| Acknowledgments |
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| Introduction |
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| 1. |
Overview: A Brief History of Restoration England |
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The Court and World of Charles II |
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Plays and Playwrights |
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The Theatre, Its Actors, and Audiences |
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Summary |
| 2 |
Some Basic Acting Concerns |
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Introduction |
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Character Types |
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Achieving Objectives Through Externals Flaunting As an Objective |
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Masking Emotion |
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Interaction As a Game to Be Won Scenes for Practice |
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Scene Analysis |
| 3 |
The Language in Restoration Comedies: Background, Types, Styles, and Modes of Speech |
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Introduction |
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Purveyors and Annihilators of Wit |
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Conventions of Public and Private Discourse |
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Devices and Components of Wit |
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Summary |
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Exercises |
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Scene Analysis |
| 4 |
Using the Voice |
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Introduction |
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Understanding Operative Words |
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Working Imagistically: Utilizing Laban’s Components of Movement for the Voice |
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The Vocal Variables of Pitch, Rhythm, and Tempo |
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Putting It All Together: Experimenting with Pitch, Tempo, and Rhythm |
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Playing the Sounds |
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Scene Analysis |
| 5 |
The Physical Lives of Characters: Movement, Fashion, and the Details of Deportment |
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Introduction |
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The Mask of Fashion |
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A Consideration of Rehearsal Costumes |
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Fashion and Movement: A Brief Consideration of Space General Physical and Movement Concerns |
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A Laban Approach |
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Postures Delineated |
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Integrating Movement with Text and Voice |
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Bows and Curtsies |
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Gestures With and Without Props |
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Exercises for Integrating Gesture with Movement and Text Scene Analysis |
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Acting, Text, Voice, and Movement: A Synthesis |
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Character Analysis/Worksheet |
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| Appendix A: A Vocal Warm-Up |
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| Appendix B: A Partial List of Writings on the Art of Deportment in the Restoration Era |
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Appendix C: A Partial List of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedies |
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| Bibliography |
Table
of Contents