enough to wring the hearts of the audience into a "thunder of applause." Then Mrs. Porter, who was known for her charm in tragical attitudes-especially the slight lifting of the arms as an invocation of pity-might have behaved, (as she stands transfixed between her husband and the body, recollecting Oroonoko's danger), in the following manner:

Yet she forces herself half round, toward her husband, and with her arms still stretched wide out, looks at him with a speechless, imploring, distraction of countenance; sometimes turning her eye to Aboan's body, and then back upon Oroonoko, till the sense of what she apprehends throws her lips, arms, and frame into a trembling that must

1 Works I, p. 158. 2 Works I, pp. 219 ff. 3 Works I, pp. 142 ff. 186

touch every heart in the audience. 1 This moment of alternating concern was so important to Hill that he warned the actress that Imoinda must not be interrupted in this emotional "pause," "till the end of the action." 2 The phrase "pausingly warm" comes from the eleventh line of "The Actor's Epitome," and is obviously considered by its author to be an important concept in his theory of acting; Hill devotes a whole issue of the Prompter-No. 113 Tuesday, December 9th,

1735-to parsing the line. 3 "Warm" after "pausingly" is used to distinguish it from "cold" pausing, which was already too common on the stage Hill wanted to reform. A cold pause is a pause without meaning or significance. Some actors pause at the end of each word or two, "like the minute hand of a clock that measures time, not meaning." Whereas "all the pauses in utterance should, like the pointings in reading, serve to mark out the sense and give harmony and force to the cadence ...." 4 Hill, so far as can be determined, was the first theorist to instance the pause as a theatrical device to make an actor seem emotionally spontaneous-as if he were producing the emotion of any given moment at that very moment on the stage:

Pauses are beautiful because it is one of their most certain effects to make the actor appear in earnest­ that is, the conceiver of what he utters, whereas, without pausing, his words emitted too fast to be mistaken for the effects of his thoughts, demonstrate him to be no more than a reciter of that which he should seem to invent before he expresses it.5

1 Works I, pp. 142 ff. 2 Works I, pp. 142 ff. 3 Prompter No 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, pp. 127-9. 4 Prompter No. 113, 1735, pp. 127-9. 5 Prompter No. 113, p. 128. 187

In the pause the audience can detect the inner workings of the actor's feelings, as well as lending his externalized actions a "natural" feeling. "Nature," as Hill understood the term, required

that "our thoughts should precede and produce our expressions." 1 A pause in this foregoing sense was essentially non-verbal acting, a pantomimic wrestling of the soul before it found the words appropriate to its struggle:

the pause in the sound must be accompanied with no pause in the action but filled out by such agitated perturbation in the look and the gesture as may (instead of interrupting the course of the passion) seem but the struggling of its inward emotion, prepar­ ing for the utterance of what arises to the conception. 2 The pause is to be filled with an action which preceded speech. By this means an actor can show someone who lives an emotion, rather than someone who merely recites it. The "expressive discontinuance of speaking" was how Hill described this use of the pause in acting. Barton Booth illustrates this technique in his portrayal of Othello. In Act III scene iii of Othello, Iago works Othello into jealousy and then takes his leave; Hill provides the commentary:

When !ago has left him, after a long Pause, the Eye kept looking after him, Booth spoke the following Remark, in a low Tone of Voice:

This Fellow's of exceeding Honesty, And knows all Qualities with a learn' d Spirit of human Dealings. Then a Pause; the Look starting into Anger. If I do find her Haggard, Though that her Jesses were my dear Heart-strings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the Wind To prey on Fortune!

1 Prompter, No. 104, Friday, November 7, 1735, p. 119. 2 Prompter, No. 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, p. 128. 188

A long Pause, as to ruminate, Haply, for I am black, And have not those soft parts of Conversation That Chamberers have-Or, for I am declin'd Into the Vale of Years-Yet that's not much- After a pause, the following Start of Violent Passion. She's gone! I am abused! and my Relief Must be to loath her! 0 Curse of Marriage! That we can call those delicate Creatures ours, And not their Appetites! What follows in a quicker, contemptuous Tone. I'd rather be a Toad, And live upon the Vapour of a Dungeon, Than keep a Corner in the Thing I love For other's Uses! A look of Amazement, seeing Desdemona coming. Look where she comes! A short Pause, the Countenance and Voice Softened. If she be false, 0 then Heav'n mocks itself! I'll not believe it. 1 In this extract from Barton Booth's promptbook, may be seen the transitions and pauses by which he helped prepare each new mood, feeling, or passion; and, the way in which pauses give to the soliloquy the kind of spontaneity-of internalised thought processes at work-that Hill finds desirable. Breaking acting up into its emotional components may also be seen in Hill's own account of how Hamlet should respond on his first meeting with the ghost. The prince, records Hill in the Prompter No. 100, is supposed to turn eagerly at Horatio's alarm, "with an unbelieving curiosity rather than a terrified apprehension." But "upon the discovered reality of the form," he takes a step or two back, and expresses his amazement, in a low voice, not taking his eyes from the object "with a kind of riveted doubt in their steadiness." 2

1 Benjamin Victor, The History of the Theatres of London and Dublin. An Annual Register of All the Plays Performed at the Theatres Royal, London. 1761; New York and London: Benjamin Blum, 1969,Vol. II, pp. 11-13. 2 Prompter No 100, Friday, October 24, 1735, pp. 111-112. 189

'Angels and ministers of grace! Defend me!'

Here, no doubt, he should stop and, after a signifi­ cant pause, under silent agitations of horror, strive for strength of resolution [again the semblance of a spontaneous creation of the emotion] to attempt an approach, which he accompanies with these broken sentences and one short, slow step at each of them, delivering the whole (till the word questionable) with a voice faint and trembling, as if it struggled and found a difficulty in forcing its way against the oppression of his terror.

'Be thou-a Spirit of Light;-or Goblin damn' d!- Bring with thee Airs, from Heaven-or Blasts from Hell !- Be thy Intents -wicked, or charitable!- , Thou com'st-in such a QUESTIONABLE Shape-' 1 "Questionable" is the climax of this sequence, according to Hill, since it resolves Hamlet's doubts and reassures him that the shape is indeed questionable-meaning able to be interrogated, and so addressed boldly. In the next line of the same speech from Hamlet, Hill notes that there should be a "stronger and positive emphasis," when Hamlet says:

I WILL-speak to thee-I'll CALL thee-HAMLET?­ King?-FATHER?- ROYAL Dane?- 2 Falling to his knee at the word "Father," Hamlet never removes his eye from the ghost, hoping for an answer. The pauses, represented by the dashes in the text, are Hill's, and display the uncertainty of the prince as he improvises to see which of the address protocols is appropriate. At his wits end, the contemplative hero finds action in these words:

-OH!-ANSWER me.- Let me not BURST-in Ignorance :-but-TELL me-

1 Prompter No. 100, 1735, pp. 111-12. 2 Prompter No. 100, 1735, pp. 111-12. 190

WHY-&c.-1 ''Looks ... distracted," "body ... convulsed," "soul poured

out in the pathetic delivery": 2 these are the words Hill uses to describe the actor's state at the conclusion of Hamlet's meeting with his father's ghost; they are also key words to the kind of acting Hill is advocating. Pauses, vocal transitions and pantomime all contribute to the total effect, which serves to break up, even to explode, the flow of the declamation, allowing for animated playing between the words. The body is thrown into ever-changing attitudes in order to prepare the audience for the full impact of each emotional point. The more violently this is done the better Hill

seems to like it. It is a hyperbolic style of acting with constraint and intensity being ensured through the use of the pause, and other means of relieving the declamatory flow. The extent to which this style of playing differs from the earlier Bettertonian style may be seen by comparing it with Colley Cibber' s account of Betterton in the same scene from Hamlet:

This was the light into which Betterton threw this scene; which he opened with a pause of mute amazement! then rising slowly to a solemn, trembling voice, he made the ghost equally terrible to the spectator, as to himself! and in the descriptive part of the natural emotions which the ghastly vision gave him, the boldness of his expostulation was still govern' d by decency, manly, but not braving; his voice never rising into that seeming outrage or wild defiance of what he naturally rever' d. 3

Still, as Alan S. Downer observes, 4 Betterton had managed not only to be "solemn," a word often used to describe his acting, but

1 Prompter No. 100, 1735, pp. 112-12. 2 Prompter No. 100, 1735, pp. 111-12. 3 Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, edited by R. W. Lowe, Vol. I, (1889), p. 101. 4 Downer, ''Nature to Advantage Dressed: Eighteenth Century Acting," p. 1003. 191

"trembling," and, as befits a heroic tragedian of Betterton's reputation-"rnanly" to boot. A later version of Hamlet, perhaps that of Robert Wilks', as Downer recounts, had substituted Betterton's "mute amazement," on meeting the ghost, for

"straining vociferation" and belligerence. It was Macklin who reinstated the Bettertonian "respect and terror," and Garrickwho greeted the ghost with "filial awe," when he carne to play the part. 1 However, at the time Hill was laying down his above prescription for performing Hamlet, there was no actor who fulfilled all he required of the part-even Wilks and Booth, the former excelling as the gloomy Dane's "gay half," the latter, according to Hill's hypothesizing, for Booth never actually played Hamlet, his "solemn" half, were only partly adequate according to Hill's reckoning. 2 Aesthetically Aaron Hill finds agreement with William Hogarth who, in his The Analysis of Beauty (1753), said that the

"whole of beauty depends upon continually varying ...." 3 In order to achieve this continual variation in acting, swift transitions must be made from one passion to the next; and in order to manage this flexibility an actor needs what Hill calls a "plastic imagination": This alone is a Faustus for theatres and conjures up all changes in a moment. On one part of a tragic speech the conscious distress of an actor's condition stamping humility and dejection on his fancy, strait his look receives the impression and communicates affliction to his air and his utterance. Anon, in the same speech, perhaps the poet has thrown in a ray or two of hope. At this the actor's eye should sud­ denly take fire and invigorate with the glow of

1 Downer, "Nature to Advantage Dressed: Eighteenth Century Acting," pp. 1003-4. 2 Prompter No 100, p. 110. 3 William Hogarth, An Analysis of Beauty, 1735; Menston: Scolar Press, 1971, p. 152. 192

liveliness both the action and the accent till, a third and fourth variety appearing, he stops short, upon pensive pauses and makes transitions (as the meanings vary) into jealousy, scorn, fury, penitence, revenge, or tenderness-all kindled at the eye by the ductility of a flexible fancy, and appropriating voice and gesture to the very instant of the changing passion. 1 Without this skill the actor becomes a mere reciter "of that which

he should seem to invent, before he expresses it." 2 Hill singled out the very popular Mrs. Porter for an offence against variety in the play Eurydice by his friend, David Mallet. Hill complained to the author in a letter on the premiere of the play, (February 22, 1731), that Mrs. Porter gave a performance of merely "whining monotony," where she should have provided "that touching pain and pleasure she might have given us, had she varied her look and her voice, with all that so beautiful variety of occasion you have put into her power, in a long and lively

intermixture of many very different passions." 3 If the performer merely recites his part "without due adaption of his look and muscles, to the meaning proper to the Passion, he will never speak to hearts; nor move himself, nor any of his audience; beyond the simple and unanimating verbal sense," he later added in his Essay

on the Art of Acting. 4 Hill is highly condemnatory of acting which gives an "air of unfeeling volubility of cadence," allowing the actor "to hurry on from one over-leaped distinction to another." 5 Giving these distinctions their due is what Hill's recommendation about acting point towards. The word Hill uses is "weight": "a forceful and

1 Prompter No 66, Friday, June 27, 1735, p. 85. 2 Prompter, No. 113, Tuesday, December 9, 1735, p. 128. 3 Works I, p. 98. 4 Works IV, p. 351. 5 Works IV, p. 351. 193

important dwelling upon the word in its delivery, as if you would stamp it upon the understanding-as if you parted with it

reluctantly, till conceived it would have its effect." 1 In a letter to an actress who was playing Imoinda at the time, Hill advises her on this question of "weight'': make it "slower, more distinct, and articulate" by putting weight on emphatic syllables and pausing at

appropriate times. 2 The "measure of time" in a pause, continued Hill, "should vary according to the sense." Generally, however, he advocated that a pause should take about as long as it takes to pronounce the word

"power." 3 This is an interesting word to choose as an example because it epitomizes the kind of acting Hill wanted-powerful acting. Pauses and transitions also have the practical effect (in Hill's theory) of enabling the actor to husband his resources from one powerful effect before going on to another. The time it "necessarily'' takes the actor "to conform his look and nerves to the successive changes of the Passions, will preserve his Voice, at every turn, by giving it due Rests: allowing frequent and repeated opportunities for a recovery of its wasted strength, in easy and un-noted

Breathings." 4 This enables the performer to build from strength to strength in the effects he achieved. Sometimes, however, a pause could lead to a suppressed and thereby more intense counterpoint. Unmitigated rage, for example, is better portrayed in this manner: it is more telling if excess is contained and "the voice

1 Works I, pp. 184 ff. 2 Works I, pp. 139 ff. 3 Works I, pp. 139 ff. 4 Works IV, pp. 351-2. 194

seems to preserve a kind of musical modulation, even in madness." An example is given by Hill of Chamont's speech in the Orphan:

-1 say, my sister's wrong'd; Monimia-my sister: born, as high, And noble, as Castalio.-Do her justice, Or, by the gods! I'll lay a scene of blood, Shall make this dwelling horrible, to nature, I'll do' t, * -Hark, you my Lord! -Your son-Castalio---- Take him to your closet, and, there, teach him manners. 1 At the point where Hill has placed the asterisk, the intemperate anger must cease-there is an echo of Bettertonian restraint here­ and the remainder of the speech must "be expressed by affectation of a low constrained, and almost whispered composure, concealing a slow, smothered, inward rancour, by a muttered ironical repression of voice, strained through the teeth, in a pretended restraint of indignation."2 These subtleties of performance were all, as Hill saw it, well illustrated by David Garrick. "Nature's noblest scheme of excellence in acting" was how Aaron Hill referred to David Garrick in a letter dated 29 March, 1749.3 This was five years after Hill had first seen Garrick in 1744. Moreover, the year 1744 was three years after Garrick's London debut and almost ten years after Hill had finished The Prompter

(1734-1736), when he first began to lay down his theory of acting. It is interesting therefore that Hill's theories were developed without the schematician's ever having seen the actor who was to become his epitome. From Cumberland's later account of Garrick's first appearance on the stage the impression is given that Garrick

1 Works I, pp. 356, 357. 2 Works I, pp. 356, 357. 3 Works II, p. 352. 195 embodied Hill's principles from the very start. "I first beheld little Garrick/' Cumberland recalls, "young and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont (Ryan) and heavy-paced Horatio (Quin)­ heavens, what a transition!-it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous." 1 Aaron Hill maintained that his theory of acting was based in "revolutionary" principles, and that these were complemented in Garrick, who, Hill declared, was the "only actor who ever felt, or understood it, rightly." 2 Hill's notions of plastic expressiveness and Garrick's own native abilities in this direction may be seen in Hill's first impression of Garrick as Macbeth. Garrick's "peculiar talent/' Hill observes in a letter of April 20, 1744, "lies in pensively preparatory attitudes; whereby, awakening expectation in the audience, he secures and holds fast their attention." 3 Such devices became standard at this time, and Churchill's account of Spranger Barry's meeting with the ghost in Hamlet satirizes the abuse of these preparatory attitudes: Some dozen lines before the ghost is there, Behold him for the solemn scene prepare: See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb, Puts the whole body into proper trim:- From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art, Five lines hence comes a ghost, and, hal a start. 4

1 Cumberland, Memoirs, I, p. 81. 2 Works II , p. 352. 3 Works II, p. 233. 4 The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill, London, 1844, I, p. 37. 196

Garrick had played Eumenes in Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's Merope in April 1749. When Hill had noticed Garrick's potential for bringing to life his own theatrical principles he acted accordingly. Hill changed the last act of Merope to afford Garrick greater range in emotionally charged playing:

I was forced to fill your speech upon the altar, with as great a weight of sentiment, as I had power to reach, because the spirit, the surprise, and dignity of attitude, wherein you will be seen, so suddenly, and in the instant of so strong an act of triumph, must alarm an expectation in the audience, that will swallow every word, you utter, in so promising a posture. 1 In violent transitions between moods, and the breaking up of speeches with sudden starts and shifts of tone, all of which are so fundamental to Hill's system of acting, Garrick was generally thought to be without equal. "Such heart-thrilling changes, as you touch, in the display of manly passions," the theoretician assured the actor, "such marked action, painted purpose, eloquence of look, and agitated force of attitude, are rare and noble qualities." 2 Garrick epitomized the pantomimic and vocal eloquence which Hill prized. "He charm' d me infinitely," Hill wrote after seeing Garrick in Johnson's Irene,''by an unexampled silent force of painted action; and by a peculiar touchingness, in cadency of voice, from exclamation, sinking into pensive lownesses, that both surpriz'd and interested!" 3 The one thing in which Garrick disappointed Hill was in the depiction of grand, majestic pathos. Garrick lacked the necessary "weight": "he wanted," agrees the actor's biographer Thomas

1 Hill, Works, II, pp. 389-90. 2 Works II, p. 339. 3 Works II, p. 346. 197

Davies, "that fullness of sound, that os rotundum, to roll with ease a long declamatory speech, or give force and dignity to mere

sentiment." 1 But another favourite actor, Barton Booth, was able to provide this dignity, nobility and grandeur-almost, it is tempting to asset, of the old school of Betterton. In fact Booth was able to do this by selecting those elements in a role which suited his ennobling talent:

He could soften, and slide over, with a kind of elegant negligence, the improprieties, in a part he acted, while on the contrary, he would dwell with energy on the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit, which had been kept back for such an occasion, that he might alarm, awaken and transport, in those places only where the dignity of his own good-sense could be supported by that of his author. 2 An interesting point of contact between Booth and Garrick, apart from their both being favourites of Hill, is made by B. L. Joseph, who suggests that the transitions which became de rigeur for actors in the age of Garrick were really a throw back to the essentials of the earlier age of Booth. 3 Booth developed his characters on a single but well defined through-line, marked by skilful variations, while Garrick's stock in trade was contrapuntal playing, crisp juxtapositions and contrarieties of emotion. Garrick was quite remarkable in his ability to effect the transitions between the emotions in a part. He was generally acknowledged and applauded for this ability; even his detractors, who detected trick and artifice in his sudden starts and volte-faces, had to admit Garrick's mercurial powers. L.-L and F.J. Marker strongly make the point that Garrick was blessed with expressive

1 Davies, Memoirs of David Garrick, I, p. 187. 2 Works II, pp. 140-41. 3 Joseph, The Tragic Actor, p. 103. 198 features, great pantomimic skill, and an intelligence to make the most of his natural endowment) Some would argue that it was the intelligence which made up for deficiencies in this natural endowment. A little below average height with a voice that was not powerful and resonant in the way Quin's was, are only two of the handicaps Garrick was often reported as overcoming. Cumberland said that nature had given Garrick a "frame of so manageable a proportion, and from its flexibility so perfectly under command, that by its aptitude and elasticity he could draw it out to fit any sizes of character, that tragedy could offer him." Moreover, Cumberland finds that "all his features [were] so plastic, and so accommodating, that wherever his mind impelled they would go." 2 It would seem indeed that Garrick possessed that "plastic imagination" which Hill required in an actor. Thomas Wilkes expressed the general view of his day when he said that Garrick excelled "all his predecessors as he [did] all his contemporaries in the power of shewing the distinguishing touches that separate passion from passion." 3 Of Garrick's famous Lear, Francis Gentleman wrote: 'We plainly perceive the elementary conflict re-imaged in his distracted looks, while the eyes are also feasted by a succession of expressive, striking attitudes."4 In the role of Chamont, Garrick excelled in the sharp differentiations of emotion which the play affords. 5 In Venice Preserv'd, too, he was able to physicalize the state of mind of Jaffeir, who is continually torn between conflicting emotions:

1 "Aaron Hill and Eighteenth Century Acting Theory," p. 425. 2 Cumberland, Memoirs, I, p. 334. 3 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 242-44. 4 The Tragic Actor, pp. 107 ff. 5 Foote, A Treatise on the Passions, p. 5. 199

In that part of the fourth Act, where Belvidera endeavours to work upon him so as to make him discover the conspiracy to the Senate, and procure the arrest of his new bretheren, our great Actor's looks and performance are so admirably adapted, that from them only, were we strangers to the language, we might judge of her power over him, and in what manner he was impressed by her arguments: and he is so very fine, that he can never fail to fill the eye with tears, and make evry heart sympathize with the pangs that swell the heart of Jaffeir. 1 There are many accounts of Garrick's ability to express a variety of

emotions, quite suddenly and with great dexterity, on his face. 2 But what makes him such an exemplar of Hill's principles of acting is that not only his face but the whole of his body registered the emotions as a total statement. Lichtenberg, a German visitor to London, has left a very vivid and detailed account of Garrick's

meeting with the ghost in Hamlet. It is a well known account, but it is quoted here to show how Garrick achieved his famous "starts" and emotional attitudes in acting:

Hamlet has folded his arms under his cloak and pulled down his hat over his eyes; it is a cold night, and just on twelve; the theatre is darkened, and the whole audience of some thousands are quiet, and their faces as motionless as if they were painted on the walls of the theatre.... Suddenly, as Hamlet moves towards the back of the stage slightly on the left, and turns his back to the audience, Horatio starts, and saying, "Look, my Lord, it comes," points to the right, where the Ghost has already appeared and stands motionless before anybody is aware of him. At these words Garrick turns sharply, at the same time staggering back two or three steps, his knees giving way under him; his hat falls to the ground, and both his arms, the left most noticeably, are stretched out almost to their full length, his hands as high as his head, the right arm bent more with its hand lower, and the fingers apart; his mouth is open: thus he stands rooted to the spot, with legs apart, but no loss of dignity, supported by his friends who are better acquainted

1 A General View of the Stage, pp. 242-44. 2 The Tragic Actor, pp. 107 ff. Fig. 12 David Garrick as Richard III, 1746. Hogarth. Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery.

Fig. 14 David Garrick as Richard III. Francis Hayman, signed F.H. 1760. Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Trust. 200

with the apparition, and who are afraid lest he should collapse. His whole demeanour is so expressive of terror that it made my flesh creep even before he began to speak.1 Here one can see the startling and alarming kind of acting Hill's theories underline. Variety and vivacity are served, as well as beauty and charm-the very bienseance of (particularly French) neo-classical theory. In addition to Lichtenberg's word picture, some of the celebrated portraits of Garrick in his famous acting roles also preserve the startlingly pantomimic quality of his acting. L.-L and F.J. Marker direct our attention to Hogarth's painting of Garrick in the tent scene from Richard III and Benjamin Wilson's graphic depiction of Garrick's Lear on the heath as two examples of the

parallel between Garrick's art and Hill's theory. 2 Both of these portraits capture heightened scenic attitudes of intense emotion. Richard III's horror at the arrival of the ghosts is well captured by Garrick's stance: his wide-eyes, trembling facial horror, as if it had just been extrapolated from LeBrun; his right arm with spread fingers holding off the apparitions, while the left gropes for his sword hilt; his whole body springing into an S-like readiness. In the Wilson portrait of Lear on the heath, Garrick is depicted at the centre while in the background may be seen lightning and storm clouds forming a cyclorama of threat and foreboding. Lear's cloak and white hair are blowing (Garrick used a special mechanical fright wig for the stage effect) in the storm; Kent [there is, of course, no Fool in this post-Tate version] is standing behind him, supporting him and holding his left hand, while the

1 M.L. Mare & W.H. Quarrell (eds.), Lichtenberg's Visits to England, Oxford: Clarendon, 1938; New York: BenjaminBlom, 1969, pp. 9 f. 2 "Aaron Hill and Eighteenth Century Acting Theory," p. 425. See Figs. 12 & 13. 201 right is raised in a noble but paltry gesture against the tempest. This was something presumably like the scene Wilkes witnessed when he wrote, as I have already quoted above, "his face [is] filled with horror and attention, his hands expanded, and his whole frame actuated by a dreadful solemnity ... I am astounded... and share... in his calamities." 1 Another useful piece of iconographical evidence which may be used to illustrate Hill's theory of acting, I would suggest, is the scene painter, Francis Hayman's portrait Garrick as Richard III on

Bosworth field. 2 Garrick is at the centre of the portrait, in fact he virtually fills the frame and draws our attention to his powerfully expressive face, as was reputedly his metier as an actor. His horse has died under him and lies still behind him. Garrick's body, as if the spirit of the dead animal now inhabits its royal rider, is alive with animal energy; both non-human yet nobly human at the same time. Richard appears defiantly alert, ready to meet his mortal eventuality. Again the S-line of energy flows through the figure: from the pugnaciously forwarded clenched fist of Richard's left hand, which maintains, electrically, his startled guard, to the sinisterly upstage right hand with its daggar held in position, ready to thrust as a measure of last desperation. The same energy flows down the legs which, even through the encassing armour, are seen to hold the ground like a two-fingered hand, back up the torso, along the fluent line of the cloak, which is placed there to guide our gaze back to the head and face where the expressive and slightly startled eyes finally hold our attention. In short, as Hill would

1 Quoted in "Aaron Hill and Eighteenth Century Acting Theory," pp. 425-426. 2 See Fig. 14. 202

maintain, the figure is alive in every limb and the passion is alive in every corporal element. As if to underline this, the other forces in the battle-now confused as to friend or foe-have fallen back into a semi circle, as if to give ground to this portrait of expressive passion. Though the painting is of necessity a frozen attitude, it still suggests the passionate portraiture of Garrick's acting as well as the sinewy, muscular delineation of passion which Hill's theory advances. The Wilson portrait of Lear on the heath, which was referred to above, also illustrates Hill's notion of the total effect of a stage ensemble to depict a particular passion. This principle may be seen in the grouping which Wilson has employed in the painting. Lear is accompanied by Kent and Edgar; both of these characters form a "frame of sympathy" around Lear, who is frozen in an astonished defiance of the storm. Edgar is turned to Lear in almost a sympathetic mirror image; indeed, both the subordinate figures are turned to the central one, thereby directing our attention to him. Their presence complements the monarch's and amplifies his emotional condition. The effect is of the expressively picturesque kind Hill constantly advocated and just as constantly failed to discover in his theatregoing. Like Gildon, who recommended that the stage should strive for the group effects of history painting, 1 Aaron Hill wanted a total stage picture; one that should be as finished as a history-piece in painting. "One living group of figures," Hill himself described the effect he wanted, "each placed properly, and touching and alarming the audience with his particular share in those contrasted yet adapted attitudes which would charm and animate the world by their force of passion and

1 See Figs. 7 & 11, for example. 203 propriety." 1 Such effects as these required careful rehearsal, and, accordingly, Hill thought that a rehearsal should be "a play completely acted, so as to want only dresses and spectators." He even insisted that an actor should know his lines before rehearsals commenced, so that then the "business of rehearsing could serve to show how every actor's character relates to and should be influenced by another' s-whence the passions arise, in what changes of voice, look, and movement they ought to be expressed, by what attitudes the very silence of those who have nothing to say may concur, to impress the imagination of the audience with that attention which would be due, and given the reality of such acted distress." 2 In other words,

If an actor does not know precisely the minute circum­ stances that relate to his role, as to entrances, exists, the parts of the stage he is to fill up, and the action he is to be in when he has nothing to say, he may be very perfect in the sense and meaning of the author and yet commit most egregious blunders in the representation.3

Hill regretted, as had Betterton through Gildon, 4 that actors reduced rehearsals "to a mere muttering over lines, with seldom so much as articulation of voice," leaving unpractised all of their "more considerable duties." The prompter's boy calls the actors to rehearsal: "then in rush they, one after another, mumbling their parts as they run ... hurrying with a ridiculous impatience, forsaking the stage as if they had nothing to do in the play but to parrot a sound without consequence." 5

1 Prompter No. 56, Friday, May 23, 1735, p. 68. 2 Prompter No. 56, p. 67. 3 Prompter No. 56, p. 60. 4 Life, p. 15. 5 Prompter No. 56, p. 67. 204

The Prompter's appearance in the mid-thirties, and the momentous performances of Garrick and Macklin in 1741, perhaps give the impression of a sudden revolution in the theatre. But this was not so. As we have already seen, Hill spoke out against artificial acting in 1716 in his dedication to The Fatal Vision. And in 1725, Charles Macklin made an attempt to introduce his "natural" style of declamation to the London stage. Later he recounted how the manager Rich did not appreciate his efforts, because he "spoke so familiar ... so little in the hoity-toity tone of the Tragedy of that day." On the advice Rich gave him to "go to grass," Macklin acted in the provinces until he came up to London in 1733. 1 He met Garrick in 1738, and the rest is theatre history. Lily B. Campbell calls the period in which Garrick acted the "period of realistic romanticism." By this she means that 1741-1776 was "marked by a revolt against the ideas of the preceding period and by the use of imitative acting." 2 No longer, Campbell would argue, did following authority in acting rule supreme; the inspiration of the individual's genius was gaining ground. Cooke in his Life of Macklin described the "revolution" in acting as one of: "changing an elevated tone of voice, a mechanical depression of its tones, and a formal measured step in traversing the stage, into an easy familiar manner of speaking and acting." 3 Garrick had raised the standard of the revolution by acting Bayes in Buckingham's Rehearsal, through which he was able, in inimical eighteenty­ century fashion, to send up the acting styles of the actors of the "old

1 William Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Comedian, London, 1804; New York, Benjamin Blom, 1972, pp. 12, 13. 2 Campbell, "The Rise of a Theory of Stage Presentation in England During the Eighteenth Century," p. 164. 3 Memoirs of Charles Macklin, pp. 98, 99. 205

school." (Quin was excepted from this satire.) In 1759 Sir Joshua Reynolds' three papers appeared in the Idler. These papers related to the painter's art, but in terms of general aesthetics, they further emphasized the role of genius as superior to imitation and tradition in the practice of the arts in general. Reynolds is cited here to show that Hill was part of this trend which emphasized the role of the individual aesthetic consciousness. However, having said all this, one must also acknowledge that Hill's "rules," his analysis of the passions, and his depiction of them in terms of universal truths, are really strongly located within the classical ethos. While it may be overstating the case to say that Hill wanted to revive the old Bettertonian tradition of acting which had become distinctly moribund by Hill's time, 1 it is still true that he wanted the classical emotions to find a delineation on stage which would be both vital and arresting. Indeed one reading of Hill's theory might hold that he requires actors to invigorate the classical forms of the passions with the commitment of their own individuality-to imbue the templates of the passions withthe vitality of their own personality, but not to let that personality be pronounced in the stage personation. When Hill asks the actor to identify himself with the feelings of Torrismond, as we have seen above, 2 it is for no other reason than to to ensure that the ensuing portrait of the particular passion be impactful. Hill is very much a transitional figure on the personaeity-personality continuum, therefore, who holds with the idea of classically correct form (personaeity), but gravitates towards the personality of the

1 See Thomas, Restoration and Georgian England, 1660-1788, p. 127. 2 See above, p. 173. 206

continuum, in the notion of the individual consciousness mediated through the passions. Hill's theatre honoured the Horatian purpose of making an audience feel by providing them with the example of actors who themselves genuinely appeared to experience the feelings of the characters they represent. This was the moral and artistic purpose of Hill's theory of acting. In a letter to his friend, Mr. Thompson, he expressed the wish for the writer and actor to combine "to conquer the audience will as to the impression of the passions upon them." 1

1 Works III, p. 390. Chapter III Sensibility, Fire and Feeling: Factors of Personality in John Hill's Theory of Acting

Although John Hill and Aaron Hill share the same surname, there is no family connection between these two contemporaneous acting theorists. Their common ground, however, is a belief in the importance of feeling in acting; and that they both conduct their discourse on acting in terms of personality rather than personaeity. If Gildon stands at the personaeity end of the continuum, then John Hill is at the personality extreme. For their part, John Hill and Aaron Hill both explore the actor's creative use of his emotions and imagination, while still acknowledging, even if only implicitly, the more formal aspects of the actor's art-the rules of utterance and deportment which are stressed in Gildon's Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, and, in the works of Thomas Wilkes and Roger

Pickering, 1 who were contemporaries of John Hill. Aaron Hill saw the emotions as a matter of the rational will; for him, the passions could be commanded to physicalize on demand, which makes the passions a function of the intellect. For John Hill, on the other hand, feelings emanated from the heart not the head. Nature gave man sensibility, or his sympathetic imagination, and art improved this into a theatrical expression. Aaron Hill was a pathfinder in the field of the creative use of the

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, 1759; Roger Pickering, Reflections Upon Theatrical Expression in Tragedy .. . , London: W. Johnston, 1755. 208 emotions in the theatre; but he was a rationalist, trying to tie the emotions to formulated rules, to treat feelings as controllable reflex actions. But where Aaron Hill emphasizes art, John Hill is prepared to allow nature a greater role in his theory of acting.

John Hill's The Actor 1 claims to be about reducing the art of acting to the rule of science, but it is really about the complex issue that is raised by the question of emotions in theatre characterization. Do actors, indeed should actors, really feel and experience the emotions they portray on the stage? Or, should they only appear to do so? These are the questions that are raised by The Actor; they subsequently became the linch-pin of Diderot's famous paradox, which he introduced in Le Paradoxe sur le Comedien

(1773). 2 In this debate, disputants took sides according to whether actors should fully live the parts they played, or, whether they should hold back, keeping an artistic distance between their fictional and real identities. 3 Diderot's thinking had been provoked by Hill's The Actor, when it had come to his attention in the form of a French translation, Antonio Fabio Sticotti's Garrick ou les Acteurs Anglais.4 Ironically, Sticotti seems to have been unaware that The Actor was itself a translation, and, to add an extra ironical twist, a translation

1 See above p. 5, n 3. Unlike The Actor (1755), The Actor (1750) is arranged more along the lines of the traditonal acting manual, containing specific sections on the voice and the body; the whole being divided equally between aspects of Art and aspects of Nature. 2 The Paradox of Acting, translated by Walter Herries Pollock, in The Paradox of Acting and Masks or Faces?, New York: Hill & Wang, 1957. 3 For an excellent explanation of Diderot' s paradox and its influence, see Roach, The Actor's Passion, Ch. 4 passim. 4 Antonio Fabio [?] Sticotti, Garrick, ou Les Acteurs Anglois; Ouvrage contenant des Observations sur l' Art Dramatique, sur l' Art de la Representation, & le feu des Acteurs. Avec des notes historiques & critiques, & des anecdotes sur les differens theatres de Londres & de Paris. Traduit de l' Anglois, Paris, 1769. 209 which had itself been made from a French original. The original in question isLe Comedien 1 by Remond de Sainte-Albine, a French journalist who is said to have applied no less than his own native commonsense to the mysteries of the actor's art. 2 Sainte-Albine was the first to talk about the concept of "le sentiment," which Hill translated into English, he admitted unsatisfactorily, as "sensibility."3 But, nonetheless, here in the mid-eighteenth century was the basis of the emotional paradox in acting, which continued as a debate throughout the ensuing century and a half. 4 Diderot identified in Sainte-Albine's work the basic emotionalist argument, which states that the actor must enter and live to the full the character he assumes for theatrical purposes. And yet John Hill's The Actor, which has already been acknowledged as a translation of Le Comedien, does not fully support this emotionalist view, 5 although it relies on some of the arguments the emotionalists use.

It is not proposed to go into the matter of textual variations fully here, but some discussion of the relationship of The Actor to (its French original) Le Comedien as texts is necessary. The Actor, in particular the first version of the book which was published in 1750, was a more or less faithful translation of the thesis of Le Comedien (1747). Hill kept to Sainte-Albine's chapter headings and his two-

1 Pierre Remond de Sainte-Albine, Le Comedien, Paris, 1747. 2 Duerr, The Length and Depth of Acting, pp. 230-31. 3 John Hill, The Actor (1750}, p. 14 .. Roach, The Player's Passion, pp. 99 f. claims that "English draws a fairly clear distinction between sensibility and sentiment." Sensibility is a capacity for feeling; sentiment is a thought or feeling prompted by passion. The same differentiation is not available in French. 4 Lee Strasberg, Introduction to The Paradox of Acting and Masks or Faces?, pp. x­ xiv. 5 William Archer, Masks or Faces, in The Paradox of Acting and Masks or Faces, pp. 75-80. 210 part structure; treating, in the first part, the "principal advantages an actor ought to have from nature," and, "those assistances which players ought to receive from Art," in the second part.l The difference between The Actor and Le Comedien is that the examples of acting are taken from the English stage, in the case of the former, and from the French stage 2 (as might be expected), in the case of the latter. Overall Hill tends to use rather more illustrations than Sainte-Albine; and in the revised version of The Actor he included even more such illustrative material from the London stage. Moreover, the revised edition of The Actor, which was published in 1755, promised to be a "new work"; but its claim to "newness" lies principally in the restructuring of Sainte-Albine's original format, which had separated the discussion of the respective parts played by art and nature in forming the actor. Hill, in his 1755 version of The Actor, decided that art and nature could not be so divorced in discussion, and that "nature, be she ever so powerful, requires to be guided by art" (pp. 11-12). While Hill, in The Actor of 1750, might

1 The Actor (1750), pp. 1, 155. 2 For this and other reasons, I have not pursued the French connections further, although all theorists in this study have a French debt-Gildon: Le Brun, Michel Le Faucheur, and many others; Aaron Hill: Descartes and, in terms of his dramas, Voltaire: John Hill, Sainte-Albine, as has been said. Indeed since the Restoration, the English theatre has borrowed from the French stage in a way it has never done, before or since. Since in the theorists I have been concerned with the French influence has been well and truly localized, I have not followed up the issues across the channel. However, anyone wishing to make the journey is directed towards: E.B. 0 Borgerhoff, The Evolution of Liberal Theory and Practice in the French Theatre (1680-1757), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1936; Angelica Goodden, Actio and Persuasion: Dramatic Performance in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Claredon, 1986; John Montgomery Wilson, The Painting of the Passions in Theory, Practice and Criticism in Later Eighteenth-Century france, New York & London, 1981; B.R. Tilghman, The Expression of Emotion in the Visual Arts. A Philosophical Enquiry, The Hague: 1970; G. Tytler, Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982; and further, to: Fran\oisRiccoboni, L'Art du Theatre, suivi d'une Lettre de M. Riccoboni aM*** au sujet de I'art du Theatre, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1971; Luigi, Riccoboni, Dell' Arte Rappresentativa Capitoli sei di L.R. Londra: 1728. 211 be said to have have subscribed to the emotionalist position of Sainte-Albine, in the revised version he betrays a somewhat modified emotionalist stance, and in so doing would appear to have revealed more of his own specific position on the question of feeling. The modifications Hill makes in the 1755 edition of The Actor, therefore, allow it to be reckoned an original work of acting theory, and one that is peculiarly relevant to the acting of the 1750s in London. The uniqueness of The Actor (1755), when compared to its sources and the first version of 1750, lies in the emphasis Hill gives to art over nature, which reminds us that scientific rationalism is still informing acting theory in the middle of the century. This is apparent from the very first sentence of the work: "The intent of this treatise," it begins, "is to shew what acting truly is; to reduce to rules a science hitherto practised almost entirely from the fancy" (p. 3). Nature must provide the raw material in the performer, runs the argument of Hill's "new work," but art can and should compensate for any deficiencies in nature. Nature in the 1750s, almost fifteen years after the revolution in "natural" acting brought about by Garrick and Macklin, was still something which had to be heightened and improved. This was still arguably the same neo­ classical nature to which Gildon and Aaron Hill had addressed their respective theories of acting. Roger Pickering, whose own theoretical treatise, Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, appeared in 1755, the same year as the revised version of The Actor, said that ''TRAGEDY, like PAINTING, must shew us NATURE: but under as much Advantage as she will properly admit of." 1 John Hill

1 Pickering, Reflections Upon Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, p. 23. 212 observed, in much the same vein, "we do not bear imperfections in the heroes of tragedy, we expect only the best face of nature in these" (pp. 207-8). Even though Garrick is considered a natural actor, Hill reminds his reader at the outset that even such a "natural genius"-"a born player" like David Garrick-is certain to have "formed himself by study" and to "have cultivated with an indefatigable assiduity the talents he possessed from nature" (p. 5). Garrick is made to epitomize Hill's thesis that it is art, more than anything else, which distinguishes the "compleat player" and genius. "An hundred people know how to indulge their natural faculties, for one who has the art to check them," according to Hill (p. 17). Art controlling nature; acting as a check, a guide; providing judgement for the judicious use of the actor's God-given talent: these are the tenets of John Hill's theory as expressed in the revised edition of The Actor. As a theory, therefore, even with its emphasis on art, it requires more of the individual personality of the actor­ more than any other of the treatises which have so far been studied. During the five years that separate the publication of the two editions of The Actor, Hill had become such a supporter of the place of art in acting that he was prepared to make the following claim:

In general it may be asserted, that if a person ever so well formed by nature for the stage, offer himself without advice, and merely from an opinion that he can do what he has seen done before, he will fail: on the other hand, if another of very inferior accomplishments, makes the same attempt under the direction of some established player, and listen for a considerable time to his admonition, he shall succeed .... So great an error is it that nature alone makes the player, and so vast the advantages which even the highest talents will acquire with regulation. (pp. 17-18) 213

However, his stress on art does not necessarily mean that John Hill simply and uncritically endorsed technique in acting. Quite the contrary, "the consummate artifice of the performer is to conceal the art by which he is assisted" (p. 6); "art est celare artem" was a prevalent concept of Hill's time, which is to be found in other contemporary theatre writings. 1 Like Gildon and Aaron Hill before him, John Hill believed that the kind of acting his treatise described was natural. Of course, as has already been seen, what was thought natural at one time was unnatural at another. 2 But in the decade when John Hill wrote his works on acting, "natural" was a particular vogue word. In chapter XXVI of The Actor, Hill records that "the term, Playing Naturally, is very frequent in the mouths of actors and criticks [sic]; but they have not ascertained its meaning." Of course, "natural" can never be defined in absolute terms, but Hill attempts to make clear what he means by the expression:

Natural playing, when it flows from a perfect understanding of the whole art and the rules of the profession, is the excellence of theatrical representation; but those who use the term, generally employ it to express that dependance [sic] upon nature, which excludes all the assistance of art: and it has been observed before that such nature will never make a player. (pp. 258-9) Such acting is "the greatest possible; but natural as this appears, it is the result of perfect art." What does Hill mean by acting which appears natural? Simply put: acting that is "divested of all pomp and ceremony'' (p. 259). This would appear to denigrate by implication the dignified Bettertonian acting which was

1 Cp. An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre in France, England & Italy, London, 1760, p. 182. 2 See above, pp. 14-15. 214 exemplified by Gildon's theory. That the traditional heroic acting of the Restoration no longer obtained in the mid century would seem to be a natural corollary to this. "The gifts of nature to the player are four," contends Hill, "three of them regard the mind, and one the body" (p.107). This last gift is the one aspect Hill devotes little attention to in The Actor, compared with the heavy emphasis Gildon placed on the actor's body in the Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton. The other three "gifts" are the chief concerns of Hill's writing, and show that despite his overt interest in formulating rules, his theory is chiefly based in the imaginative processes of the actor: understanding, sensibility and fire-the undisputed qualities which constitute the ideal actor, and which, while they can be cultivated, are part of the actor's natural endowment of the personality. Hill's ideal actor must possess understanding in order to comprehend his author; sensibility to be affected by and be able to convey the emotional qualities of his part; and finally, spirit or fire in order to bring his character to life (pp. 49 ff.). Hill believes that understanding is the most important of the three qualifications, "for to that he [the actor] is to owe the proper use of all the rest" (p. 18). "An understanding is the greatest requisite of a player" is a sentiment which is frequently echoed throughout The Actor (pp. 12, 16, 23; Chapter II passim). This may seem rather curious in a work which is regarded as singular by theatre historians for its discussion of feeling (sensibility)) And yet, as Hill himself points out: "All the advantages a player can possibly

1 The Length and Depth of Acting, pp. 241 ff. 215

have from nature will serve him to little purpose, unless he has understanding to regulate them" (p. 29). Understanding, then, was not only the actor's ability to comprehend his part, which in eighteenth-century terms meant recognizing the particular passions inherent in a part, but also the actor must be able to judge how much and what kind of passion was required. Both of these processes of comprehension and judgement are really part of the one thing: understanding. But there is a general implication in what Hill says that understanding should also mean regulation, or restraint. Overacting was a commonplace criticism of the eighteenth-century theatre: playing fit to split a lung, and winning applause through hamming for the gallery, were not

infrequent occurrences. 1 Overdoing a part, according to Wilkes, is as strong a mark of want of judgement as underdoing it. He instances Mr. Mossop, who "is a good scholar and understands his author perfectly well; but he

does not meliorate his exhibition." 2 After Garrick and Spranger Barry, Mossop was the third-rank tragedian of the time. An example of Mossop's not "meliorating his exhibition" may be found in his portrayal of Horatio in The Fair Penitent (1703). "The cool Horatio has fire, even in his expressions of gratitude: his declarations of friendship are all spirited; and there is in his resentment great passion." Hill agrees that Barry and Mossop both read the character correctly in playing Horatio in a spirited fashion. But while Barry may have less "fire in Horatio than Mr. Mossop," his "is more regulated." Mossop had overstepped the mark, with the result that

1 Cp. The Prompter, edited by William W. Appleton and Kalman A Burnim, pp. 68-69, 95. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 166-7, 268. 216

''The galleries will naturally be most pleased with Mr. Mossop, but the boxes give the palm the other way" (p. 115). It took a truly consummate actor to appeal to and satisfy the variety of tastes and expectations-from pit, to box, to gallery-to be found in a mid­ eighteenth century theatre audience. Mossop's strongest feature was perhaps his voice which, according to the author of The Present State of the Stage (1760), was truly commendable and his "speaking shows that he understands the meaning of his author perfectly well." 1 However, Mossop had problems with movement and stage deportment; he was considered to be ungainly and not a very prepossessing presence on stage. This physical ungainliness was identified as a feature of those actors who, like Mossop, came to the stage from an academic background.2 Perhaps Mossop, cognisant of his deficiencies, tried harder at meeting the competition offered by Garrick and Barry, and, in so doing, overstepped the mark. Unfortunately for Mossop, the actor's ability to hold back, to observe restraint even in the face of overwhelming passion, was as highly prized by Charles Gildon as it was by John Hill. 3 The actor had to monitor his own performance in the eighteenth century because there were no directors (in the modem sense of the word) in the theatres of the time. However, David Garrick, the foremost actor of his age, was also, as manager at Drury Lane from 1747 to 1776, thought to have operated there as

1 The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland. And the Theatrical Characters of the Principal Performers, in both Kingdoms, impartially considered, London, 1753, p. 26. 2 An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre in France, England & Italy, London, 1760, p. 185. 3 See above, pp. 106, 116, 124 ff. 217 something of a precursor of the modern stage director. 1 David Garrick is claimed as the first "director" in the English theatre because he made rudimentary attempts to co-ordinate his productions, working with stage machinists and theatre designers to this end. Even as an actor, he exhibited a director's instinct in that his best effects were achieved in ensemble. 2 We must, however, not overestimate Garrick's achievements as a director, since the mid eighteenth century, like the rest of the century as a whole, was a time when, as John Hill says, the province of acting belonged to the actor while the scenery is the concern of the manager (p. 225). Garrick was the master actor at Drury Lane for some almost unbroken twenty nine years. And during that time, Garrick coached his actors in following his interpretations of the roles they played. In the early days of his management, moreover, he treated the older, more experienced actors with due respect, allowing them to decide about their acting for themselves. John Hill's prime requirement, understanding, would have been extremely necessary to actors who were afforded this degree of trust. To the newer and less experienced performers, on the other hand, Garrick offered himself and his own acting as a model. 3 Critics said he imposed his readings on his players, turning out a race of parrots; but actors like William Powell managed to submit to Garrick's authority and still achieve success on the stage in their own right. 4 Holland, however,

1 Kalman A Bumim, David Garrick: Director, Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois U.P., 1961, pp. 57 ff. 2 George Winchester Stone, Jr. & George M. Kahrl, David Garrick: A Critical Biography, Southern Illinois U.P.: Carbondale & Edwardsville, 1979, p. 544. 3 Stone & Kahrl, David Garrick, pp. 52 ff; see also, The London Staqe 1747-1776: A Critical Introduction, by George Winchester Stone, Jr., Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois U.P., 1968, p. xxiii. 4 Kalman A Burnim, David Garrick: Director, p. 52. 218

was generally regarded as a mere copyist; but there were attempts to redeem him: "To copy should not servile seem, when they /Who

copy others, excellence display." 1 Good actors have always managed to transcend their influences. It must not be forgotten that although acting was said to be undergoing a revolution, the eighteenth was a custom-bound century, (and the theatre has always been a most conservative institution), so that an actor-manager who set the example for his company was by no means exceptional. Understanding the playwright was a concept that might be expected to find general support in the theoretical works on acting during the century. Gildon first made the point that playwrights, even lesser playwrights, should be taken seriously by the actors who perform in their plays. Betterton reminds the reader that it was ever his and Mrs. Barry's practice "to consult e'en the most indifferent

Poet in any Part we have thought fit to accept of." 2 Aaron Hill's theory is based on the assumption that the actor must come to terms directly with his author, discover his intentions and construct his performance from the blueprint of the passions which the playwright provided. 3 Wilkes called it "an extreme arrogance which some [actors] take of altering and deviating from their author, by introducing some out-of-the-way words and grimaces, which were never dreamed of, nor intended by him; so that, as the

Tatler observes, 'it is impossible to see the Poet for the Player.' "4 Traditionally the actor relied on the playwright to give him his pointers of interpretation; at least this was the case where the

1 The Rational Rosciad, in 2 Parts, London 1767, p. 18; The Anti-Rosciad, London 1761, p. 4. See also, The Churchiliad. 1761, p. 20. 2 Gildon, Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, p. 16. 3 Aaron Hill, Works IV, p. 342. 4 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 163. 219

playwright was alive and able to attend rehearsals. But as the repertoire (under Garrick) relied more and more heavily on dead authors, in particular Shakespeare, who enjoyed a new vogue in the mid century, interpretation increasingly fell to the discretion of the actors. In addition to John Hill's placing great importance on understanding in his two works of 1750 and 1755, there were other theorists who followed the same line, indicating a movement away from the rhetorical tradition of acting, where the actor conformed vocally and physically to general stereotypes, to a new tradition where the actor attempted a comparatively freer (that is to say based on his own intuition and judgement) interpretation of his role. In 1741, Luigi Riccoboni spoke of the importance of textual study in his An Historical and Critical Assessment of the Theatres of Europe. 1 Moreover, in 1759, four years after the revised version of The Actor appeared, Thomas Wilkes' A General View of the Stage recommended "a clear understanding" as an indispensable aspect of the actor's armoury. 2 So, it may be said that Hill's stress on the actor's ability to "read" and interpret his own part was reflective of the prevailing general theoretical position on this matter, and one that had developed strength in the middle to late eighteenth century. Understanding went beyond understanding the playwright to include understanding, or sympathetically identifying with, the role and the character the actor personated. Aaron Hill had instructed

1 Luigi Riccoboni, An Historical and Critical Assessment of the Theatres in Europe. Viz. The Italian, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Flemish, and German Theatres. In which is contain' d A Review of the Manner, Persons and Character of the Actors; intermix' d with many curious Dissertations upon the Drama; Toqether with Two Celebrated Essays: Viz. An Essay on Action, or, the Art of Speaking in Public; and, a Companion of the Ancient and Modern Drama, 1738; London, 1741 p. 2. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Staqe, p. 82. 220 the actor to imagine himself in the circumstances of the character he was playing. John Hill believes in and goes further than this, saying that the actor should also strive to create an original interpretation of his role; one that owes nothing to the previous performances of the role and is peculiar to the actor's unique vision and understanding. Hill holds up Garrick as "a man who has struck out of his own mind a manner of playing many things ... that might be instanced, quite different from what ever was before seen or conceived" (p. 21).

Garrick's An Essay on Acting (1744), 1 his own, at first published anonymously,2 account of preparing the roles of Abel Drugger and Macbeth, offers an insight into the originality of the great actor's working method. The first thing to notice is that comedy and tragedy are talked about in the same breath. Garrick admits that tragedy is "more exalted" and comedy "less ennobled," but he insists humours and passions "have the same fountains, differing only in their currents." 3 Garrick's major innovation in his Essay is the insight offered into the character of Macbeth, which Garrick views not as a series of points but as an overall assessment of the character's development. Macbeth is viewed as:

an experienced General, crowned with conquest, innately Ambitious, and religiously Humane, spurred on by metaphysical prophecies, and the unconquerable pride of his wife, to a deed of horror in nature and in itself; but as it is the ladder to the swelling act of the imperial theme,

1 David Garrick, An Essay on Acting, in which will be considered the Mimical behaviour of a Certain fashionable faulty Actor and the Laudableness of such unmannerly, as well as inhumane Proceedings. To which will be added a short CRITICISM of his Acting Macbeth. London, 1744. 2 Garrick initially did not attach his name to the Essay as he was using it as an adversarial device to deal with some aspects of public criticism in the early stages of his career. 3 Garrick, An Essay on Acting, p. 5. 221

his milk soon becomes gall, embitters his whole disposition, and the consequence is the murder of Duncan, the taking off of Banquo, and his own Coronation. 1 Here is an approach to a character which is organic and wholistic, rather than piecemeal. In the same vein, Garrick's Essay continues the analysis of the significant scenes of the play, not from the point of view of the "points" to be achieved, but in terms of their potential for progressively revealing the mental state of Macbeth. At the second appearance of Banquo's ghost, Garrick says, the actor should reveal Macbeth "being lost in the present Guilt and Horror of his Imagination." 2 During this period, moreover, the aesthetics of acting, as indeed of art in general, have been identified as moving from the classical to the romantic. 3 This change, which prized originality over tradition, personal feelings over the universal kind, meant that the actor had to rely on himself-on his own understanding in fact-rather than on the already established interpretation of stage roles. (This is what is meant by "romantic" in this present context). Those who argued for imitation in place of understanding, were answered by Hill as follows:

It will be said that imitation will supply the place of understanding, and that having observed in what manner another pronounces any sentence, the performer may give it utterance in the same cadence; an ear answering the purpose of understanding. Too many players are of this opinion; but it is setting their profession very low, it is reducing that to a mechanical art which was intended to exert all the force of genius .... (p. 21)

1 GarrickAn Essay on Acting, p. 13. 2 Garrick, An Essay on Acting, p. 21. 3 W. J. Bate, Criticism: The Major Texts, New York, 1952) p. 240. 222

It was this "force of genius" that Garrick and Macklin represented. Their performances respectively as Richard III and Shylock in 1741, asserted the right of genius, in the sense of original interpretation, to be heard on the London stage. These historical performances of Richard and Shylock were conceived and executed virtually independently of any previous performances of the roles. Indeed, Macklin's Shylock reversed the tradition of playing the Jew as a comic figure. Although Henry Woodward is said to have told Tate Wilkinson that Garrick borrowed "some of his points in Richard" from Lacy Ryan, that "ungraceful, slovenly, ill-dressed figure,"

Garrick was no mere "auricular imitator" of Ryan's Richard. 1 Ryan's influence on Garrick was one of inspiration rather than exemplification. Garrick did not in fact copy Ryan; he was "astonished at what he saw working in the mind of ... Ryan; which told him more than he knew before and caused Garrick to bring to light, as his own, that unknown excellence which in Ryan had

remained unnoticed and buried." 2 It would be wrong to imply that, through Garrick and Macklin, imitation and tradition in acting were outlawed, and innovation, the new darling of the age, made de rigeur. For, while the doctrine of originality licensed outrageous excess and bizarre interpretations in some quarters, (Wilkes speaks of a Romeo who gave the Queen Mab speech of Mercutio "in the same solemn

declamatory manner as a lawyer pleads a cause"), 3 Garrick, as manager at Drury Lane, ensured that novelty and originality were observed, but only after his own example. As has already been

1 Henry Barton Baker, Our Old Actors, London, 1878, I, p. 153. 2 Baker, Our Old Actors, London, 1878, I, p. 153 .. 3 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 160-61. 223 mentioned, Garrick's supervision of the members of his company ensured that it was his "originality" that was enacted by the company at Drury Lane. Nor, moreover, did Garrick abandon all the traditional stage business that was available to actors in the eighteenth century. A case in point is Hamlet's upsetting the chair in the closet scene with Gertrude. Hill seems to think that Garrick was responsible for this business being "introduced very happily in tragedy'' (p. 276). In fact, Betterton had already used this device, and quite successfully so, as may be seen in the frontispiece to Rowe's edition of Hamlet (1709).1 The chair is lying prone, having been upset as a result of Hamlet's amazement at the second appearance of his ghostly sire. Garrick did employ and refine the chair business, using, it is said, cabriole legs on the chair to facilitate its yielding to the promptings of his foot. However, as Hill points out, Garrick did not "repeat it constantly ... for then it becomes a very stage trick, and is contemptible" (p.276). Avoiding this stage trick would have been quite an achievement because Garrick had added Hamlet to his repertory in the 1742-3 season, where it stayed through ninety performances until 1776, spanning virtually his entire career. 2 The Garrick style soon had its imitators, and so what was original in the master was emulated by the generality of actors. In the October 1751 edition of the London Daily Advertiser, "The Inspector" referred to a school of Garrick, saying "it is easy to trace the pencil of the master in the lines of the whole school." 3 The much imitated manner of playing that was modelled upon Garrick

1 See above, p. 95-6. 2 Stone & Kahrl, David Garrick, p. 540. 3 "The Inspector No. 203," in The wndon Daily Advertiser, October 25, 1751, p. 1 224 was a generally fiery performance, punctuated by sudden transitions from one emotion to another, subsumed by a graceful yet arresting power throughout. Theophilus Cibber chose to regard Garrick's style in a negative light: "his studied tricks, over fondness for extravagant gestures, frequent affected starts, convulsive twitchings, Jerkings of his body, sprawling of the fingers, slapping the breast and pockets:-a set of mechanical motions in constant use ...." 1 Genius and originality were the catchphrases of the mid century. In 1770 there appeared Paul Hiffernan's book, Dramatic

Genius, 2 which dealt partly with the art of acting; it was, not surprisingly, dedicated to David Garrick. So common an expression was it that the word "genius" became almost devalued by overuse. Benjamin Victor declared: "How happy has been the State and Conduct of our Theatres for the last sixteen years? when so many

Geniusses [sic] have stepped at once into Reputation and Fortune." 3 Garrick frequently used "genius," perhaps as professional flattery, in his letters to his fellow actors. 4 In 1760 The Grand Magazine conducted "An Estimate of the Theatrical Merits of the two tragedians of Crow Street ...." [Barry and Mossop], deciding in favour of Barry because his manner was entirely his own­ original-while Mossop was only "a better Sheridan," whom he had imitated. 5 At least Mossop was admitted to be a "better Sheridan"; but he was still condemned as an imitator and these were out of favour

1 Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, Esq., with Dissertations on Theatrical Subjects, London, 1759, p. 56. 2 Paul Hiffernan, Dramatic Genius, London, 1770, esp. Bk. III. 3 Benjamin Victor, The History of the Theatres of London & Dublin 1761; New York & London: Benjamin Blom, 1969, II, pp. 84-5. 4 In Actors on Acting, pp. 136 ff. 5 The Grand Magazine, May 1760, p. 253. 225 at the time. "The copyist," says Hill, "shall give us some satisfaction in some striking scene, because he thus remembers exactly what he has seen; but in all the less remarkable passages, having not paid the same attention, he is, altho' these are much easier, quite contemptible" (p.39). Wilkes agreed with Hill's view of the copyist, going on to say that originality was prized above imitation, because only originality could guarantee a performance that was notable for its "spirit and ease." 1 A copied performance, even when it is based on an excellent original, becomes stiff and laboured. The reason is obvious: it is an imitation of someone else's art. However, an original performance is the result of the individual's own understanding, and it will therefore always seem more spontaneous than a copied performance. The temper of the age of Garrick called for the individualism of an original performance, which must seem to have originated spontaneously from the actor himself. Hill believed that it was the responsibility of the actor to give life and breath to the literary creations of the playwright. 'We expect from the player," says Hill, "not to astonish us with his own ideas, but to represent properly to us those of the poet'' (p. 7). And yet to bring immediacy to a role the actor had to transcend the mere words of the playscript. To do this Hill maintained that the actor had to become "in some degree an author himself." This was not simply a licence for adding or subtracting from the playwright's text: tampering with the written word, intentionally or otherwise, were equally thought to be "abominable" by our theorist. Understanding the playwright meant, here, that the actor should be able to go beyond the rhetorical demands of a role, and to be able to discover

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 89-90. 226

the fuller picture that is implied by the author's blueprint. The "author," says Hill, "has been able to sketch out the out-line of what is to be done, and it is left to the actor or player to add the light, and finish, or in great measure to make the picture" (pp. 30-1). This meant that the actor would not only need to be "in some degree an author himself'' but, more than that, also "a genius superior to that of the poet." He would theoretically have to know as much if not more than the poet, if he, the actor, were going to have to fill in the gaps, deliberate or otherwise, created by the author. "But we find it difficult enough to meet with players who have sufficient comprehension," lamented Hill (p. 31). On another occasion, however, Hill decided that "Authors owe more of their success to good actors than they imagine; the mischiefs they receive from bad ones are not nearly so great," re-calling the sentiment which Gildon expressed some forty-five years earlier. Mrs. Barry, said Gildon, "so exerted herself in an indifferent Part, that her Acting has given Success to such Plays, as to read would turn a

Man's Stomach." 1 A player with understanding can add ''beauties the author never thought of" (p. 40), says Hill. Wilkes agrees that "the actor requires an understanding beyond that of the author": "generally the actor must decide what voice and action to use; he must be able to interpret the author and to think for him." 2 Comedy traditionally offered more scope than tragedy for "adding to the author"; the dignity of tragedy had always kept it (ideally) spare of business, while comedy could reflect life with all life's variety. Abel Drugger's breaking the urinal was Colley Cibber's

1 Gildon, The Life, p. 16. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 195. 227

addition to Jonson's play, and became indistinguishable from

Jonson's original text. 1 More realism had always been employed and allowed in the acting of comedies. Consequently the stage business of this genre was more detailed and varied than that of tragedy. Gildon's rules forbidding the loading of muskets and the stringing of bows because these acts occasioned undignified postures

for tragic heroes to assume may be recalled as example here. 2 However, in the mid century the influence of domestic tragedy, or what Laura Brown has recently termed plays of

"dramatic moral action," 3 was having its effects felt in respect of the business and speaking of tragedy. These results arose from the fact that dramas like The London Merchant (1731) and The Gamester (1753) to name but two, did not draw their protagonists from the ranks of kings and princes, and as a consequence the manners and habits of such elevated personages were not required to be

portrayed. 4 An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre in 1760 looked back at Rowe's The Fair Penitent and recognized in it "the distresses of private life," which it deemed as interesting as those of kings and princes, since they "come home more to the bosoms of the spectators," who, as the prologue says, "Love to pity woes so like

their own." 5 "Mr. Town," writing in The Connoisseur of September 19, 1754, declared "Our present set of actors have, in general, discarded the dead inspid pomp applauded in their

1 Garrick, An Essay on Acting, p. 7. 2 See above, p. 74. 3 Brown, English Dramatic Form, 1660-1760, see Part III, especially Ch. 5. 4 Bembaum, The Drama of Sensibility, pp. 151 ff, 203 et seq. See also, Restoration Serious Drama, pp. 211 et seq., Richard W. Bevis, English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660-1789, London: Longman, 1988, Chs. 8, 12. 5 An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre in France, England & Italy, London, 1760, p. 3. 228 predecessors," and "the hero now seldom sweats beneath heavy plumage." 1 Another effect was that by the middle of the eighteenth century comedy and tragedy had grown closer together as dramatic genres. It is no mere coincidence that The Actor is the first acting treatise to talk about comedy and tragedy virtually in the one breath, treating them as (almost) equally important, whereas hitherto, acting treatises had followed the Aristotelian model, fixing exclusively on tragedy. The gap between the two genres narrowed as tragedy came to include characters speaking prose not verse, inhabiting commonplace not elevated settings. However, tragedy was still the chief instrument of moral edification and the purpose of the theatre in Hill's time was still a moral one. "A Letter from a Gentleman in town, to his friend in the West," published in The Museum under the title, "On the Present State of the Theatre," speaks of the actor's function "to move some thousands of spectators with virtuous passions." The same letter views actors as "ministers of the most rational entertainment to a whole nation . . . they should be looked on as officers or servants of the public, and as vested with a public trust, rather than instruments of private pleasure." 2 The actor's responsibility, the letter goes on, is to lead a virtuous life off stage as well as on: an argument that recalls Gildon. The Universal Magazine for December 1768 applauded Garrick for elevating theatre to "a profession tending to promote decency and inspire virtue."3 Quoting the Tatler No. 12, The Players; A Satire

1rhe Connoisseur No. 34, September 19, 1754, pp. 266,268. 2 The Museum, or the Literary & Historical Register, No. XXV, Saturday February 28, n.d., pp. 384-5. 3 "Reflections on Garrick", Universal Magazine, Vol. 4, December 1768, p. 612. 229 observed that "the theatre has much the same Effect on the

Manners of the Age, as the Bank on the Credit of the nation." 1 Even Theophilus Cibber recognized, as had Collier before him, that theatre by "Example is the strongest Manner of enforcing Precept," 2 so that theatre teaches the young the manners of the world without their running throught the perils of it. An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre (1760) agrees that drama "should confirm the heart, and give lessons of courage," and highlights the instructively affecting impact which can be made throught the tender passions. Characters are rendered interesting either by their misfortune or their virtue. But how much greater is the effect when virtue itself produces the distress. 3 Gray's Inn Journal of December 1, 1753 asserts "that to express the emotions of the human heart is the chief business of an actor, and no account is ever to be made of figure, voice, or any other external cirumstance, unless it be when they combine with the performer's feelings to make deeper impressions on an audience." 4 The impact of domestic tragedy on the acting of affective emotions is clear, even though as Richard Bevis points out, the effects of bourgeois tragedy after Lillo are not so discernible in the writing of tragedy. In fact since the Licensing Act in 1737 until the time of Hill's The Actor

(1755), few if any new tragedies had been written at all. 5 As far as understanding was concerned, tragedy was harder to comprehend than comedy, Hill asserted, because the textual implications for vocal delivery and physical action are not so readily

1 Preface to The Players: A Satire, n.p. 2 Theaophilus Cibber to David Garrick, I, p. 2. 3 An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre, pp. 68-9. 4 Gray's Inn Journal, No. 59, December 1, 1753, p. 43. 5 Bevis, English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660-1789, p. 201. 230 deciferable in tragedy as in comedy. Hence "a greater comprehension" is required of the actor who will perform playwrights like Aaron Hill, Dr. Johnson and Milton [for Comus presumably]. These three are Hill's examples of "classic" authors who present challenges of interpretation to aspiring actors (p. 19). Although domestic tragedy had brought the theatrical forms of tragedy and comedy into closer correspondence, certain of the old tragic performance traditions still applied. One of these was the dignity of the tragic hero. Dignity should attach to and be exhibited, at all times, in the role of the tragic protagonist on the stage, even when that protagonist is a wanton husband or a misguided apprentice. It is almost as if without dignity there could be no tragedy. Hill does draw a distinction between the dignity that must be paid to the "characters of the old heroes" and the lesser formality that is owing to the more contemporary tragic heroes like "a Torrismond or an Altamont"; however, a distinction should be made for "a Cato, or a Brutus." In short, Hill recommends that these latter roles be approached in a manner that is "somewhat elevated above the highest comedy, and yet somewhat below the full dignity of tragedy" (p. 269), as befits the heroes of antiquity. The heroic treatment now seems to be a matter of historical acting, rather than standard, universal acting, as it had been in Gildon's time. While his dignity was assured, the elevation of the tragic hero in the age of Garrick was under threat. ''The Heroes Grandeur's lost in Pigmy size,/ A Blockhead Six Foot High, his Mind belyes," was the opinion of The Players: A Satire. 1 And Garrick reflected something of the same size prejudice in his conjecture

1 The Players: A Satire, n.p. 231

that, were a painter to paint the valour and ambition of Macbeth, he would represent those "grand characteristics" in "a Person near 6 Foot, Corpulently graceful, a round visage, a large Hazel Eye, acquiline Nose, prominent chest, and a well-calved leg." By this measure, Garrick concludes that he is "well form' d for Fleance, or

one of the Infant Shadows in the Cauldron scene ...." 1 Theophilus Cibber was inclined to agree with Garrick (who was being ironical), preferring the traditional heroic stature of Barry's Lear to Garrick's:

When kingly Barry acts,-the Boxes ring With echoing Praise,-" Ay, every Inch a "King." When Garrick dwindling whines,­ Th' assenting House Re-whispers aptly back,-" a Mouse, "a Mouse!" "Qui, invidet minor est." 2 Garrick's was not the typical hero's height and stature. Cibber further remarked that Garrick diminished Don John in The Chances : '"Tis no longer the noble Don John,/'Tis a little Jack-a­

dandy." 3 Cibber found it strange that Garrick should research his King Lear in Bedlam, observing the behaviour of a mad tailor, which he thought entirely innapropriate to the playing of a mad

king. 4 Garrick, of course, was studying the living details of madness rather than relying on the traditional decorums. A loud voice was often mistaken for tragic grandeur and dignity; sometimes as a gallery pleaser, but more often than not the evidence points to actor's confusing a powerful impact with

1 An Essay on Acting, p. 14. 2 Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, I, London 1759, p. 44. 3 Theophilus Cibber to David Gamck, II, p. 54 4 Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, II, p. 36. 232 powerful lungs. 1 This is reminiscent of the traditional notion of the tragic hero having a loud voice and a strutting walk.

Lo! here in Majesty a Monarch comes, Usher'd by Trumpets and the beat of Drums: The Plumes around his head, with martial Pride, Wave, as he sallys on from side to side; Bold in the Stages front, he claims a place, And into posture screws his dismal face. 2 Hill noted that in his own time there was "now a more natural way of delivery," which was different to the monotony of loudness or the monotony that comes from intoning lines. 111Tis true, there was a time when blank verse was all spoken too much alike, and this sort of recitative might as easily be chanted out by a weak man as a wise one" (p. 42). However, Hill implies by this, to sound natural and convincing on the present stage, with its more natural way of delivery, required a deep and penetrating understanding on the part of the actor. "A bellowing, and strutting, and staring, and tossing about of the arms may do with the meaner part of an audience, but where the player has not true feeling, which he can never have without a perfect understanding of his part, all force is ineffectual." There is a place for tempestuous playing, admits Hill, as long as it is supported by the text. In general, however, Hill seems to have been in favour of underplaying, which tended to characterize the age of Garrick and Macklin, and distinguish theirs from the age which preceded it. 3 A single word "pronounced with strength in a sentence, may convey more terror than the most violent manner of delivering the whole." The king's line to Hotspur in Henry W, Part

1 See above, p. 114. 2 The Players; A Satyr, n.p. 3 A. C. Sprague, Shakespeare and the Actors: the Stage Business in his Plays 1660- 1905, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U.P., 1944, p. 19; Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, p. 188. 233

1, "Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it," gains more effect by stressing the word "hear" than it would if the line were given in a bullying manner, which would be inappropriate to the position of a king, even an angry one (p. 25). Another example is found in Barry's rendition of the Earl of Essex. As the Earl goes to his execution, Essex has only two short words with which to express the pathos of the scene: "Look there!," he exclaims as his lady swoons at the affecting sight occasioned by her pitiful husband. Barry gave the short expression in a ''broken and scarcely audible voice," which together with the "anguish of his look, and the grace of his attitude" captured a distress which the mere words of the playwright do not in and of themselves contain (pp. 32-3). In other words, both examples rely on the superior understanding of the actors to bring them excellence. Both are scenes of powerful individualized emotion (personality), executed with the dignity befitting the tragic hero in both cases. There is strong encouragement in Hill's writing for the actor to find and realize the life within the playwright's text. Declaiming the author's words was clearly not enough in the age of Garrick. However, Hill admits that in the theatres of the day "the player who is perfect in the words of his part, who delivers them with judgement, and regulates his deportment by his character, will obtain the applause of the greatest part of the audience." The largely traditional rhetorical style of acting had clearly not been fully eclipsed. However, if the actor wished to please the discriminating few, he must also throw in "strokes that are original" (p. 265). These strokes, or "finesses" as they are also known, may include adding or deleting words, pausing where the verse does not allow a pause, an inspired piece of stage business, and so on. Garrick's Iago and 234

Macklin's Shylock are proposed as examples of acting "where words do not, or cannot convey enough." Consider Garrick's Iago:

In Iago Mr. Garrick shews an infinite deal of finesse also; but he regulates himself so, that there are some parts of the character in which he speaks altogether plainly. When he declares his design upon Cassio, he punctually observes this. Mr. Macklin did it before him, and the success is obvious. Every other actor is ridiculous in that passage; these are excellent. The character is full of occasions for finesse and bye-play, but we are pleased to see them all let alone where they would be improper. (p. 275) Not only must the "perfect player" understand and know his own part, he had also to "remember the substance of every other person's part" (p. 254). "For he will be a young actor as long as he lives, who follows the young actor's practice of knowing when he is to speak by the words of his cues." Thomas Wilkes agreed with Hill, asserting that the actor, in addition to his own part, must also be acquainted with all the correspondent characters, else he cannot do justice to the part he assumes." 1 The traditional practice had been that actor's knew only their own parts and cue words, which were written out for them by the prompter. 2 By knowing the "substance of every other person's part" the actor could respond to his fellow actors as a "living" person and not just as a set of cues. This would surely have lent the stage a kind of ensemble quality in performance, the appearance of what Hill terms "nature and reality." This was important for Hill believed that the theatre should offer its audience a sense that they were attending at a real adventure.

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 91. 2 Cp. E. A. Langhans, "A Restoration Actor's Part," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 1975, pp. 180-5. 235

Sensibility is the second of Hill's three points. The actor's ability to feel and convey emotions on stage gives the drama its reality. By making the part come to life, by breathing life into the emotional components of his part, the actor is able to convince his audience that they are "attending at a real adventure." Sensibility is the general disposition of the individual to "be affected by the passions which plays are intended to excite" (p. 48). Understanding what the author intends is the first step the actor makes; feeling the passions strongly is the second step, and this is the work of sensibility. However, "a great understanding is not necessary to this sensibility" (p. 50); in fact the one can exist quite independently of the other. But when sensibility and understanding come together in the one actor, then they comprise the potential of a great performer. Sensibility finds expression in both comedy and tragedy, with the former requiring a more general sensibility than the latter. The comic actor has to feel a wider range of emotions. However, tragedy requires a greater intensity of feeling than comedy. The "most happy seat" of sensibility "is in that kind of theatrical representation which is between the two: that which, without the levity of comedy, is not tied down to the measure, or engaged to the sounding phrase of tragedy." Hill is here referring he reports to what the French call, "Comedie l'armoiant," the prose tragedy of prosaic lives. "Drame Bourgeois," "le drame," "drame serieux," "comedie larmoyante," "comedie serieuse" are some of the labels of this drama, which depicts the domestic rather than the heroic, the serious rather than the purely tragic, or the purely comic in life (p. 50). ''Le drame" is associated with the name of Diderot, 1 but the fusing of comedy and

1 In Barret H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama, 1918; New York: Crown, 236 tragedy which is engendered in this form had already begun in England in the late seventeenth century with what Allardyce Nicoll calls the "lachrymose comedies and pathetic tragedies" of Cibber,

Rowe and Otway. 1 These "drames" emphasize the pathetic and the sentimental, making and depending for their theatrical virtue on a strong appeal to the emotions of the audience. Accordingly the audience was expected to enter into an empathetic relationship with the characters that populated these tragedies of pathos and feeling. The influence was even felt in the performance of Shakespeare as may be seen in Hill's description of the effect Barry's Othello had on audiences:

When Shakespeare puts into the mouth of his enraged Moor, (glory-in the revenge he had taken on the supposed deluder of his wife) this great and soldier-like expression, Had all his hairs been lives, My great revenge had stomach for them all; we see Mr. Barry redden thro' the very black of his face; his whole visage becomes inflamed, his eyes sparkle with successful vengeance, and he seems to raise himself above the ground while he pronounces it. 'Tis right he should do all this. The sel\_timent supports it: we feel with him the transport the poet felt when he wrote; and tho' there can be nothing sounding in the expression, the thought fills us with great and noble resentment. As this actor pronounces the words, accompanying the delivery with that exalted and magnificent deportment we feel with the character: we forget that it is a player who speaks, and that it is an imaginary scene which is represented before us; we conceive the hero and the husband betray' d, injur' d, and glorying in his insatiable revenge: we not only see the character thus before our eyes, but we feel with him; we pay an involuntary tribute to the author and the player; we glow with their transports; the very frame and substance of our hearts is shakes as if conscious of the fame due to

1965, pp. 238 ff. 1 Allardyce Nicoll, English Drama: A Modern Viewpoint, London: Harrap, 1968, pp. 97-8. 237

honour and resentment, we swelled and trembled as he did; like strings which are so perfectly concordant, that one being struck, the other answer, tho' distant. Nay, so perfectly does the delusion possess us, that we rejoice in the vengeance, and forget for the time that there was no cause for the resentment; that Desdemona was innocent or the husband deceived. (pp. 9-10)

Here we see the actor in the traditional attitude of highly delineated emotion, in an attitude of jealousy, but coming through the formal attitude, just as Barry was seen to redden through his black-face make-up, we sense and feel with the individual emotion underneath. This is reminiscent of what Keats later termed

"negative capability." 1 The audience enters into and shares the life created on the stage; it is an imaginative identification, where moral judgement is suspended and the spectator views the world entirely through the eyes of the actor with whom he identifies. Gildon and Aaron Hill had both invoked Horace's dictum "Si vis me flere ..." in order to account for the relationship between the actor and his audience. But in the example above, John Hill is pleading for a more intense kind of rapport between the stage and the auditorium. According to the philosophy of The Actor, the actor goes further than just portraying or exhibiting feeling; he provides opportunities for the audience to enter into the experience, and to become part of it through the actor. Wilkes in reviewing Garrick's Lear shows how the spectator's feelings become identified with those of the actor:

I never see him coming down from one corner of the Stage, with his old grey hair standing, as it were, erect upon his head, his face filled with horror and attention, his hands expanded, and his whole frame actuated by a dreadful

1 A Dictionary of Literary Terms, edited by Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman and William Burto, London: Constable, 1969, p. 97. 238

solemnity, but I am astonished, and share in all his distresses ... Methinks I share in his calamities ... I feel the dark drifting rain, and the sharp tempest with his, Blow winds-'till you have burst your cheeks. It is here that the power of his eye, corresponding with an attitude peculiar to his own judgement, and proper to the situation, is of force sufficient to thrill through the veins and pierce the hardest bosom. What superlative tenderness does he discover in speaking these words: Pray do not mock me; for as I am a man I take that lady to be my child Cordelia. I This is an empathetic relationship between the audience and the

actor, which Walter Jackson Bate has termed, 2 in the context of literature, the sympathetic imagination. The observer surrenders his identity to the observed object, the work of art or embodiment of the work of art in the case of the actor, and becomes a part of it. The observer therefore "has no Identity-he is continually in for [sic]­

and filling some other Body," as Keats put it. 3 Not only does this relationship exist between the observer and the observed, in the sense of actor and audience, but also between the actor and his assumed character. This raises the question of the extent to which, if at all, the actor surrenders his own personality to the assumed identity. And the measurement of an actor's success was the extent to which he could create a believable personality that was quite unlike his own. This was, indeed is, not always possible because the actor, no matter how successfully he can forget his own personality, has always to mediate his creation through his own body, his own feelings-in fine, his own instrinsic personality. Hill recognizes this perennial problem and expresses it in terms of the actors of his day as follows:

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 234-5. 2 W. J. Bate, "The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism," Journal of English Literary History, XII, 1945, p. 79. 3 Wasserman, "The Sympathetic Imagination of Eighteenth Acting," pp. 264-72. 239

... whether we see Mr. Garrick in Richard or in Osmyn, still he sees Mr. Garrick; that Mr. Barry in Othello, or in Jaffier, still shews himself Mr. Barry; and that Mrs. Cibber, is plainly Mrs. Cibber, whether she act Alicia or Indiana: But when Mrs. Pritchard plays Merope, she is Merope; when she represents the wife of Theseus, she is the wife of Theseus, and nothing of her self appears, but all the character. (p. 60) The argument here is that Garrick's fiery spirit, Barry's tenderness, and Mrs. Cibber's melancholy attend them in whatever roles they play. Mrs. Pritchard, however, having "no distinguishing mark of this kind," has a neutrality which welcomes and accommodates only the peculiarities of the roles she assumes. Mrs. Pritchard was a truly universal player, for "it were best that the heart of a player had no reigning passion of its own with this ready sensibility of all" (p. 61). Being equally predisposed to all the passions, that is, being able to perform any emotion that a script threw up to an actor, was what Hill considered to be the ideal, the same ideal which was held by Gildon and Aaron Hill. Few actors approximated that ideal; most of them were remembered for their natural temperaments, like Quin's gravity and dignity, Spranger Barry's amorousness, Mrs. Cibber' s tearfulness. Unlike his comic counterpart, the tragic actor had only a narrow range of passions in which to specialize. "Tragedy," said Hill, "is confined to narrower bounds than people unaccustomed to examine things might imagine; its great resources are only three, love, revenge and ambition" (p. 62). This makes a strong contrast with Aaron Hill who identified at most fifteen passions, with internal permutations and variations. But John Hill's list is in keeping with the wry and irreverent notion of Samuel Foote, who said that "all the Passions may be reduced to Love and Hatred, nay perhaps to one, Love; and 240

even that may be altogether resolved into Self-Love." 1 John Hill is neither concerned to give a detailed analysis of the variety of passions as did Aaron Hill, nor is he, like Charles Gildon, concerned to catalogue the vocal and gestural conventions related to the many emotions the actor must imitate. John Hill does not deny that anger, love, hatred, fear, and so on, have their appropriate look, sound, and stance, and that they vary according to the temper and station of the individual; but his interest in the emotions is a specific one. Feelings of the tender kind, the engendering of pathos, portraying the man of sentiment: these are the concerns of The Actor: these are the concerns of the Georgian

theatre. 2 The actor was expected to possess the ability to engender tears and tender feelings in his audience. The Gray's Inn Journal of 1753 reflects this wide spread belief, when it instanced "those pathetic feelings, without which no man will ever succeed on the

stage, and with which it is hardly possible to fail." 3 Spranger Barry, for instance, was a sentimental actor with a range that extended little beyond the affective and the pathetic emotions, and yet his

popularity far outstripped his limitations as an actor. 4 While most of London viewed Barry as the model theatrical lover, the anonymous author of An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre (1760) begs to differ, "Mr. Barry's Romeo is defective only in

point of tenderness ...." 5

1 Foote, A Treatise on the Passions, p. 11.

2 For A full account of the sentimental in the theatre of Garrick, see Woods, Garrick Claims the Stage, Chs. 2 & 3. 3 The Gray's Inn Journal, No. 59, December 1, 1753, p. 43. 4 See Joseph, The Tragic Actor, pp. 131 et seq. 5 An Essay Upon the Present State of the Theatre, pp. 211-12. Figure 15. 11 The Laughing Audience," William Hogarth. Harvard Theatre Collection.

241

An anonymous watercolour entitled "The Weeping Audience," which is reminiscent of Hogarth's "The Laughing Audience," sums up the taste of the Georgian period for moving

and affecting theatre. 1 Tragedy particularly served this need: "In tragedy we feel, and the sentiment has all the praise"; "Tragedy is aimed at the heart ... a tragedy is more felt [than comedy]" (pp. 45; 47). Hill suggests how to augment the sentimental appeal of plays

like Cato. When Marcus, one of Cato's two sons is brought in dead, the stoic Roman father utters the line, "Thanks to the gods, my boy has done his duty." This in the original form was a moment of suppressed and dignified emotion. Hill does not tamper with the dignity but makes the suggestion that at the completion of the line-"Thanks to the gods, and so on"-the actor should "make a single tear steal down the unaltered face" [as in fact texts subsequently required] of the otherwise forebearing Roman. Hill's suggestion would occasion the cutting of the succeeding line: "that Rome filled his eyes with tears that flow' d not o'er his dead son." However, perhaps this elucidates what Hill meant when he recommended that actors should become authors themselves, and, that they should even better the playwright. In its time, the early eighteenth century, the popularity of

Cato (1713) was due, apart from any (political) considerations influencing its reception, to the dignity and stoicism which the eponymous hero embodied and epitomized. But to the mid century temper these restrained virtues smacked of coldness; hence Hill's

1 "The Laughing Audience," in Engravinqs by Hogarth, edited by Sean Shesgreen, New York: Dover, 1973. See also, Nicoll, The Garrick Stage: Theatres and Audience in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 82-3. See Figs. 15 & 16. 242 urge to prove Cato "a man as well as a heroe [sic]" (p. 28). "While his dignity disowned the tear, still let humanity and paternal affection call it forth" (p. 29), was the justification offered by John Hill. Tragic heroes, who had been presented as typically aloof and remote in their plumages and breast plates, were now shown for their human qualities as well. But this could not be taken too far, for, as Hill reminds his reader, "the characters of tragedy are raised above common nature, and the passions it represents are all great"

(pp. 78-9). Garrick had tried to add affecting touches to his acting. On the first night of his Macbeth, Garrick had appeared, in the scene after the murder of Duncan, with his waistcoat unbuttoned-he was wearing the conventional costume for the part, a British general in the reign of George III. There was a public outcry against what was considered to be a solecism on Garrick's part; and Garrick recanted. Hill, however, felt that Garrick was wrong to bow to public pressure in quitting his innovative piece of business. Hill thought that an unbuttoned waistcoat was an appropriate gesture to signify Macbeth's troubled state of mind after the act of regicide (p. 257). Furthermore, Garrick was elsewhere criticized for introducing "human," that is sentimental or affecting, touches into his tragic roles. For example, Samuel Foote, by no means a friend to Garrick at the best of times, thought that his King Lear was oblivious of the dignity and station of a monarch) Even in the heath scenes, Foote felt that the royal attributes should be preserved; instead, Garrick addressed mad Tom with a familiarity and an equality unbecoming a king, albeit a deranged one. The neo-classical proprieties relating to tragedians were not at all vanquished in the "natural" revolution

1 Samuel Foote, A Treatise on the Passions, pp. 19-20. 243 of the 1750's. Foote's comments just quoted date from 1747; in 1765, Dr. Johnson spoke in praise of Shakespeare whose stories, he said, might require "Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men." 1 As has already been said, Hill described the ideal relationship between the audience and the actor as one of empathy; as one of emotional sympathy and identification. The actor himself should similarly enter into an equally empathetic relationship with his character. This means that the actor must enter the role, live his part, become the character. In short, the actor must feel as the character he is to enact would feel in the circumstances of the role. When "the actor himself does not feel, he will never make the audience feel," advises Hill paraphrasing Horace (p. 92). These feelings, however, should not be private or personal. The actor must enter his role and experience the feelings of that character, not make the role suit and fit his own personality. Bringing private feelings to a role was a mistake made by lesser theatrical lights, although we have already seen that except for Mrs. Porter, the luminaries of their day, Quin, Barry and Garrick, always trailed personal traits and mannerisms into whatever parts they played. Notwithstanding this, however, "our actors of the second class think they have nothing more to do than express the passions of their part as they should feel them" (p. 249). Especially at a time when "natural playing'' was much on the lips of actors, there was a licence to let the private predominate over the heroic: "in tragedy, many [actors] mean, by natural playing the putting on, in the character of an hero, the air and manner of a private person"

1 S. Johnson, Preface 1765, in Johnson as Critic, edited by John Wain, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973, p. 153. 244

(p. 258).

It needs to be emphasized here that personal feelings were employed only as a last resort. Hill recounts the instance of one actress who was trying to tutor another (who had never played tragedy before but had had considerable success as a coquette in comedy) in the role of the tragic Hermione, "a princess neglected by the man she loved." The tutor was not succeeding with her pupil, who "could not make her concern natural." In desperation she exclaimed: "Heaven and earth ... suppose it a reality, suppose yourself neglected by the man you loved, how should you act in real life" (p. 198). The instructress had her pupil invoke private feelings only when all else had failed. In general, says Hill, the actor should try to feel as would his character in the given, fictional situation. Moreover, the actor should also ideally possess no outstanding quirks or traits which would detract from the absolute assumption of the role he was expected to achieve. In ideal, and often unreal, terms the actor should be as neutral a canvas as possible so that he can liberally apply the colours and textures of his character without fear of hindrance. Gildon had asked for a neutral physicality in the actor. John Hill requires this same neutrality of the actor's sensibility. Ideally, the actor's sensibility should be "as the shapeless wax pliable, and in the hand of the artist, ready to be moulded at his pleasure into a Richard or an Horatio, a Castalio or a Zanga" (p. 59). Within less than fifty years the focus in acting theory has shifted from the body to the imagination. Although he believed that the best actors were those whose personalities were malleable and neutral, Hill makes two exceptions: lovers and heroes. Lovers and heroes must be played by actors who are by nature tender and dignified, respectively. To be 245 the stage lover, the actor must have been in love, at some time, in his own life; in order to play convincingly the heroic ruler, the actor must have thought great thoughts at some time in his experience. Most actors would (presumably) have been able to claim to have fulfilled the first of these requirements, if not the second. But more importantly, by placing these demands on his (ideal) actor, Hill contradicts his otherwise expressed view that the performer's private life should not inform his theatrical enactments. The actor, as has been discussed above, is required to possess a neutral identity: ''People go to a play to see imitations, not realities" is the clearly understood aesthetic of The Actor (p. 145). While an actor or an actress may have had experience of the amorous kind, it is highly unlikely that they would ever have lived as a ruler, a prince, a king, or any of the other elevated beings upon whom the heroes of tragedy were based. To have thought elevated thoughts in his study is enough for the actor who takes on the roles of the great and the great-minded. This may seem rather bizarre as a preparation for enacting dignity on the stage, and yet it was a view shared by none other than Stanislavsky, who essentially believed that the actor must express his personality in all his work. Hill's general position on the question of personality was opposite to Stanislavsky's, and yet he agrees with Stanislavsky who believed, (like the German actor Iffland), that "if an actor wanted to appear noble on the stage, he had to be noble in his private life too." 1 Hill expressed this same sentiment in these words: "only great men are capable of saying great things," and only those "who have great and

1 Stanislavsky on the Art of The Stage, translated by David Magarshack, 1950; London: Faber, 1959, p. 82. 246

elevated souls, are capable of repeating them worthily" (p. 182). An example of a great man making a suitably grand utterance is borrowed from Longinus, who tells the story of Alexander the Great being offered by Darius half of Asia in addition to his own daughter in marriage. Alexander was urged on by Parmenio, a lesser mortal, saying that he would accept the offer were he Alexander. "And so should I, replied the hero, were I Parmenio" (p. 183). Only an Alexander could have made such an answer, and, Hill continues, only an actor with a "soul capable of the greatest sentiments, could give the proper weight and dignity to that answer" (p. 183). Garrick was one actor in particular who was able to convey this sense of superiority, and to make ennobling moments out of otherwise commonplace events on the stage. In the happy ending of King Lear (still largely Nahum Tate's version), there is such a moment. Garrick as Lear is leaning exhausted and breathless against the side of the scene, having manfully defended his daughter against the assassins. One of Edgar's followers says: "Look here, my lord, see where the generous king/Has slain two of 'em, to which Garrick added the immortal line, "Did I not, fellow?." Mrs. Siddons later recalled the rapidity with which Garrick delivered the line,

remarking that it was in her "memory never equalled." 1 The Actor comments on the "dignity and conscious pride, and triumph expressed in these four common words, that hardly anything can equal" (p. 27). Gildon had required of his tragedian that he be morally blameless, particularly in playing parts of moral rectitude. John Hill also requires a nobility of soul:

1 Sprague, Shakespeare and the Actors, p. 39. 247

... it is impossible that he whose soul is mean, and whose sentiments are low, should represent the dignity of the mind, and grandeur of thought, of men whose characters astonish an admiring world, as that such a man should produce from himself noble thoughts.The actor who intends to rise to fame, should be, as that great writer [Longinus] describes the genius qualified for the sublime, a mirror representing a great soul. An unassuming sense of importance, a dignity too great for pride must accompany all his gestures, and the same idea tho' it cannot in this case be described, must blend itself in the delivery of every words. We must be sensible that he is in all things above the rest of mankind, while all he conceives is, that it is the dignity of human nature he is supporting. (p. 184) Here was a kind of dignity that was not achieved by high boots and even higher plumage; gone, perhaps, was the superficial dignity of the "sceptred chiefs" Theophilus Cibber derisively referred to when

he gave the Prologue to the London Merchant in 1731. 1 "Yet the Mob clap, They'll clap a Shining Vest/Or polished Helmet; 0 such

praise detest!" admonishes the author of The Players: A Satire. 2 The purpose of the tragic hero was to excite admiration and wonder; and this goal has been sought by all the best actors from Betterton to Garrick. Betterton was noted for his grave aura, and, his solemnity and control when performing; Booth's walk and demeanour on stage epitomized majesty and dignity; Quin, whose faults are much remarked, was allowed, even by his critics, to be an

excellent grave speaker and dignified orator. 3 These actors achieved the heroic ideal through their walk, their voice, their deportment; in other words, through superficial means. Hill required a deeper sense of nobility, looking to Garrick who could convey even "to the

1Michael R. Booth(ed.), Eighteenth Century Tragedy, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 7. 2 The Players: A Satire (1733), n.p. 3 Francis Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor, London: 1770; Farnborough: Gregg, 1969, I, p. 455. 248 meanest of the audience a sense of that superiority" which sets the Caesars, Alexanders, Cato's and Tamerlane's apart from other men. How, then, did the actor, according to Hill, go about acquiring an elevated soul? First, nature must provide the propensity to a noble nature; second, art takes it upon itself to refine this endowment. To achieve this latter task, the actor must accustom himself to great and noble thoughts by "reading attentively and deliberately alone, and abstracted from all other thoughts, the greatest passages in those authors, who have succeeded most in heroic poetry" (p. 95). (Sensibility was an educable facu1ty). In the Oedipus of Sophocles there is "more true greatness, and more real pathos, than in all the dramatic pieces that have been written." The actor is also to have recourse to "the heroic poems of our own language, and, beyond all, to Milton's Paradise Lost" (p. 96). In fact, Milton is recommended reading for the actor in the privacy of his own study, where he is encouraged to open his heart to the magnificence and sublimity of Paradise Lost. For, in that epic work "there are passages that will affect the heart that has true sensibility, more strongly than any that occur in our best tragedies" (p. 96). The Actor advocates a daily exposure to Milton: "in a perfect retirement, and with a mind divested of all other thoughts," the actor should read parts of the great poem, pausing at the passages which affect him most, filling "his heart with greatness, and his eyes with tears of admiration, which raise him from his seat, and carry him out of himself" (pp. 96-7). The actor should surrender himself to the effect these pages have on him: "Let him give nature her full scope, when they affect him." But the effect should never be rehearsed; nor shou1d the actor try to repeat the effect of a specific 249 passage, for "To observe every minute particle of this, were as contemptible to practise attitudes in a glass" (p. 97). Excercises for the mind and soul are more important to John Hill than excercises in front of a mirror. This sets him apart from earlier theorists we have studied. Aaron Hill was less contemptuous of the benefits of mirror exercises, but then he was ultimately concerned with externals in acting. John Hill is more inclined to trust and train the internal processes, and perhaps, to sacrifice the actor's appearance in favour of allowing him to give free reign to his emotional and imaginative resources. The lover is the other role which Hill declared could only be adequately performed by an actor who was qualified by life for the role. While this was a more practical requirement than being prepared by life to play the hero, not all true-life lovers make the best showing as stage lovers. Then as now, husband and wife partnerships were not uncommon among actors, but contrary to expectations, records The Actor, "husband and wife have seldom been observed to play lovers well upon the stage" (p. 196). On the other hand, there are many instances which Hill points to, where actors graduated from playing stage lovers to being "real lovers off it" (p. 197). Truthfulness was insisted upon in the case of the lover because, like the magnanimity of the tragic hero, the lover's was an emotion that could not easily be faked:

As love can neither be concealed nor dissembled, in real life, before eyes that have any degree of discernment: so on the stage that illusion, which is the soul of all theatrical representations, will never be well kept up in a love scene, 250

unless the persons who perform the characters, have hearts naturally susceptible of the passion: and we shall then see it in the greatest perfection, when those who are to protest and vow to one another on the stage, in reality sigh and doat on one another off. (p. 196) But why was love singled out as one "passion" which had to be real? The obvious answer is that the theatre was moving towards the demands of truthfulness (meaning imitative closeness) to reality in gradual stages. And this is perhaps so, to a certain extent. Another answer is that love, central among the pathetic and moving emotions, was the heart of the Georgian theatre. But it is curious that a virtuous man could play a villain (although Pickering wondered how an actor could play the part of a villain and still be a virtuous man);l "one who has the principles of a gentleman about him" may play a peasant or a servant; "a man needs not be tyrannical in his nature, to act well a Bajazet, nor a savage in order to his playing the Jew of Venice; but to play a Romeo he must be a lover; and this is because the others are easily imitated from what he sees in others, or formed upon the ideas of rage and fierceness which he forms in his own mind: but in the case of love he cannot copy what he does not feel, nor can he who has not experience of the passion, form to himself any idea of it" (pp. 94; 201). As has already been seen, Hill despised the use of mirror, but this does not mean that he did not subscribe to the catalogue of emotions, the external features of the passions, which the eighteenth-century theorists held in common. "For tyranny," Hill says, "we expect an erect aspect, austere look, and a severe voice. Rage and fierceness express themselves by the gesture, and tone of voice, as well as by the look" (p. 201). The difference between these

1 Pickering, Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, p. 3. 251

passions and love, was that they could be enacted from the outside, by assuming the external features appropriate to them, "A man who is very calm in himself, may counterfeit a person in a rage; but a man at ease will never be able to imitate the thousand transports, fears, anxieties, and triumphs, that naturally succeed one another in love; and are present, in some degree, in every moment of it" (pp. 201-2). Love requires "an absolute reality to be seen," since love's transformations are total: "love not only throws the voice and the aspect into a new form, but it new models the whole man" and "no counterfeit will pass upon even the meanest of the audience" (p. 201). Although the lover's inner reality is stressed, Hill also makes this point about his appearance: "a good figure is more necessary to those who act lovers, than to the players of any other characters, and a harmony of voice is a great advantage" (p. 197). From this it may be deduced that the internal aspects were not important in their own right; and even though love must be genuinely felt, it still had to find its expression through an ideal, that is to say comely, or handsome, form. Tragedians were always required in the eighteenth century to be credible, and to be graceful, pleasing and elegant, at the same time. This was why, according to Pickering, an actor playing Alexander must never affect the wry neck of the real Alexander on stage; nor why any actor impersonating Caesar should ever assume his bow-legged gait. 1 With his elegantly tall figure, graceful deportment, and sweetness of voice, Spranger Barry, a contemporary of and rival to

1 Pickering, Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, p. 23; see also The Actor (1755), p. 142. 252

David Garrick, seemed born to play romantic heroes. Certainly his success in the roles of Romeo, Othello and Lear,was helped by his physical endowments, and by his natural, temperamental suitability to these parts. Thomas Davies, a supporter of David Garrick said of Barry: Of all the tragic actors who trod the English stage for these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor has shown the public a just idea of the hero or the lover; Barry gave dignity to the one, and passion to the other: in his person he was tall without awkwardness; in his countenance, handsome without effeminancy; in his uttering of passion, he language of nature alone was communicated to the feelings of an audience.l This would seem to corroborate the general opinion of Barry as a natural tragic lover. Of his first appearance, which was as Othello, Chetwood said of Barry: "he seem' d a finished actor dropt from the clouds." 2 Barry received a letter from "a friend in the country'' advising him that to be an actor was:

to be, by nature, the very person that they [actors] represented; they were to have the same elevation of soul, the same delicacy of thought, the same morality of life, the same humanity of heart, and sweetness of affections, that could at once constitute the patriot, the hero, the lover, and the friend. The words only belong to the author, the sentiments were, by nature, their own; and hence followed that aptness of attitude, that ease in elocution, that expressive look, that eloquent silence, that freedom of acting and that harmony of the whole, which at once exalted, melted, and subdued a mighty nation to elegance and virtue. 3

1 Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, London, 1780, II, p. 244. 2 Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, p. 104. 3 Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, p. 106. 253

Wilkes observes that "where love, grief, tenderness, or pity, are the

ruling passions of a character, there Barry is sure to excel [sic]." 1 It is perhaps little wonder, then, that Barry's acknowledged successes were Othello, Romeo, and Lear. Not only did Barry possess a tall and elegant physique but he also had a mellifluous voice. Macklin says that Barry was over six feet tall. This was not in itself a requirement, nor an advantage, for, there were no Hollywood expectations that the eighteenty-century actor should be tall. David Garrick is sufficient proof of this point. Francis Gentleman adds to this view: "As to figure there is no necessity for a lover being tall." 2 Having said this, Gentleman went on to find that Barry had an advantage over Garrick in point of height in Romeo, for which part Garrick and Barry were great rivals. The hero, generally speaking, had to have an elegant and well proportioned body; one that was capable of being expressive and graceful. The question of the hero's being tall or short did not directly apply. In fact, Hill thought that there was as much disadvantage in too little height as in too much. 3 Barry's other great natural asset was his voice, which was "so peculiarly musical, as, very early in his life, obtained him the character of the 'The Silver­ toned Barry'." And yet his was also a voice, that for all its softness, was capable of Othello's rage, and the forceful speeches that Orestes and Alexander make (p. 150). The London Magazine (July 1767, vol. 36) said of Barry: "and his voice, when exerted in any vehemence of passion, has not only a force but a sweetness which darts with a lightning-like rapidity, and instantly strikes the actor's whole

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 292. 2 Francis Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor, I. p. 189. 3 The Dramatic Censor I, p. 189. 254 feeling upon the bosom of an auditor." 1 This effect is also noticed by Davies, referring to Barry's Orestes: in the mad scene Barry at once "terrified" the imaginations of the audience, and at the same time "roused all their tenderest emotions." 2 Yet Barry failed, perhaps not unexpectedly, in Bajazet, a role for which he had "too much harmony of voice and feature" to be convincing. 3 Spranger Barry was ready-made as a lover and player of roles of passionate tenderness; Garrick, on the other hand, had to work hard to succeed in such roles. Inevitably the two contemporaries fell into competition, with Garrick yielding to Barry in Othello and Romeo. (Garrick, of course, had the upper hand in Hamlet, Richard and Lear). It was not simply agreed by most observers that Barry was categorically superior to his better known rival. Quite the contrary, both actors were variously applauded for the success they had in different scenes of the same play. Francis Gentleman itemized "those scenes in which they most evidently rose above each other, [... ]as follow-Mr. Barry the Garden scene of the second act-Mr. Garrick the friar scene in the third-Mr. Barry the garden scene in the fourth-Mr. Garrick in the first scene disruption of the Apothecary, etc. fifth act-Mr. Barry first part of the tomb scene, and

Mr. Garrick from where the poison operates to the end." 4 Macklin, while he gave the garden scene to Garrick, gave more credit to Barry in the last two acts: "Romeo's meeting with Paris in the tomb scene

1 The London Magazine Vol36, July 1767, p. 320. 2 Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, II, p. 243. 3 The Dramatic Censor, II, p. 269. 4 The Dramatic Censor I, p. 189. 255

and his last interview with Juliet were as fine specimens of Barry's

abilities as any in the course of the play." 1 John Hill favoured Barry in the latter Romeo scenes, particularly remarking Barry's touching performance on hearing the news of Juliet's death. "And when we hear Barry pronounce on this occasion,Then I defy you, stars, we are satisfied more words would have been impertinent, and below the consummate degree of such sorrow" (pp. 87 ff.). Contrarily, Wilkes found that Garrick's response to the messenger's sad tidings did the poet "inimitable justice"; Garrick's anguished pause before uttering his defiance of the heavens implied "more real anguish ... than in twenty studied

pages." 2 In general terms, however, Garrick excelled when rage was required, Barry when softness and grief-what Hill termed "elegant distress"-were called for. Hill claimed that there were two great passions in tragedy: grief and rage; and Barry excelled in one, Garrick in the other. Since there is more love than rage in Romeo, Barry found in that role considerable scope for his forte. Dignified in heroic parts and tenderly moving in love: these were the requirements of the tragic actor's credibility. He had to appear to possess, to be, to embody these qualities in the roles that demanded them. Thomas Davies said of Barry: "Of all the tragic actors who have trod the English stage for these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor has shown the public a just idea of the hero and the lover; Barry gave dignity to the one, and passion to the other." 3

1 William Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Comedian, London, 1804; New York: Benjamin Blom, 1972, pp. 205,160 ff. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, pp. 125-6. 3 Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, II, p. 244. 256

The third requirement John Hill made of the actor was fire or spirit. After understanding and sensibility, fire was the third but by no means least important expectation of the actor, who without fire was without the means to make a powerful impact on his audience. Fire indeed was the very quality which gave life to sensibility; for without fire, sensibility remains cold and unexpressed (p. 108). An

actor could only receive fire as a natural endowment. It was an inner quality that he must be born with, it could not be developed like understanding or sensibility. In fact fire could exist independently of either of the other two, although it best served the actor when he had all three:

Understanding will make a player perform properly, and sensibility will make him do it feelingly; but all this may be done in reading the passage; it is this fire and spirit that produce the living character . . . (p. 119) Fire gave the actor's performance its "great air of reality": the sense that what was taking place before the audience was actually happening, which was the effect Hill wanted. Since fire was natural, it made the actor who possessed it act naturally, because an audience is quick to discern "an artificial heat, in the place of the natural" (p. 109). Fire is not simply loudness; it is force or energy in acting. "[I]t consists in a daring spirit, a vivacity of imagination, and rapidity of thought, as that it has no connection with noise and blustering, tho' they are continually connected with it; and are too often mistaken for it, by the common observer" (p. 119). Fire may be found in all tragic characterizations, including the least likely ones: "the rigid Cato rises into warmth," "Even Tamerlane, more than once, brightens into rage," and "The cool Horatio has fire, even in his expressions of gratitude" (pp. 114-15). ''There is not anything that so 257

nobly represents the great and pathetic thought of an author," Hill asserts, "as the violence, impetuosity and fire of the player: his voice cannot be too loud, his countenance too much inflamed, nor his action too pointed; but it is only where the thought supports it that these things are proper, and they never are beautiful except when in their place" (p. 9). While the author lays the potential for the realisation of fire in the characters he creates, it is really the actor who contributes fire in its fully fledged form, from the very well of his being. Hill remarks on the role of Horatio, that "we have seen this character played with a philosophic spirit; but we have seen great spirit exerted in it by Mr. Barry, and perhaps yet more by Mr. Mossop." Barry's conception of Horatio was patently more chaste, and therefore more in keeping with his characteristic manner of playing than Mossop's; but Hill maintains that "he cannot be properly said to have less fire in Horatio than Mr. Mossop"-just that Barry's rendition "is more regulated" (p. 115). Fire is by no means a concept unique and peculiar to John Hill's theory of acting. Aaron Hill, as has already been seen, spoke of the necessity of fire in acting; in fact, he graphically spoke of

"theatric blaze" and "passion flaming from the asserted stage." 1 Indeed, the very term fire was part of Aaron Hill's critical idiom. Cooke was another to employ the concept critically: he spoke of Holland's deficiencies in fire, which he described as an "unresisting power which storms the breast" and realizes the scene. 2 Thomas Wilkes alludes to the concept of fire in mentioning the "problem of

1 See above, p. 178. 2 Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, p. 264. 258

players who reserve their fire (especially in the roles of Orestes and

Zanga) for the last scene." 1 Hill agrees with Wilkes that Mossop "reserves himself" in the early acts in order to deliver the last scene "with great eclat." Interestingly enough, Hill lays the blame for this at the feet of David Garrick, Mossop's "director": "he [Mossop] is under the direction of one who has so much the art of husbanding everything, and so many artifices to shew everything that is valuable to the best advantage" (p. 125). Garrick is not named, but the evidence points to him as the manager of Drury Lane. Mossop's containing his energy, in order to rise to the expectations demanded by the climax of a role like Zanga, is perfectly understandable, but it was not the right way to perform the part as Hill saw it. Zanga is a prince, and the captive of the man who killed his father and humiliated him. There are no further causes beyond this, neither indignities nor injuries, which happen to Zanga after the early scenes where the reasons for his revenge are firmly laid. The play, The Revenge, depends for its effect on the audience waiting for Zanga to find the right moment to bring down his enemies. "But," warns Hill, "if the actor chuses [sic] to sink the greatest part of the action below what the author intended, in order to raise the rest beyond what he ever conceived, we see a change, as it were, in the person, where there is no change in the circumstances; and are surprised at the last part of Zanga's character, as unlike the first" (p. 126). In other words, Mossop's method of playing Zanga offended against the expectations of consistency of character.

1 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 157. 259

Unlike understanding and sensibility, fire is entirely performance orientated. "Understanding will make a player perceive properly, and sensibility will make him do it feelingly; but all this may be done in reading the passage; it is this fire and spirit that produces the living character" (p. 119). An actor must have understanding and sensibility, but these are qualities which a good reader may also share; fire or spirit belong to the actor alone; they are the quintessential qualities of performance. "An actor may have feeling who has not fire, and it will make no figure without the assistance of that natural, tho' not constant attendant" (p. 127). Echoing Shakespeare, Hill refers to fire as "this Promethean heat than animates, and is the only thing which can animate the common clay of mankind into the true actor." By "true actor" Hill means someone who transcends the words of the playwright, bringing flesh and blood-living circumstances-to the literary creations of the author. Fire is Promethean in another sense, too; it is, to use Hill's own picturesque idiom, the divine spark which takes the actor out of himself:

The player of true spirit, when it is directed by understanding, and awakened by sensibility, is no longer himself, when he assumes his character; he possesses himself that he is the king or hero he represents, and inspired by the sentiments of his author, and merely what his own mind conceives from the several circumstances and incidents, he lives, not acts, the scene. He is the priestess of the Delphic God, who as soon as she ascended the sacred tripod, became possessed, and uttered with a voice and mien, not her own, the sacred oracles. All that the supposed celestial vapour, rising from the sacred ground, could do for this enthusiast, the dignity of sentiment, and force of passion, execute for the player, who with his true perception, has in his nature this glorious heat. He glows with transports 260

not his own, he treads the earth with the majesty of the monarch he represents, a dignity dwells upon his brow, more distinguishing him as a king, than the diadem which surrounds it, that Hamlet's player king can wear; the spirit of the scene diffuses itself thro' the whole frame; he feels the genius of the poet animating his own soul; and as he brings his conceptions into life, a thousand new ones arise from them, and dignify and decorate the representation (pp. 110-111). Many of the phrases here-"the player... is no longer himself," "He ... became possessed," "this enthusiast," "He glows with transports not his own," "he feels the genius of the poet animating his own soul"-are reminiscent of Plato's Ion.l There the rhapsode (or actor for the sake of the present argument), in his performance, becomes imbued with a spirit over which he has no control. The actor becomes possessed, like the Delphic priestess referred to in the above quotation. This quotation, moreover, provides evidence of the emotionalist argument, which says that the actor must truly feel and become involved in his feelings when he is acting. In its extreme form the argument says that the actor must surrender himself to his emotions. This was an enviable state according to Socrates, who, in the Ion, tells the rhapsode (Ion) that there is a "divinity moving'' him, and that his ability in reciting Homer is not an "art, but ... an inspiration." 2

SOCRATES: I wish you would frankly tell me, Ion, what I am going to ask of you: When you produce the greatest effect upon the audience in the recitation of some striking passage ... are you in your right mind? Are you not carried out of your self, and does not your soul in an ecstacy seem to be among the persons of the places of which you are speaking ... ION: That proof strikes home to me, Socrates. For I must

1 In Cole and Chinoy, Actors on Acting, p. 7. 2 In Actors on Acting, p. 7. 261

frankly confess that at the tale of pity my eyes are filled with tears, and when I speak of horrors, my hair stands on end and my heart throbs.1 Cases such as this are legendary and well documented in the field of the history of acting. Aesopus was "carried away" and killed a fellow actor on the Roman stage is the great and classic example. 2 In the eighteenth century itself, we may remind ourselves that

Betterton was seen to blanch on seeing the ghost in Hamlet; 3 John Henderson's Hamlet, amazed the prompter by the amount of perspiration that had been collected in the actor's cloak; 4 Dr. Johnson thought Garrick deserved hanging if he really believed himself to be that villain Richard III. 5 In this last instance Dr. Johnson had questioned Garrick successor, John Philip Kemble, as to whether he was one of those actors who truly thought himself to be the part he played. Kemble is said to have answered no; but it is very difficult to rely too heavily on this kind of evidence as it becomes rather coloured when it enters the folklore of the stage. And, of course, the difficulty with the isolated instances enumerated is that they do not tell us whether the actors, who were seen to enter into their parts, on some occasions, did in fact make this kind of identification with his roles on all occasions. Talma, speaking of the creative use of the imagination, defines this faculty as an "exultation which agitates an actor, takes possession of his senses, shakes even his very soul, and enables him

1 In Actors on Acting, p. 7. 2 See above, p. 11 n 2 3 See above, p. 105, nl. 4 John Ireland, Life and Letters of Mr. Henderson, London, 1786, p. 170. 5 See above, p. 11, n 6. 262

to enter into the most tragic situations, and the most terrible of

passions, as if they were his own." 1 Through his imagination, not through arbitrary rules of movement and speech, the actor enters and becomes the characters he is to portray. Talma calls the imagination "creative, active and powerful" and he explains how it:

consists in collecting in one single fictitious object the qualities of several real objects, which associates the actor with the inspirations of the poet, transports him back to the past, and enables him to look at the lives of historical personages or the impassioned figures created by genius,-which reveals to him, as tho by magic, their physiognomy, their heroic stature, their language, their habits, all the shades of their character, all the movements of their soul, and even their singularities. 2 Hill shares Talma's belief in the imagination's ability to translate the actor in the situation of his character:

the player is to throw himself without restraint into the circumstance, and observing what is his own natural deportment, he is to recollect that of some other person of politeness and understanding, in a parallel circumstance; and on comparing his own acting with that of the other, and judging, without prejudice, where either is excellent or amiss, he will be able, from both, to form a true action from the circumstances. (p. 228) Hill's assertion, that "the player is to throw himself without restraint into the circumstance," deserves further comment. The Actor does not fully subscribe to the extreme emotionalist position: Hill does not argue that the actor should become lost in his role. In fact, he believes that too complete an identification with an emotion can lead to its being suppressed rather than expressed. Giving way to the paroxysms of rage, for instance, is the surest way

1 In Actors on Acting, p. 181. 2 In Actors on Acting, p. 181. 263 to impede the projection of that emotion to an audience (pp. 54-5). The Actor holds firmly to the belief that the business of the stage is imitations not realities. Hill's position is the middle ground between the emotionalists and the anti-emotionalists1-he neither believes the actor should be carried away by his part, nor that he should remain cold to all emotional involvement-which is best summed up by James Boswell, who in 1770 wrote that "the player is the character he represents only in a certain degree."2 Representing the character "in a certain degree" perhaps suggests and foreshadows the notion of the dual consciousness of the actor, to which Coquelin refers in his The Art of the Actor (1894).3 This awareness affords the actor the artistic distance necessary to use his body and voice as an expressive instrument, rather as a musician projects his artistic imagination through the medium of his musical instrument. The actor does not lose control, therefore, in entering his part: "He must assume in a strong degree the character which he represents," observes Boswell, "while he at the same time retains the consciousness of his own character ."4 Hill holds that being detached from the "whirlwind of passion" is necessary for effective communication to an audience. Giving way to the full flood of tears "shall interrupt the delivery"; the actor must therefore exercise control over his emotions, especially if he is going to be emotionally and vocally effective at the same time:

1 I think this middle position for John Hill's has been misread in favour of the more thoroughgoing emotionalist one which Roach, The Player's Passion, pp. 102-105 is keen to ascribe to him. 2 Boswell, On the Profession of a Player, p. 16. 3 C. Coquelin, The Art of the Actor (1894), translated by Elsie Fogerty, London Allen and Unwin, 1968, p. 25 et seq., 4 Boswell, On the Profession of a Player, p. 18. 264

Here is the great perfection of the science: we would have him while he feels all this, yet command his passions, so that they do not disturb his utterance; and yet we would not have that expression he keeps for himself take away the pain of it from us; we would have his manner of pronouncing the words take all that effect upon us, which the passage has on the most sensible reader; but we would not have it take that effect on himself. (pp.54-5) The irony of acting is that in order to convey tears effectively, the actor must not yield uninhibitedly to the sorrowful emotion he is trying to convey. For Hill, this is where the understanding comes in as a regulatory agent. Understanding enables the actor to be "susceptible of the proper impressions from each of these passions," however, in addition to this "power of feeling," understanding must provide also "the power of quitting them [the passions] instantaneously, or of changing one for another, or all his sensibility is nothing" (p. 67). Diderot interpreted sensibility as a transforming ecstacy which took the player well beyond the reach of rational control; 1 Hill, however, argued that sensibility allowed the actor to both feel emotions and control them as an artistic expression. The actor cannot allow himself to become too concerned in his feelings, because he must be able to anticipate the transitions of emotions-and "the author often prescribes very quick transitions"-throwing himself "from one to another of them, with not only rapidity but ease" (p. 68). Hill argued that understanding and sensibility could complement one another as functions of the actor's art; Diderot ultimately decided that understanding, knowing the passions and how to perform them, was not consonant with sensibility, or true and rapturous emotion. 2 ''What we should wish

1 The Paradox of Acting and Masks or Faces?, p. 43. 2 The paradox of Acting and Masks or Faces, pp. 14-15. 265

in the perfect player," says Hill, "is, that he have all the sensibility of this last [the actor who "feels so much, that he shall be unable to give utterance to the words"], and yet all the command of himself that is necessary to regulate its emotions" (p. 54). Transitions were important in eighteenth-century acting theories. Charles Gildon spoke of the necessity for pauses to break

up emotional graduations in speech. 1 Thomas Wilkes asserted that next to studying the variety and appearances of the passions, the actor's first duty was the different changes and transitions from one

mood to the other. 2 Aaron Hill spoke at length on the effect transitions have of separating the emotional components of a performance, so that the passions were highlighted and given a

distinctive character by the actor. 3 One passion was set off and contrasted by another, so that the integrity and power of the emotions could be appreciated by the audience, as well as the technical facility of the performer as he moved from one emotional display to the next (p. 37). Aaron Hill admired Barton Booth's ability in transitions; he also recognized a similar aptitude in David Garrick. Aaron Hill spoke of Booth's "thrilling breaks and changes of the voice; the only possible expression of our passions, in their variations and degrees, and which so sensibly alarm the soul, and

challenge the attention of an audience." 4 After perhaps his first seeing Garrick perform, Hill wrote to his friend Mallet, remarking, among other things, on the actor's pensively preparatory attitudes,

1 Gildon, The Life , p. 135. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 93. 3 See above, pp. 187 et seq .. 4 Aaron Hill, Dramatic Works, I, p. 148. 266

by which he builds the audience's expectations and holds their attention .I Aaron Hill wrote a letter to Garrick, advising him about the role of Poliphontes in Merope. Hill spoke of the necessity of conveying thought and pensiveness in the transitions:

For example, when (though in the middle of a speech) you find some hauqhty starts in Poliphontes [sic], if you then, before you spoke a word, in that new walk, would take a breathing time, and, therein, draw your breast a little back stretch up the neck, and string the nerves quite through your body, and (in that new attitude) pronounce the haughty words, your voice will carry most expressive dignity, in a proud stately swell, and you will find such brace upon your joints restrains, as will your arms from all levity of unmarked emotion, and give the noblest grandeur of a figured majesty.And the same good aid will always follow, (only substituting quicker and more active springs upon the nerves) in anger, menace, and all the places, where the terrible is necessary. 2 Commenting on how the "stops" between such changes should be "filled out," Hill advised Garrick, in the same letter, to use an "intense and meditative apposition of the eyebrow" to give "that face of NATURE" to the human mind passing from one idea to the next. 3

Garrick's preparatory starts were criticized in some quarters; 4 even Charles Macklin, who, although he later fell out with his old friend, was originally Garrick's co-author in the "natural revolution" that is said to have swept away the stiffness of Quin' s style of acting, 5 "abhorred all trick, all start and ingenious attitude"

1 Aaron Hill, Works, II, p. 233. 2 Letter to Garrick, April 7, 1749, Works, II, p. 355. 3 Works II, pp. 354-5. 4 See, for example, Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, Esq., London, 1759,p. 57. 5 William W. Appleton, Charles Macklin, An Actor's Life, (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), p. 151. 267

in acting. 1 Moreover, as a teacher of acting, (and a teacher of John Hill, who appeared as Lodovico in Macklin's production of Othello at the Haymarket), Macklin stressed the importance of "mastering variety of tone and pause to indicate transitions of thought and

associations of ideas." 2 John Hill, however, thought that moving smoothly from one passion to the next was a question of the universal sensibility of the performer, whether the actor was performing in comedy or tragedy. John Hill acknowledged Garrick's facility, that "in comedy, [he] runs from one passion into another, with a consummate ease" (p. 69). And yet, in tragedy, particularly in those characters "where rage prevails," Mr. Garrick, who is as naturally violent as Mrs. Cibber is melancholy, finds it very difficult to make the transition from anger to sorrow, as may be seen in several parts of Jaffeir" (p. 65). John Hill wanted a theatre that would exhibit the "truth of theatrical representations." The business of the player was "imitations not realities," as has already been observed; however, the audience should still be deceived into the opinion that they are attending to a real adventure" (p. 225). Although the actor was concerned with fictions, he must bring "these fictions as near to realities as he can" (p. 225). Accordingly, Hill wanted his tragic lover to be experienced in affairs of the heart, and his tragic hero to possess a greatness of soul. Furthermore, "a conformity between the age of the person playing, and the person represented, ought always to be kept up" (p. 217). However, this did not apply in all cases: young lovers should not be played by old actors, especially not by

1 Charles Macklin, An Actor's Life , p. 158. 2 Charles Macklin, An Acto's Life p. 158. 268

old females; the reason lies "in nature: an old lover is but at best ridiculous, but an old woman in the same situation gives disgust'' (p. 218). Apparently Hill, like the audience of his day, preferred to "see an old man made out of a young player, than represented by a really old one; and the greater the disproportion the greater the merit'' (p. 145). Reality on the stage was subject to moralistic and aesthetic considerations. Only a great man, theoretically speaking, could represent a sublime character, but an unvirtuous man could not enact a villain; a real-life lover could only play the tragic lover's parts, but a known drunkard would not be tolerated as a stage inebriate.

It is true, that in real life, nature deals no better with people of fashion, than with beggars, indeed seldom quite so well: we have the crooked and the hoarse; but as we do not bear imperfections in the heroes of tragedy, we expect only the best face of nature in these. (pp. 207-8) Edmund Burke's Essay on the Sublime and the Beautiful, which discusses the relation of the ugly and the sublime to the beautiful,

did not appear until 1757, 1 two years after the edition of The Actor under present consideration was published. Burke's essay is more relevant to a later theory of stage presentation, 2 than it is to the present one, where, manifestly, it has been shown that reality on stage was not to be bought at the expense of beauty or propriety. A minor aspect of the "truth of theatrical representations" was "the scenery and decoration" (p. 254). Hill makes only passing reference to these features of theatre art; first, because costumes and

1 Campbell, "The Rise of a Theory of Stage Presentation in England during the Eighteenth century," pp. 184-5. 2 Campbell, ''The Rise of a Theory of Stage Presentation in England during the Eighteenth century," p. 185. 269

scenery have no place in a work on the actor's art, and, secondly, because in the eighteenth century their role was a limited one. It would not be inaccurate to say that the scenic conventions of the theatre had not greatly changed from the time of Betterton to that of David Garrick. The actor acted in front of the scenery, not necessarily in relation to it; 1 however, if there were figures painted on the wings or shutters, the performers had to keep their distance so that the illusion was not broken. 2 Furthermore, despite Garrick's innovations with respect to lighting-dispensing with the stage chandeliers, and concentrating on the footlights and lights in the side wings-the scenery of the mid-eighteenth century stage was not used, in the legitimate dramas, to present pictorial illusionism on the same scale as the nineteenth century achieved. Moreover, Garrick's new and more flexible lighting devices were introduced in

1765: 3 eleven years too late for Hill to have taken account of them in The Actor. The only comment Hill makes on lighting is that actors need to exaggerate their facial expressions in the currently available illumination of the playhouses; but he does not specify the theatres (p. 148). By and large, eighteenth-century scenery depicted stock scenes that were only changed, when finances permitted, to accommodate the audience's taste for novelty, not the play's requirements in realistic pictorial detail. 4 Neoclassical unity could even be challenged in the name of novelty. Hill cites the case of "the play

1 Nicoll, The Garrick Stage, p. 20-22. 2 Wilkes, A General View of the Stage, p. 170. 3 The Universal Magazine, Vol. I, September 1765, p. 451. speaks of Garrick's removal of the six rings (candelabra) that used to hang over and light the stage at Drury Lane. See also: Bumim, David Garrick: Director, pp. 78-82. 4 The London Stage 1729-1747: A Critical Introduction, pp. cxvii passim. 270

Phaedra and Hippolitus," in which "the author has observed the unity of place so well, that all the scenes are transacted in one spot, in an outer court of the palace" (p. 255). Garrick allowed the play to be enacted in one scene, records Hill, much to the disgust of the uninformed audience. Operatic spectacle had been available to the theatre throughout the century, and earlier in the Restoration,l but it was not deemed suitable, or affordable, to the legitimate drama. Hill firmly holds to this belief; speaking of scenery and decorations he says:

Something is necessary in this, but too much is faulty; we should not have the scenes of a play like those of an English pantomime, or an Italian opera; because we would not have them engross that attention which is more due to the player. (p. 254) Even the experiments in stage spectacle that de Loutherbourg conducted under Garrick's encouragement-in the last decade of Garrick's management at Drury Lane-were to do mainly with pantomime and ballet spectaculars. 2 Many of the observations that have been made about scenery, may also be made with respect to stage costuming. Throughout the eighteenth century, and perhaps since before the Restoration, four conventions of costume obtained: the costume a la turque, which served generally for most eastern or "Oriental" roles; Spanish Dress, dark and sombre, and later called the "Van Dyke" costume; Old English dress, which, because it included ermine trimmed robes, was a popular choice for British monarchs; and, the "Roman shape'" which epitomized, in its early history, heroes rather than

1The London Stage 1660-1700: A Critical Introduction, edited by Emmett L. Avery and Arthur H. Scouten, pp. lxxxiv et seq. 2 David Garrick: Director, pp. 73-5, 80-1. 271

Romans. 1 Outside of these traditions, regular contemporary dress was employed. Garrick, however, tried to avoid modern dress where possible. Although he followed the tradition of costuming Macbeth as a military commander, he chose a green rather than a red coat, which was the conventional colour. 2 In 1773, Macklin played Macbeth in a "Caledonian habit," abandoning the traditional "attire of an English general." His lady Macbeth, however, was still dressed as a contemporary general's wife. 3 Aaron Hill had made a plea for historical accuracy in the costuming of his play Aethelwold, which was to be staged in 1731. (The play required "old Saxon habits," costly furs, which Hill allowed could be "cheap imitations.") 4 John Hill, by contrast, seems not to have been interested in historically detailed dress; rather, he remarks that "The dress of the player is not only to be suited to the part, but to the circumstances of it:

Mr. Garrick, on his first night of Mackbeth [sic], came on in one scene with his cloaths unbuttoned; and he was right: they advised him ill who were the occasion of his quitting it afterwards. (pp. 256-7) Hill also observes that:

Mr. Barry is pardonable in having his periwig new dressed for the fourth act of Romeo, because the poet has removed him to Mantua, and there must have been time for such an operation; but when the unities are more preserved, this affection is unpardonable. (p. 256) The unities may be seen here to be more important than whether Romeo would have worn a wig or not.

1 Raymond J. Pentzell, "Garrick's Costuming," Theatre Survey, 21 November 1969, p.19. 2 Pentzell, "Garrick's Costuming," p. 35. 3 Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History, p. 308. 4 Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History., pp. 391-2. 272

Although Hill relegated scenery and costumes to the role of "collateral assistances" in purveying the "truth of theatrical representation" (p. 257), he believed in the propriety and integrity of the scenic illusion:

The keeping up the illusion and carrying on an appearance of reality, is the great merit of theatrical representation; but that is impossible under this disadvantage. Let the decorations of the house, the dress and deportment, and recitation of the players be ever so proper, this destroys all. The head of some croped beau among a set of full-bottomed conspirators, destroys all the look of reality. We were vexed the other night at Venice Preserved, that Garrick, Mossop, Havard, could have anything to do with such a set of miserable rascals as the other conspirators; but no sooner did the smart head of **** pop from behind a wing, than we understood them all to be scene shifters. (p. 256) Audiences onstage were deleterious to the illusion Hill required his actor to portray. This was a view that Roger Pickering supported in the following:

No remonstrance, I doubt will prevail upon the smarts who oblige the town with their whole lengths at the side scenes, to take their pretty figures away. To tell them that 'they take off the effect of the scenery, that they make a motley figure among actors dress'd in character, that they discompose the performers by stopping up their entry and retreat, that they interrupt the drama by their giggling and grimace, that the whole house looks upon them as a nuisance, and the more discerning part as coxcombs,' would, one think would, shame them into decency and retirement, but success perhaps, is not to be expected from any appeal to modesty.l Pickering was right: it took, not an appeal to modesty, but the necessary "legislation," which was introduced by Garrick in 1763, to clear the stage of spectators. To placate the actors who stood to lose

1 Reflections Upon Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, p. 81. 273

money on their benefit nights by this move, Garrick had already

enlarged the auditorium of Drury Lane the year before, in 1762. 1 Like Pickering, Hill also wanted the actor to act in character, which, by and large, meant concentrating on the role being enacted, forgetting about the audience, and paying attention to the other actors when addressing or listening to them. All this contributes to the truth of theatrical representations.The first step towards this truth was for the actor to be word perfect-Hill calls this being "rotten perfect" (p. 250)-in his part; in addition, the "perfect player ought indeed to remember the substance of every other person's part'' (p. 254). Knowing his lines meant that the actor was free to become the character he represented, an illusion which was reinforced by listening in character to the other actors. "[T]urning too often from the person spoken to," cautions the Dramatic

Censor, "for the sake of displaying figure, by traversing the stage, is a breach of decorum not only inconsistent with civility but reason; and looking from the object of conversation, to take a view of the audience, or, as we have too often seen, to salute an acquaintance, is reprehensible to the last degree ... speaking or not a performer should never lose sight of character." 2 Being in character was the all important aspect of John Hill's treatise; for by this means the actor could strongly convey the striking sentiments of his role to the very hearts of his audience. He had to appear to be the character to succeed in this, but he must control his personation, never surrendering himself to the passions he enacted. The universal sensibility, therefore, which was

1 Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History, p. 381. 2 Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor, II, p. 479. 274 indispensable to the actor if he was to be able to experience all the emotions, in all their variety and strength, must be tempered by understanding, which provides the actor with the judgement necessary to making his performance effective. In the case of the tragic actor, this judgement meant ensuring that the hero was always shown in an elevated and dignified light, no matter what passions enthralled him. The actor must give a "natural" performance; and, while this meant being unaffected and unpompous, it also meant that the actor was to be an artist on stage, not a private person. Conclusion

This thesis has been specifically concerned with three English acting manuals of the eighteenth century: Charles Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton; Aaron Hill's various theatre writings, which reflect the ideas he advances and encapsulates in his "The Art of Acting"; and John Hill's The Actor, in particular the 1755 edition. In his own way, each of these theorists reflects the eighteenth century's preoccupation with scientific rationalism: attempting to dismantle and analyse the mechanics of the art of acting in order to understand it more fully. Indeed, for this among other reasons we have considered previously, Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill may be reasonably located along a continuum, which is basic to the argument I am proposing in this dissertation. However, while they share common ground in many respects, not the least of which is that they all regard acting as an art equal if not more than equal to the already long established art of dramatic writing. It is not contradictory that, out of the spirit of scientic rationalism, our three theorists have reached the conclusion that acting is an art: in the eighteenth century, unlike our own, the gulf between art and science was not so pronounced; moreover, science was considered a part of general culture and not, as is true of today' s thinking, the preserve of the initiated few. While the modus operandi of this thesis has been, by definition and intention, to advance the continuum argument, it 276

has been necessary to recognize that a continuum has polarities, and therefore to note, when they occur, the differences and distinctions among the three theorists under investigation. However, in the name of the continuum, it is essential now that we highlight the similarities and points of contact with respect to Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill. Although they may vary and take individual positions with relation to certain issues, the three theorists, as I have already said, share a common understanding of the areas which are relevant to the actor's art: namely, accurately interpreting the dramatist's intentions; the central importance of action and utterance to the actor's art; the nuclear concept of the passions; and, the high moral purpose of tragic acting. I shall elaborate on each of these separately, and then offer some remarks on the questions of personaeity, the passions and personality. The primacy of the playwright's intention is agreed on by all three theorists: the actor's task is commonly understood to be a faithful theatrical interpretation of the author's literary design. Gildon, who subscribes to the notion of universal archetypes, views the dramatic author as a relayer of classical originals, and the actor as yet another relayer in this pre-ordained sequence. At the same time, because the archetypes enjoy a timeless and independent existence, Gildon allows the actor freedom to consult the original classical literature when the contemporary author is found wanting in the matter of character completeness. Aaron Hill took exception to the fact that "unpoetical managers" allowed depraved interpretations of the passions to take the stages of their theatres­ especially when the playwright was no longer alive to defend his intentions. For Aaron Hill, interpreting the dramatist was largely a matter of correctly discovering the passions in the role, an ability 277

which he freely applauded Barton Booth for demonstrating. However, once the actor had unearthed these passions, it was his responsibility to process them through his own individuality (to invest them with the vitality of his own being) while at the same time ensuring that their expression conforms to the canons governing the depiction of the passions in general. John Hill's conception of interpreting the author is in accord with Gildon and Aaron Hill. Like them, John Hill believed the author must be correctly interpreted; that the passions must be discovered in the part where the author has planted them for the actor to find; that their strength and measure is up to the actor to determine; and that restraint is an effective means to suggest power. However, John Hill departs from the other two theorists in the matter of the actor transcending the playwright to become, as it were, an author himself-without necessarily losing sight of the dramatist in so doing. John Hill advised that the actor should go beyond understanding the author, to understanding the character in such a way that he appropriated the character by his own personality, merging it with his own personality to create a new and independent entity as a result. By this means, the actor eclipses the dramatist, creating an original interpretation of the character according to the actor's own unique vision and understanding: in a word, his own personality. John Hill argued that a character should exist on stage as a virtual living presence-a fictive personality­ and that the personality of the actor (his understanding, sensibility and fire, that most personal of personality traits) should assist in this creative process. John Hill's theoretical writings on the actor's originality is comprehensible against a context of practical example such as is 278

provided by Macklin's original interpretation of Shylock and Garrick's unique Richard III, to name just two examples of the fruits of the school of genius in the mid-eighteenth century. It should be noted, too, that while Hill contributed to the school of genius and originality, that traditional stage business persisted, as did the imitation of Garrick by lesser actors seeking patterns of character interpretation. At the same time as originality was being encouraged in the acting treatises and other such writings, there still obtained a strong tradition of established stage business in the day to day world of the theatre itself. The importance of action and utterance is generally acknowledged openly or tacitly by the three theorists we have considered in this dissertation. Only Gildon isolates the body from the voice in his treatise, placing a greater proportional significance on the actor's physical technique than he does to the vocal. Like Gildon, the two Hills tend to lay more emphasis on the body than they do on the voice. Moreover, Aaron Hill and John Hill do not separate the vocal from the physical, although Aaron Hill in The

Prompter isolates the egregious vocal faults of "Mr All-Weight," " Mrs Ever-Whine" and "Mr Strain-Pipe" for special attention. Even though, like Gildon, they emphasize the pantomimic importance of physical acting, Aaron Hill and John Hill both view the voice as something which is integral to the workings of the actor's total technique. For Aaron Hill the voice is the fourth and last stage of his graduated stages (it will be remembered that the first is the imagination, the second the face and eye, the third the body generally, and only finally the voice) by which a passion finds expression. The gifts of Nature to the actor are four, argues John Hill, three concern the mind and only one the body. While Hill 279

pays lip service to the Cartesian duality here, in his treatise he predominantly discusses the mental endowments -namely, understanding, sensibility and fire -while the physical body is only referred to in passing, while, at the same time, being recognized as another element which art can improve on the actor's behalf. This is not to say that John Hill discounted the place of voice and action in acting technique; quite the contrary, he identifies and often acknowledges that these are the twin technical resources an actor uses. The difference between Hill and Gildon in this matter is that the former does not attempt to codify or catalogue the principles of voice and gesture as the latter does. This I would suggest points up the fact that Aaron Hill took for granted what Gildon was concerned to spell out and remind Betterton's successors of-the classical canons of utterance and action. And while Hill may have objected to apparently arbitrary rules, like not raising the arm above the head, I think that most of the rules laid down by Gildon for using gesture and the voice might well have served actors, in one way or another, throughout Hill's time too. Fire is a vital element of John Hill's treatise of acting. Indeed, all three theorists deal with fire, but with different emphases. Aaron Hill and John Hill, in particular the latter, have a considerable amount to say on the subject. Gildon mentions fire only briefly but it is still an important utterance in understanding the viability of

Gildon1 S theory of personaeity acting. Gildon uses fire to refer to the vital life a character assumes on stage. In a passion, the actor's "Imagination is inflam' d, a kindles a sort of Fire in his Eyes, which sparkles from them,"l This burning presence transcends words, so

1 See above, p. 89. 280 that the actor in such a state would be understood even by a deaf person. For Gildon this fire is strongly located in the face and its inseperable core, the eyes, for "by a strange sympathetic infection," the eyes of the audience which he argues are rivetted to those of the actors, are similarly "set ... on Fire ... with the very same Passion." Aaron Hill uses "theatric blaze" to refer to acting in a comprehensive sense: for him it is the total presence of the actor and not just localized in the face, although the face is clearly a significant aspect for all three writers. Hill tends to write in "fire" metaphors to describe the brand of acting his theory propounds: "passion flaming from the asserted stage" epitomizes many such expressions we looked at in the chapter on Aaron Hill. 1 Fire is a term almost synonymous with John Hill's The Actor, where it features as one of his three personality elements. Understanding reveals the character to the actor, sensibility makes the emotions of the character accessible to the emotionality of the actor, and fire enables the actor to make his sensibility brilliantly and compellingly manifest in an embodiment of "the living character": in short, he lives, not acts, the scene (The Actor p. 119; pp. 110-111). John Hill views fire as part of the actor's personality endowment: an expression of the actor's presence or "star" quality (something the actor is born with that owes nothing to art), which is an emphasis that is not overtly reflected in either Gildon or Aaron Hill's conception of fire. The moral imperative of tragedy is commonly shared amongst Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill. In his treatise, Charles Gildon, at length and from the very outset, deals with the morality

1 See above p. 178. 281 of tragic performance, saying that actors should ensure their lives are conducted blamelessly so that they might credibly personate models of propriety on stage. Furthermore, by advancing a theory of restrained technique in acting, and the neoclassical ideals of restrained conduct in behaviour, Gildon's theory harmonizes aesthetics and morality. This allies the heroic ideal of performance and behaviour; in this way, reason exercising retraint over the passions in daily life is extolled as an heroic (and very neoclassical) virtue, just as rational control of the emotions in the theatre is upheld as the hallmark of controlled acting technique. Aaron Hill agrees with Gildon that tragedy and tragic acting have a high moral purpose, and like Gildon Hill also saw that "the Wit of man cannot invent any more efficacious means of encouraging Virtue, and depressing Vice [than] by the Ministrations of the Passions" (Gildon 18-19). While Aaron Hill agrees with Gildon on the need for actors to conduct themselves soberly in public, he does not see this as directly necessary to their theatrical impact. The passions alone are the key for Aaron Hill, for it is the passions which, by being strong and magnetic, promote an identification of the audience with the actor, thus fostering an empathy which by its very nature is a moral and an aesthetic empathy. This moral identification is made possible in two ways for Hill. First, by dramas which present protagonists with whom their audiences can identify; that is to say, domestic not high tragedies, where the private scale of the principal figures is more accessible to audiences than the traditionally remote heroic personages. (Hill himself wrote domestic tragedies according to this pattern and design.) The second method is through the magnetic protrayal of the passions in the theatre so that audiences are ineluctably drawn 282 into identifying, and thus sympathetically experiencing, the the passions of the characters. Audiences identifying with and sharing in the high relief depictions emotions of the dramatic characters is what Hill meant by moral education through the passions. And this, of course, was the fundamental spring of Aaron Hill's theory of the passions and acting. John Hill also proposes a system of sympathetic imagination (an elaboration of Gildon's phrase, "strange sympathetic identification," 1 whereby the audience identifies in and with the creation of the actor. But whereas Aaron Hill acknowledges the dual purpose of teaching and delighting in the kind of empathy he spoke of, John Hill seems to emphasize the sheer artistic function: that by sympathetic identification the audience experiences the emotional "reality" of the characterization. However, John Hill does admit that, although acting is an art which disguises its art, only a virtuous man can play a virtuous character. In that sense he subscribes to the moral dimension of the theatre, along with Gildon and Aaron Hill. However, I suspect John Hill was more interested in aesthetics than the morality of the situation, when he asserted that only a virtuous man should play a virtuous man. Hill's declaration must be placed in the context of his other similar such pronouncements in the name of stage credibility: that only an amorous man should play the lover, a magnanimous man, the hero, and so on. It would seem, that by John Hill's time, the traditional ethical and aesthetic duality of theatre is tending to be weighted in favour of the aesthetic; or, to put it another way, the line between the aesthetic and the ethical is harder to identify.

1 See above pp. 88-89. 283

Having so far considered the shared territory occupied by Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill, I want to turn here to the three matters of personaeity, personality and the passions; and to take them in that order. Personaeity is the opposite of personality: the two stand graphically revealed in diametrical opposition on the Tarentum vase fragment to which I referred in the Introduction. Like the actor's mask which is depicted on that fragment, personaeity is generic not specific character and features the technical means of body and voice by which this concept is conveyed to an audience. Since both of these aspects are inextricably linked, I hold that personaeity refers both to the generic concept of character and to the process by which it is presented. We have seen that personaeity is a concept which informs Gildon's The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton, and that it does so at a number of levels. At the simplest level, it occurs in the presentation and addressing of his acting treatise to its readership: Gildon has ensured that the persona "Betterton" overlays the entire document, both from the point of view of its contents being adapted from papers on acting handed to Gildon by the great tragedian himself, and also, from the point of view that the controlled but expressive acting which The Life promotes equates with the style of acting of which Thomas Betterton was judged representative by his audiences. At this latter more complex level, Gildon describes a methodology of acting which posits a distance between the performer and his technique; a distance which facilitates the identification of a controlled and restrained acting technique as a model of controlled and morally laudable conduct. The distance between the performer and his mask, between the actor-as-person and the actor-as-personator, and keeping the 284

two patently distinct, underpins the homiletic operation of personaeity. This occurs in two ways. First, since by dint of personaeity the personality of the actor is (theoretically) not involved in his dramatic personation, Gildon insists that the private reputation of the actor as a person (perhaps, one might say, his personality in everyday life) should be blameless and morally unimpugnable. The argument runs that an actor who is known to be a good man will be a more effective actor in the theatre promoting the high moral cause that Gildon, like many of his contemporaries, ascribed to tragedy, which they deemed the theatrical manifestation of the high-minded, heroic poem. Secondly, the distance which personaeity affords the actor between his self (person) and his craft (personation) means that an actor who is in control of his technique and, by extension, in control of his character, is able to stand as an embodiment of the moral ideal of disciplined behaviour. Form and function are as one in this regard. In the plays we have examined, many of the characters who exhibit restraint over their behaviour and their emotions are judged worthy, for such characters are viewed as the epitome of rational man and, consequently, they are advanced as models of heroic and noble conduct. Betterton as the restrained player and the circumspect citizen fulfilled the neoclassical beau ideal both in life and in art. In addition to the homiletic, another important aspect of personaeity is the concept of the heroic. The heroic in Gildon's theory means that whatever the actor conveys is filtered through an heroic persona as this is appropriate to the status of the tragedian, and can be detected in the quality of dignified movement and vocalization which the actor employs. This applies equally to the 285 actor's neutrality as it does to his impassioned moments. As an expression of neoclassical decorum, the heroic personaeity frames whatever else the actor expresses in his dramatic presentation: the anger, joy, despair, or whatever the emotion, must be appropriate to the heroic status of the role. Consequently the tragic actor must employ, according to this theory, a manner of deportment and declamation which is entirely apposite to his heroic status-a kind of mask or persona which overlays and projects the rest of the personation. Although it is easy to label as stock, meaning shallow and one-dimensional, the kind of characterization Gildon's treatise advances, it must be remembered that, in The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton, actors are encouraged to look for the individualizing aspects of their characters within the limits of the conventions of heroic decorum. Gildon offers nothing as crude as: all princes who are angry must be played in the same homogeneous manner. Quite the contrary, it is suggested by Gildon's that the actor search for the nuances which different heroes reflect in the same emotion. Gildon's actual words on this question have been quoted at length in Chapter One- "the very same Passions Differing in the different Heroes as their Characters differ"l- and I think it unecessary to repeat them in full here. Moreover, the evidence in the texts from which Betterton took his roles, and which, of course, are contemporaneous with Gildon, suggests the presence of possibilities for individualizing (I am reluctant to use the word personalizing: I see the difference as: individualizing means making the fictive character a believable

1 See above, p. 57. 286 indivual creation; personalizing I would reserve for the actor directly investing his personality into the part, so that he lived the part as himself and not as the character) what would otherwise be taken for stock characters. Another method of particularizing an otherwise generic character, as we have also seen from the discussion of relevant plays of the period, 1 is, as Dryden does in the example discussed from All for Love, to juxtapose the public persona of the hero with the persona of his private feelings as a man. Additional examples of this device have been fully discussed in Chapter One, and it would be redundant to introduce them here at this point. I think there is sufficient evidence then to suggest a complexity in the notion of personaeity which "rhetorical," were we to use that word instead, does not cover adequately or sufficiently imply. This complexity takes the form of multi-layered personae: first there is the prime persona (heroic), then the sub categorical persona of role status (prince, warrior, or whatever the classification may be), and ultimately, the sub-sub-categorical emotional persona (anger, love, fear, and so on). Where Gildon provides a methodology of acting which distances the personality of the actor from his identity as a performer, as I have described above, John Hill presents a model of acting which foregrounds the personality of the actor and exploits it aesthetically. Gildon calls for a neutral, physically non-specific person as his ideal actor, so that the transformation of body, voice, character, and the other aspects of personaeity, can be worn with minimal interference from the actor's natural endowments. John Hill made a similar demand of his ideal actor for neutral flexibility,

1 See above, pp. 128 ff. 287

but he made it not so much of the actor's physique as of his personality. The best actors, Hill thought, were those whose personalities were malleable and neutral"as the shapeless wax pliable, and in the hand of the artist, ready to be moulded at his pleasure into a Richard or an Horatio, a Castalio or a Zanga" (The Actor,p. 59). However, John Hill, made two exceptions to this rule in the matter of lovers and heroes, both of whom he believed should be played only by actors whose personalities equate with the dramatic personalities of the role they are to play. Hill of course believed that acting is art not reality, but an art which produces a palpable theatrical credibility: "People go to a play to see imitations, not realities" is his aesthetic (The Actor, p. 145). His excepting lovers and heroes was to ensure that lovers were convincingly tender on stage while heroes were believably dignified. These were regarded by Hill as conditions which are hard to fake theatrically, therefore a stage lover must have known love in his life just as a stage hero must, and this is perhaps a difficult demand, have experienced dignified thinking in his life. The actor's natural sensibility for greatness of thought could be broadened by exposure to noble writers like John Milton; in fact this is what Hill recommends. Lovers and heroes would have accounted for a considerable number of the capital parts an actor in John Hill's time would have played. Being a convincing stage lover, being able to express tenderness as Spranger Barry did, is easily understood in a period when pathos and the affectingly tender emotions were equally represented in both the serious dramas and the comedies of the day. Indeed as the often simultaneous reference to both forms in The Actor demonstrates, the line between serious and non-serious plays in the mid century was not as pronounced as it had been in Gildon's 288

time, or indeed the early part of Aaron Hill's career, when Hill in his preface to The Fall of Siam argued the need for domestic tragedies. John Hill's The Actor addresses the question of presenting dramatis personae as personalities on stage. Unlike Gildon, who required that the actor should be able to present a complexity of personae with respect to his role, John Hill demanded that the actor represent his character as a personality-in character and as if he were the person he is supposed to represent. The difference between Gildon's expectations and Hill's may be demonstrated with regard to the treatment of the heroic figure in their respective systems. In Gildon's time the heroic persona was ubiquitous, characterized by a walk, an air, tone of speaking and even an heroic costume, but in John Hill's time, the heroic was just another dramatic personality, although, as has already been noted, Hill thought the hero of equal importance with the lover. By Hill's time, the costume a la romaine had fallen into disfavour and largely become an historical costume, appearing only in the so-called Roman plays, furthering the campaign begun by Aaron Hill for historically researched costumes. In addition, the tragic walk and bombastic utterance, those other heroic hallmarks, were lampooned and derided, as indeed they were in Gildon's time. However, two (neoclassical) truths remained to be acknowledged by John Hill: "the characters of tragedy are raised above common nature, and the passions it represents are all great"

(The Actor, pp. 78-9); and: "we do not bear imperfections in the heroes of tragedy, we expect only the best face of nature in these." (The Actor, pp. 207-8). The heroic figure still required to be elevated and idealized. Hill wanted the heroic to radiate from within the 289 actor; from a soul nurtured on great thinking and great literature. As vague as this may seem, the important conclusion to draw is that John Hill viewed the heroic as an internal wellspring, mediated through the actor's sensibility, not simply a walk, a habit and a tone. Moreover, Hill wanted the man in the hero to be visible while not losing sight of the hero. For example, the otherwise stoical Cato allows a single tear to steal down his cheek as he hears of his son's sacrifice. The problem for John Hill was to allow the tragic hero his due in dignity, while still remaining within the charter of The Actor to achieve acting "divested of all pomp and ceremony" (The Actor, p. 259). Hill's solution is to suggest differential treatment for contemporary heroes as against traditional ones. Contemporary heroes may be treated less formally than heroes of antiquity, for whom a manner "somewhat elevated above the highest comedy, and yet somewhat below the full dignity of tragedy" (The Actor, p. 269) should be sought. The treatment of the heroic has moved from the universal and generic of Gildon's time, to the specific and historical of John Hill's. John Hill's actor enjoyed the privileges of the school of genius in being able to generate character from his own sensibility-his own capacity to process emotion and to be processed by it. Aaron Hill offers us an insight into this transition from the generic to the specific with regard to acting. I have argued that Hill looks back to the legislative tendencies of Gildon and forward to the passionate brand of performance to which john Hill affixes the word "fire." Fire and the passions cover much the same field of reference. Aaron Hill described at one time as many as fifteen passions; John Hill's recognized these passions, while at the same time trying to reduce them down to love and hate, and finally 290

settling for generalized pathos, or tender feeling, in deference to the gathering strength of thre sentimental movement in the middle of the century. In fact, all three theorists subscribe to the passions­ indeed the passions were fundamental to neoclassical acting-but Aaron Hill places the passions at the centre of his theory, proving himself a taxonomer and theoretician of those affections of the mind. The passions were acknowledgedly internal states: they were regarded variously as perturbations of the soul or the mind, depending on where they were thought by philosophers to lodge. What is important to realize is that the passions belonged within an individual; they were not superficial, although they all had corresponding external manifestations. This is so important to remember when it is so easy for us who enjoy the modern inheritance of stimulus-response psychology of the late nineteenth century, and the concomitant Stanislavskian system of acting which argued that for every action there is a corresponding internal reaction. The passions did not require this kind of causality: they were sui generis internal, and could be made to occur quite arbitrarily. What Aaron Hill did was to take the Cartesian model and provide the actor with a system of automatic reflex actions for replicating the external expressions of those perturbations of the mind. However, while Hill agreed that the passions were universal and conformed to an established, he strongly persuaded actors to make those passions their own and to give them an individual

expression, (in terms of the character being portrayed), while still remaining congruent with the universal conceit of emotion as required in the classical catalogue. His advice to the actor playing Torrismond, that he should think himself into Torrismond's 291 circumstances is a case in point. For Hill it was less important that the actor contribute his indvidual expression to the passion than that the passion be strongly and effectively marked: he was not interested in the actor's individual emotionality for its own sake but rather for the authenticity and vividness which it brought, when used artistically and not egotistically, in producing the generic faces of passion.

The period under investigation in this thesis is bounded by two acting revolutions: one, synonymous with the name of Garrick, that has left its mark indelibly in theatre history; the other, by Cibber, which has given history very little evidence to go on. Nonetheless, these two instances have been sufficient to encourage my investigation of acting manuals within the period, the first half of the eighteenth century, to determine whether these documents, do reflect stylistic shifts in the discourse on acting. The writings on acting of Charles Gildon, Aaron Hill and John Hill all exhibit distinct differences, and these differences may be summarized as: personaeity, in the case of Gildon, where the actor manipulates a number of personae, vocal, bodily, and moral; the passions, an automatic association with Aaron Hill, who brought rationalism to bear on the traditional code of the passions, in an attempt to make the passions find a luminous theatrrical incarnation; personality, which encapsulates as a concept John Hill's trio of sensibility, 11fire" and feeling, where the actor's sensate being is put at the service of the craft of acting both as resource and as medium. While such differences are articulated in the works of these writers, a fuller examination of their work, such as has been conducted in these pages, also reveals a substratum of numerous points of contact and 292 shared understanding. Too numerous to reiterate it, suffice it to say that this common ground among the theorists is enough to pronounce that a continuum analysis is appropriate to an understanding of English acting treatises in the first half of the eighteenth century. 293

BIBLIOGRAPHY (Of Works Consulted)

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