Melodrama Types and Acting Conventions

When people are asked to describe melodramatic acting, words like "big gestures," "intense emotions," and "poetical speaking"find their way in. This style of acting was very well suited to the larger than life stories, high stakes, and extreme good fighting against extreme bad.


For serious characters, this style was necessary to the story. For the more comedic folks, such as Sampson Sawdust, Jupiter Seabreeze, and their sweetheart Beckey Butterfly, this acting was not needed. 
They perhaps would be played with a farcical emphasis based on real working class people. 


According to Oxford reference online, some stock characters from melodrama might be "noble heroes, persecuted maidens, aristocratic villains, stalwart British sailors, but before melodrama actors throughout the European tradition had specialized in noble fathers, male romantic leads, tyrants, soubrettes, and ingénues." (MC "Stock Characters")  Knowing what stock character you were (which most, if not all, actors knew which they were) and what was expected of that character was important for the style of the play. 


"Some special acting techniques"(Booth, pg. xvii) might be required for the villain, on top of his particular outfit. 


Acting conventions for melodrama were taken from classical and "legitimate" drama; codified gestures were used to convey certain things, the acting style was very presentational, with the actors facing out to the audience, and facial expressions and elocution were exaggerated. A well-received speech might be encored two or three times before the play moved on. (Huntley)

The descriptions of the Dumb Sailor Boy in the text are interesting, and the acting gestures of the time would have been very important to this character. One of my favorite acting moments in the directions;
"The boy starts up, throws down the buckets; stretches out his hand, in token of Heaven's Vengeance, and his own resolution still to effect his escape." (Booth, pg. 19)

Yeah, actor, take that. Go!

In the short silent film below, dating back to 1900, you can get an idea of the types of gesturing that would have been used onstage.

Other conventions of theatre at this time would be the use of "pictures" or  "tableaux" at certain moments of heightened emotion. The actors would group in a series of striking poses at the end of acts, and hold them for a minute or two, to help increase the emotion and relationships in the scene. (Booth, pg xiv)

There is one stage direction for a "picture" in In defenceless chcape Bell: at the end of act one, during the chase scene between the dumb boy and Hans the pirate, after Guy Ruthven's powerful line "and he amongst ye that dares to advance a single step to harm one hair of his defenceless head dies instantly!" (pg 18)


Resources Used:

Huntley, Buff. "Melodrama." Dog Drama. N.p., 2006. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://www.dogdrama.com/ddhistory.html>.

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

MC "stock character"  The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance. Edited by Dennis Kennedy. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Central Washington University.  11 March 2011  <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t315.e3774>