Presentational
and representational acting
Presentational acting refers to a
relationship between actor and audience, whether by direct address or
indirectly by specific use of language, looks, gestures or other signs indicating that the character or
actor is aware of the audience s presence. (Shakespeare s use of punning and wordplay, for example, often has this
function of indirect contact.)
In representational acting,
"actors want to make us "believe" they are the character; they
pretend." The illusion of the fourth wall with the audience as voyeurs is
striven for.
As
opposite sex
In the past, only men could become
actors in some societies. In the ancient Greece and Rome and the medieval world, it was considered disgraceful for a
woman to go on the stage, and this belief continued right up until the 17th
century, when in Venice it was broken. In the time of William
Shakespeare, women s
roles were generally played by men or boys. The British prohibition was ended
in the reign of Charles
II who enjoyed
watching actresses on stage. When an eighteen year Puritan prohibition of drama was lifted after the English
Restoration of 1660,
women began to appear on stage in England. Margaret Hughes is credited by some as the first
professional actress on the English stage. The first occurrence of the term actresswas in 1700 according to the OED and is ascribed to Dryden.
In Japan, men (onnagata) took over the female roles in kabuki theatre when women were banned from performing on stage
during the Edo period. However, some forms of Chinese drama have women playing all the
roles.
In modern times, women sometimes play
the roles of prepubescent boys. The stage role of Peter Pan, for example, is traditionally
played by a woman, as are most principal boys in British pantomime. Opera has several "breeches roles" traditionally sung by women,
usually mezzo-sopranos. Examples are Hansel in H?nsel und Gretel, and Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. This is uncommon in film, however, except in animated films and television programmes,
where boys are sometimes voiced by women. For example, in The Simpsons the voice of Bart Simpson is provided by Nancy Cartwright.
Having an actor dress as the opposite
sex for comic effect is also a long standing tradition in comic theatre and
film. Most of Shakespeare s comedies include instances of overt cross-dressing, such as Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night s Dream. The movie A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to
the Forum stars Jack Gilford dressing as a young bride. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon famously posed as women to escape
gangsters in the Billy
Wilder film Some Like It Hot. Cross-dressing for comic effect was
a frequently used device in most of the thirty Carry On films. Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams have each appeared in a hit comedy
film (Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, respectively) in which they played
most scenes dressed as a woman.
Occasionally the issue is further
complicated, for example, by a woman playing a woman acting as a man pretending
to be a woman, like Julie
Andrews in Victor/Victoria, or Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare
in Love. In It s
Pat: The Movie,
filmwatchers never learn the gender of the androgynous main characters Pat and
Chris (played by Julia
Sweeney and Dave Foley).
A few roles in modern plays and
musicals are played by a member of the opposite sex (rather than a character
cross-dressing), such as the character Edna Turnblad in Hairspray—played
by Divine in the original
film, Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway
musical, and John Travolta in the 2007
movie musical. Linda Hunt won an Academy Award for Best
Actress for playing Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Academy Award
for Best Actress for playing Bree Osbourne (a man in the process of becoming a
woman) in Transamerica.
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