| Emerging
Acting Styles around Voltaire
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11/2001 |
Workshop
Monday 3rd -
Thursday 6th of September
The Académie Desprez directs
a workshop about Acting Styles in Voltaire’s Tragedies,
with students of the University of Leiden, in order to offer
them a practical approach to issues which have arisen through
the reconstruction of Voltaire’s theatre. During four
afternoons, this practical approach is meant to supplement and
enhance theoretical work done on Leiden Theatre history during
the university year.
Texts chosen by the Académie
Desprez and learned by participants during the summer are
extracts from: Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète
(1742), Sémiramis (1748), L'Orphelin de la Chine
(1755), Tancrède (1760), and Olympie (1763).
Dramaturgical analysis reveals
a primary aspect of the evolution of acting style: a new
presentation of dramatic events and feeling emerges (first
session). The workshop shows how declamation was codified almost
musically before Lekain's innovations, and proposes a first
reading of Voltaire's plays, inherited from the XVIIth
century tragedy. Participants experiment the mixing of codified
techniques and more "natural" performances (second
session). Various ways of connecting the gestures and the
declamation are experimented, including freedom in tempi and
variety of movements (third session). Participants study the
various choices actors made of their costumes (fourth session).
Preparation includes work on original documents to lead to
selection of costumes for the open doors session (fifth
session).
It may be impossible to
reconstruct totally the acting style of Voltaire’s favourite
actors. We can recognise and acknowledge separate elements only
– and display them in systems which are never exactly joined.
This last session is a "relevé" of the students
experimentation, a subjective lexicon of French Acting Styles
emerged around Voltaire.
Lecture
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