When was acting invented

Kemble accepted the demands of the rioters and made a public apology from the stage. At the turn of the 19th century the Kemble family dominated the London stage. Actor John Philip Kemble — was said to be the finest actor in England and his sister, Sarah Siddons — , was regarded as one of the greatest ever tragedians. In her first season, she performed 80 times in seven different roles, inducing faintings and hysterics amongst her audiences.

John Philip Kemble made his debut on the London stage in as Hamlet. His acting style was static and declamatory, with long sweeping lines and a detached grandeur.

Kean was one of the few actors who could fill the vast Drury Lane theatre to its capacity of 3, His natural passion and fiery spirit suited a melodramatic style of acting.

He was said to be at his best in death scenes and those that required intensity of feeling or violent transitions from one mood to another. Melodrama became popular from the s and lasted until the early 20th century. Melodrama consisted of short scenes interspersed with musical accompaniment and was characterised by simple moral stories with stereotypical characters — there was always a villain, a wronged maiden and a hero acting in an overblown style.

From the middle of the 19th century theatre began to take on a new respectability and draw in more middle-class audiences. They were enthralled by the historical accuracy and attention to detail that was becoming increasingly influential in stage design.

Pictorial drama placed great emphasis on costume and reflected a fashionable interest in archaeology and history. The inevitable long and complex scene changes meant that plays, especially those by Shakespeare had to be cut.

One of the main exponents of pictorial drama was Charles Kean — 68 , son of Edmund Kean. Charles Kean was known for his painstaking research into historic dress and settings for his productions at the Princess's Theatre in London's Oxford Street during the s.

Henry Irving — , Charles Kean and Beerbohm Tree — all created productions in which they were the star. Henry Irving dominated the London stage for over 25 years and was hero-worshipped by his audiences.

Shakespeare was the most popular writer for these actor-managers. It became fashionable to give Shakespeare's plays detailed and historically realistic sets and costumes. The stage spectacle was often more important than the play itself and texts were cut to allow time to change the massive sets and give maximum exposure to the leading role.

The first woman actor-manager in London was Eliza Vestris — , a singer and dancer who also managed the Olympic Theatre from There she presented a programme of Burlesques, many starring herself. Other women managers in the 19th century included Madge Kendal — and Sarah Lane about — 99 at the Brittania Theatre, Hoxton.

The greatest English actress of the late 19th and early 20th century was Ellen Terry — She joined the legendary actor-manager Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre from to as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. However financial failure meant she returned to acting there years later.

The sophisticated technology and machinery of the late 19th century stage produced a succession of 'sensation' dramas in which special effects became the principal attraction.

Scene painters, working with expert technicians, produced realistic reproductions of the natural world. Using ropes, flats, bridges, treadmills and revolves, they could produce anything from a chariot race in Ben Hur to a rail crash in The Whip. He worked at Drury Lane Theatre, which became the acknowledged home of such drama following the introduction of hydraulic stage machinery at the theatre in The playwright Tom William Robertson — 71 introduced a new kind of play onto the 19th century theatre scene.

His pioneering 'problem plays' dealt with serious and sensitive issues of the day. Robertson's work was considered so revolutionary in style and subject that no established management would produce his plays.

Caste was about marriage across the class barrier and explored prejudices towards social mobility. People talked in normal language and dealt with 'ordinary' situations and the performers didn't 'act' but 'behaved' like their audience — they spoke, they didn't declaim. The turn of the 20th century saw the emergence of two dominate trends in theatre: the dramatisation of contemporary, moral and social issues, and an interest in a simpler and more abstract staging of plays.

Innovative work from abroad, particularly playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov, was also influential in the shaping of this new drama. Harley Granville-Barker's management of the Royal Court between and saw the popularisation of the work of George Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw was one of the most successful writers of the early 20th century and an outspoken member of the Fabian Society , an organisation committed to social reform and considered by many at the time to be subversive.

He challenged the morality of his bourgeois audiences with his satirical and often humorous writing that included uncomfortable topics such as religion and prostitution. Many of his plays were censored by the Lord Chamberlain, including Mrs Warren's Profession , first public performance in England , which centred on a former prostitute and her attempt to come to terms with her disapproving daughter.

At a more grass roots level, theatre groups aimed at promoting the socialist cause and the Labour Party sprang up across the country. Between and the Workers' Theatre Movement WTM , which was allied with the Communists, used theatre to agitate for social change. WTM developed an 'agit-prop' style that took songs and sketches onto the streets in an attempt to incite change. Unity Theatre grew out of the WTM. It's aim was 'to foster and further the art of drama in accordance with the principle that true art, by effectively presenting and truthfully interpreting life as experienced by the majority of people, can move the people to work for the betterment of society'.

Unity pioneered new forms of theatre, presenting factual information on current events to audiences, as well as satirical pantomimes that challenged the Lord Chamberlain's censorship. Committed to removing the bourgeois trappings of theatre, they wanted to create a more physical theatre that reflected the machine age. Founded in , the Actresses' Franchise League supported the suffrage movement by staging events and readings.

By , membership numbered and there were groups in all major UK cities. The Pioneer Players was founded by Edith Craig, daughter of Ellen Terry, the renowned English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The company aimed to present plays of 'interest and ideas' and particularly those which dealt with current social, political and moral issues, including suffrage. The Pioneer Players performed at the Little Theatre which operated as a club theatre to avoid the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain. The repertory theatre movement was forged out of the passion and conviction of Barry Jackson and Annie Horniman, who believed that a wide variety of theatrical experience should be made available to people at a price they could afford.

Horniman believed that by subsidising theatres you could both raise the standards of performance and broaden the programme a theatre could offer to its community.

Horniman was the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant with no family connections to the theatre but she recognised the cultural value of the state-subsidised repertory companies in Germany. In just ten years they produced over plays at the Gaiety but were forced to close in because of financial difficulties. Its founder Barry Jackson, like Horniman, was passionate about the need to offer the people of Birmingham a wide variety of theatrical experience, and personally subsidised the building of the Rep Theatre as a base for his company.

In the Stage Society was founded with the aim of supporting a theatre of ideas. Frustrated with the conservative nature of more commercial theatres, it presented private Sunday performances of experimental plays that had not been granted licences by the Lord Chamberlain. After a police raid on their first production Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell it was argued that because these were private performances, the Lord Chamberlain's restrictions on Sunday performances and licensed plays were not applicable.

The Stage Society won the case and other 'club' theatres opened with members paying a small subscription rather than an entrance fee. Larque, Thomas. This source provided information about the Elizabethan Theater era of acting.

Robinson, Scott R. This source provided information about European Theater. The Finer Times, This information provided information about theater in the Middle Ages. Trumbull, Eric W. This information provided information about Medieval Theater. Get Access. Better Essays. History of Theater Stages. Read More. Satisfactory Essays.

Globe Theatre. Good Essays. Using masks to slip between characters, he became the first to act out stories from Greek myth in BC. This launched a new kind of performing that seeded the Western theatrical tradition. This followed with playwrights penning epic comedies and tragedies still performed today. Performers of the day required robust vocals, to make themselves heard in open-air amphitheaters holding up to 15, people — the first performance spaces of this kind.