THE IMPACT OF THE ACTING OF DAVID GARRICK AND SIR LATJRENCE OLIVIER: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS APPROVED: Major Pr Minor Professor • ^ ... (/ l - »V X | | | , Director of Department of Speech and Drama Dean 6f the Graduate School IdE IMPACT OF THE ACTING OF DAVID GARRICK AND SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By David R. Maberry, B, A, Dentons Texas August, 1968 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. THE ACTING OF DAVID GARRICK 12 III. THE ACTING OF SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER 1+1 IV. A COMPARISON OF THE CAREERS OF DAVID GARRICK AND SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER 71 V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . .10U BIBLIOGRAPHY 113 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Throughout history man has had a desire for theatre. Man has always wanted a place to go for entertainment where he could think and feel privately and yet be part of a group. While in the theatre man could indulge himself in fantasy, which seems fundamental to him. Howard Taubman has written the following aboufi man's desire and need for the theatre: He goes to the theatre to laugh and weep at others, to comfort himself by feeling superior to other men, and, in deeper truth, to laugh at his own follies, weep at his own sorrows, and, if possible to be exalted and inspired by the potentialities of his nature.1 The majority of mankind wants to attend the theatre to be amused by the pretentions of those upon the stage, but a small number of men wish to face the other way and share their pretentions with the audience. These men are actors, and upon their shoulders lies much of the responsibility for maintaining the life of the theatre. It does not matter how good plays may be, if the acting of them is poor. Kenneth Tynan, the well-known English drama critic, wrote the 1 Howard Taubman, The Making of the American Theatre (New Yorks 1 965), p. 16. - following concerning the importance of actors to the theatre: In this chapter of chronicle we shall investigate some of the big, unique performances which bare up the theatre like so many telegraph poles ... obtrusive, eccentric performances, in which the actor thrust at the audience the full impact of his quiddity, and stood out mountainously, giving shape and a third dimension to a bare horizon.2 These telegraph poles, or actors, whom Tynan thinks so important to the theatre as to write that they held it up, usually did most of their performing in the classics. The classics are usually more difficult to perform than contem- porary drama, and the actors who become recognized as great, i work often in the classics. If an actor devotes the greater part of his professional career to acting in these classics, he becomes known as a classical actor. Kitchin wrote, "By classical acting one means what is done by performers of the masterpieces."3 If a performer is outstanding in a role, other actors on the stage will absorb some of his qualities. If he is enough admired to be copied, then his work becomes a part of tra- dition. Traditions are handed down from generation to generation. These traditions become the foundations for standards of excellence, but they do not impose laws upon acting, which state that a certain play must always be performed in a %enneth Tynan, He That Plays the King (London, 1960), P* 32* 3Laurence Kitchin, M-'d-Century Drama (London, 1960), p. 3U certain style. Styles of acting mast change with the society in -which the acting exists. Tradition can only be handed down, a delightful but. ephemeral mixture of legend, history and hearsay, but style evolves afresh through the finest talents of each succeeding generation, influencing, in its own particular era, the quality both of acting and of production.4 More than once in the history of the theatre, people have tried to impose laws to make acting conform to a constant style. This has usually happened during times when actors have become indifferent to their society's changes. These actors continued to perforfc in styles which had suited a past era, but not their new and changing audience. Before the laws had become firmly entrenched, some actor would come along to violate the laws. His violations revoked the laws and became the current vogue, because the violations more closely reflected the thinking of the current society. John Gielgud wrote, "And genius may always be relied on to appear suddenly from nowhere, breaking all rales and confounding all theory by sheer magnetism and originality. "5" Two men of genius who came from nowhere to break the rules were David Garrick in 17h1 and Sir Laurence Olivier in 1937% « These two men will be the major subjects of this thesis. Both Garrick and Olivier introduced new styles of acting to the theatre in Shakespearean plays. David Garrick introduced L _ John Gielgud, _Dir.ect ions (New York, 1963), p. 107. ^Ibid.. p. 107. his new style in Richard III and Sir Laurence Olivier intro- duced his in Henry V. The styles they introduced became the beginning of the end of old styles because, as the public rallied to the new, the other actors of the day began to model their performances after Garrick and Olivier. The reason for the successes of the new styles was that they reflected cur- rent thinking. The following was written of Garrick's new style of acting: In 17^1 "a young gentleman who never appeared on any stage" played Richard III at a minor theatre to a few friends and a poor $ 30-worth of non- chalant timekillers. » At the end of the performance the newcomer was greeted with "loud shouts of approbation." David Garrick had arrived. In the next seven months he was seen in eighteen different parts. Notwithstanding the distance of Goodman's Fields from the fashionable part of London, the long space ... is said to have been nightly blocked,up by the carriages of the nobility and gentry.° James Quin, who had been the leading actor of the time, went to see Garrick in Richard III and said, "If the young fellow is right, I and the rest of the players have all been wrong."? It was not long before Quin and Garrick performed together on the stage. Quin1s prediction came true, for he was forced into retirement. Garrick's new style had officially become the fashion of the time. ^Alec Glunes, The British Theatre (London, 196^), P. 93. ^Ibid., p. 93. It has been •written of Olivier's acting, He is an actor unusually responsive to climates of history outside the theatre. Before the Second World War his Henry V anticipated the response aroused by Churchill's oratory. Olivier's post- war Hamlet caught a European mood of imprisonment and defeat. His Tidas predicted an avant-garde vogue for cruelty. After Suez he became the new Therites, Archie Rice. During the racial con- vulsions of the nineteen-sixties Othello, I suppose, was inevitable.® Both Garrick and Olivier have been pictured as men of sensitivity to the trends of their society, but that alone was not enough to make them great actors. Garrick and Olivier developed and introduced nfew styles of acting to the theatre. Since they both devoted the bulk of their careers to working in the classics, they may be called classical actors. What other than appearing in classics with sensitivity to current trends in society makes a classical actor? John Gielgud has written the following: What are the most important qualities for a clas- sical actor? Imagination, sensibility and power. Relaxation, repose and the art of listening. To speak well and move gracefully, these are elementary feats which can be mastered with hard work and practice, though some great actors, Irving in particular, seem occasionally to have succeeded without them. The young actor, if he has a love of tradition and a natural respect for experience, may be inclined at first to prefer to try and imitate the less subtle excellences of other > actors he has seen. His own taste may not be good. But as he grows older, he will be in- creasingly influenced by the pictures he sees, the books he reads, the music he hears and the o Laurence Kit chin, Drania J,n th* Sixties: Form and. Interpre. tat 1 on (London, 1$66),"*p. I'y'lV "" experiences of his own life, rather than by the acting of other players, trusting more confidently to his own instinct and personal discoveries about human character and emotions.9 Garrick and Olivier shared the attributes that Gielgud has listed as being necessary for a classical actor. Both of them have stressed imagination, and the importance of listening to other actors on the stage. Both of them have been widely imitated. It has been said that the most popular actors during Garrick's time were Garrick and those he taught. Kenneth Tynan wrote of Olivier, "Young actors trust and vene- rate Gielgud—but the man they most copy is Olivier."1® As Garrick and Olivier progressed in their theatrical careers, they continued to be mors and more imitated by other actors. Their influence spread, as John Gielgud said it would, from acting to other aspects of the theatre. They were influential in rehearsal and staging, as well as inter- pretation reforms. What influenced Garrick and Olivier to introduce new styles of acting to the theatre? They did not just suddenly decide that all which had gone before them was evil, and that they would change everything.