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.