This book offers an innovative account of how audiences and actors emotionally interacted in the English theatre during the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a period bookended by two of its stars: David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Drawing upon recent scholarship on the history of emotions, it uses practice theory to challenge the view that emotional interactions between actors and audiences were governed by empathy. It carefully works through how actors communicated emotions through their voices, faces and gestures, how audiences appraised these performances, and mobilised and regulated their own emotional responses. Crucially, this book reveals how theatre spaces mediated the emotional practices of audiences and actors alike. It examines how their public and frequently political interactions were enabled by these spaces.
Author(s): Glen McGillivray
Series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 230
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
About the Book
Contents
About the Author
Abbreviations1
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
‘Here lies the golden secret; learn to FEEL’
Doing Emotions
Chapter 2: Playing to Type
The Whig View of Theatrical History
Character Types
Macbeth
Chapter 3: Communicating Emotions: The Arts of the Actor
The Art of Gesture
Ranting, Canting, and Toning46
Siddons’ Grand Style
‘The lady is greatly improved’
‘It becomes as grand as it is petrifying’
Chapter 4: Regulating and Mobilising Emotions: The Audience
Sentimentalism
Emotional Navigation
Volatility
Generosity
Chapter 5: Mediating Emotions in Place
An Intimate Relationship
Glitter in the Light and Height in the Air
Talking to the Audience
Chapter 6: Conclusion: “Damme, Tom, it’ll do”
Plays
References
Index
