The Style of Acting Adopted by Macgowarn - Essay Example

Brander Matthews quoted with approval the words of the great 19th-century Italian tragedian Ernesto Rossi that a “great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered.” (Acting, 2009)

Acting styles
An acting style is a way a play is presented or the way an actor portrays his character. It can refer to quite a few different things - like period acting (roles that take place in a different earlier, era, place, or society), stylized acting (such as the very specific styles used in Restoration comedies, etc.), or it may refer to verse acting (such as Shakespeare), or proper classical acting (such as ancient Greek plays), or the early "declaiming" acting (a very stiff, presentational style directly aimed toward the audience), or to modern-day acting (such as we see today in contemporary comedy and drama where actors act realistically).

Two major classifications of acting style can be made presentational and representational. Where representational refers to modern realistic acting and representational refers to the more formal or exaggerated acting styles of old (Kernodle)

Analysis
In 1971, Alan Schneider directed a historic videotaped performance of Samuel Beckett's Krapps Last Tape, starring Jack MacGowran. The play dramatized an old man's struggle to repossess his youth by searching through reels of audiotape. The style of acting adopted by MacGowarn is simple and realistic as is characteristic of contemporary cinema. He conveys the old man's age and disability (he is nearly half-blind) through body movements and no dialogue at all. There are no other actors and the only props are a single table and chair in an otherwise empty room. The film is focused on the old man and his every expression.

In 1964 Camera Three, New York, NY produced a short film featuring James Cahill, John Heffernan & Roy Scheider based on excerpts from Ben Jonson's 17th-century comedy of humor The Alchemist, in which two con-men with a philosopher's stone dupe respectable but avaricious members of the establishment. In direct contrast to Krapps Last Tape, there are several actors in the film all of whom use a mix of presentational and representational acting styles. They are realistic in their representation of sixteenth-century personas, be it a humble shopkeeper or an aristocrat. On the other hand, they exaggerate the traits of their characters a little to emphasize for example the humility and simplicity of the new shop owner who comes for a consultation with the alchemist. They use loud gestures and body movements to express emotions, whereas MacGrowan is subtle and subdued in contrast. Period costumes and furniture also lend an ambiance to The Alchemist but there is a starkness to the setting and performance of Krapps Last Tape. Read More