Claudio Vicentini_Acting Theory in the Ancient World - Acting Archives

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AAR Acting Archives Essays Supplement 1 – April 2011this way can one act really effectively as the great actor Roscius did, who managed toform every gesture so that it was absolutely clear and perfect, with grace andpropriety, producing in the audience both ‘emotion and pleasure’. 93Quintilian agreed. The expression of ‘real emotions’ that ‘burst out spontaneously’should be shaped ‘by teaching and method’. 94 In short, they should be worked on andcontrolled by the person delivering the speech. Otherwise they look crude andimprecise, and their inadequacy may leave room for the excesses of ‘ignorant’ oratorswho ‘shout on every occasion, and bellow every phrase’, move and gesticulate wildly‘and wag their heads like lunatics’. 95There is another reason that makes it indispensable for the actor to control hisexpressions. Those acting, observes Cicero, need to regulate the intensity of everygesture, rationing them appropriately, so as to prepare the effect of the next gesture.For example, to make one gesture particularly meaningful and emphatic, the onebefore should be lighter and more muted so as not to ruin the effect. Theperformance thus develops through a series of variations, in which each expressivemoment becomes effective in relation to the preceding one, and should thereforebear in mind those that are to follow. In this way while the actor and the oratordisplay an expression dictated by an emotional state, they must maintain a lucidawareness of how the whole speech or scene develops, and decide the intensity ofgesture and intonation on this basis. 96 Control of the body is therefore extremelyrigorous, requiring long rehearsals before the mirror, as Demosthenes is said to havedone. 97Now, to perfect the expressions that arise spontaneously from his inner feelings,to refine them of any ‘obscurity’ and make them perfectly ‘clear’, the actor or oratormust know exactly what the characteristic external signs of each individual passionare: otherwise he will not be able to control their exact reproduction on his face, inhis gestures and in the modulation of his voice. Indeed, as Cicero explains, ‘naturehas assigned each emotion an expression, a tone of voice and a specific gesture’, andthey ‘are available to the orator to express the various overtones of his speech, as apainter uses colours’. 98In De oratore Cicero gives an example by describing some expressive intonations ofthe voice, which correspond to the exact reproduction of anger, compassion, fear,violence and despondency. 99 While in Book XI of Institutio oratoria Quintilian gives adetailed list of a long series of gestures and movements, with a veritable catalogue ofexpressions that was to inspire many treatises on oratory for several centuries.Even while he is being trained, says Quintilian, the orator should learn chironomy,or the laws of hand movements. 100 Later, he must master a complex code of voiceand gesture for every part of the body, starting from the positions of the head:93 Ibid., I,130.94 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, XI,3,61.95 Ibid., II,12,9.96 See Cicero, De oratore, III,102.97 See Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, XI,3,68.98 Cicero, De oratore, III,216.99 Ibid., III,217-218. See also Cicero, Orator, 55 and 56.100 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, I,11,17.22
Claudio Vicentini, Acting Theory in the Ancient WorldSeemly postures include first of all keeping the head erect and in a natural position, aswhen it hangs down it suggests humility, when it is thrown back arrogance, wheninclined to one side languor, when it too stiff and rigid a brutal nature. 101But the greatest expressive ability lies in the face: the eyes, the cheeks, the lips, thenostrils and even the eyebrows, which indicate anger when they are ‘knitted’, sadnesswhen ‘lowered’, and joy when ‘extended’. Quintilian then proceeds to shoulders,arms, feet, hands and fingers, indicating all the appropriate movements down to theleast detail.If one gently takes the last joint of the index finger on both sides, with the other twofingers slightly crooked, but the little finger less so, the result is a gesture suitable forargument. Yet one has the impression that someone is discussing more animatedly if heholds the middle joint of the finger and contracting the last two fingers still further tomatch the lower position of the middle finger and thumb. […] The hand slightlyhollowed as when someone makes a vow, and then moved slightly to and fro, theshoulders swaying in unison, is particularly suitable for someone expressing reluctanceand timidity. A gesture that expresses wonder consists in turning the palm of the handslightly upwards, bringing each finger in turn into the palm, starting from the littlefinger, then, while the fingers are returned to their previous position, opening it and atthe same time turning it in the other direction. 102In the meticulous description of all these movements, the search for maximumexpressiveness is associated with the need for precise stylization that can confer onthe orator’s action not only decorum, but also the grace and beauty that will give theaudience an indispensable ‘delight’.Specialists forbid the hand to be higher than the eyes and lower than the chest; it isseen as still worse to move it downwards, starting from the head, or let it descendbeyond the lower belly. The hand should be allowed to rise towards the left, but notbeyond the shoulder, further than that is not proper […] It is never correct togesticulate with the left hand alone […] Standing with the right foot and right handforward is ugly. 10311. Possibility of an Anti-Emotional TheoryActing in front of an audience, then, combines two kinds of behaviour. One isspontaneous, letting face and gestures display what it simply dictated by theemotions, and one is conscious and regulated, adopting gestures and movements thathave been studied and catalogued, both to make the expressions more incisive and togive them a special grace and beauty. Losing the delicate balance between these twoforms of behaviour would run the risk of a crude and overexcited performance, orone that was cold and artificial. And this is the explicit position of the treatises ofCicero and Quintilian.However, the possibility of codifying the expressive signs of the various passions,indicating them down to the last detail, as in Quintilian’s painstaking catalogue,opened another path. By long-practised technique the actor or orator might try to101 Ibid., XI,3,69.102 Ibid., XI,3,95 and 100.103 Ibid., XI,3,112-114 and 124.23
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