Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-m9pkr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T10:26:57.852Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 7 - Technique and style of acting comedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2012

Alan Hughes
Affiliation:
University of Victoria, British Columbia
Get access

Summary

Physical characterization

Tragic acting was governed by the ideal of sophrosyne, which comedy turned upside-down. ‘The physical appearance of the actor was fundamental to the presentation of comedy’, Green explains, because his face and figure are ‘anti-types of the ideal, free, citizen male’. From vase scenes and figurines, we can reconstruct the comic actor's preposterous appearance. Apparently taking it for granted, the play-texts rarely refer to it. He was usually represented as a man with a fat stomach, protuberant buttocks and grotesquely oversized phallos, all simulated by a metatheatrically artificial ‘undercostume’ representing his naked body which was inadequately covered by an indecently short chiton. For female roles the undercostume was hidden beneath normal contemporary dress, but until the later fourth century many female masks, and virtually all males, were grotesque inversions of society's ideals, both of regular features and imperturbability. Bulging eyes, a gaping mouth and flattened nose, large ears, warts, wrinkles and disordered hair all suggested inferior human types in states of extravagant excitement: ‘given their physical appearance, they could not be expected to behave properly, within society's normal codes’.

Dramatic dialogue often contains verbal stage directions that tell an actor what must be done:

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×