The acting styles in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Synge’s Playboy of the Western World communicated more than the stories of the characters, but also revealed the kind of effect that it seeks to impart on its audience. In Faustus, the acting style was conscious of the audience, while in Playboy of the Western World this was not so. The former play’s material was surrealist and it showed in the acting too; while the latter was realist and the whole drama was set up to convey the same.
In Faustus, the actors were part comical but the significant aspect of their acting style was that they entreated the audience. The devils made sweeping, extravagant motions; Faust intimated an air of worldliness with his big movements and exaggerated gestures. They spoke not only with each other, but to the audience. Faust especially, engaged the viewers, as though he was asking them of their opinion in the first part on what field of scholarship he should specialize in. Later on, he was delivering his lines as though he was justifying his decisions, and then in the latter part sharing his demise.
In this acting style, the audience is virtually made the other half of the main character: they become passive players, an integral part of the story, the eye that sees the story unfold to whom Faust is well aware of. In contrast, the actors in Playboy of the Western World were very grounded. There were no dancing and fluid, sweeping movements, but a lot of facial and tonal expressions to show the depth of emotion and conflict present in the scene. The characters were conscious only of each other, and their concerns revolved around their small world – their acting conveyed this, as they never looked nor regarded the audience, but kept to smaller movements as compared to Faust who have worldly ambitions, keeping in mind that they were characters in a small-time village with small-time concerns.
The Essay on Puck: Character Analysis
Puck One of the most interesting characters in Shakespeare’s play, Midsummer Night’s Dream, is Puck. Puck’s whimsical spirit, magical fancy, fun-loving humor, and lovely, evocative language permeate the atmosphere of the play. Being brought to the audience’s attention when carrying out Oberon’s orders, Puck is often overlooked in relation to the attention given to other events occurring in each ...
Both sets of characters were believable albeit in a different sense. Faust was effective and believable as a character because he conveyed the passionate ambition and then the burning anguish of a man who has sold his soul. The other characters – the devils and even the image of Helen of Troy – were believable in the sense that viewers recognize them as figments of the imagination but very real forces in a man’s life.
They were not tangible forces in real life, but they were breathed into life on stage. The image of Helen of Troy was static and passive, but she was there as a conjecture and she played her part as illusion well – she was cold and silent, and offered no comfort but the superficial beauty her magician invoked. Even Faust’s assistant was believable in his comic interpretation of the student who wants to follow in the step of his master. He danced when he was being talked to by a scholar, and kept prancing around. Compared to Faust’s travails, Pegeen, Christy and Shawn were more human and familiar, reminding the audience of some people they know of in everyday life.
These characters were made believable because of their prejudices and whims, their humanity; they were neither too good nor too evil, just too human. Pegeen and her peers’ initial interrogation of Christy were indicative of middle-class haughtiness for the grubby and grimy poor, with their sneers and snickers. Pegeen’s quarrel with Widow Quin, saw two women trying to get the prize – the affections and attention of one man, who was not even worthy of the interests of the two women. Pegeen used her eyes, her distance, to convey her interest in Christy. In the latter part, Pegeen sat close next to Christy, and eyed him with doe big eyes to differentiate with the squinting piercing eyes of distaste when he first entered the room.
The Essay on Personal Life Character Good Society
Character is the combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group or a thing from another. It is the description of person's attributes, traits or abilities. character of a person is adjudged only by observing keenly his intentions, inner feelings. Character is defined only to a particular person but society comprises of many people with diverse characteristics. Like every ...
The main difference between the acting styles in the two plays was the grandeur by which they rendered their gestures and facial expressions as dictated by the needs of the material. Faust, being concerned with only himself and his grand ambitions, was extravagant and sweeping in his movements. He was not confined by anything, and felt that the world revolved around him. It was also because the conflict was between Man and Devil that the acting style needed to be larger than life. Pegeen, Christy and Shawn, on the other hand, were confined to more realistic movements. They acted and reacted towards each other, and kept their movements within close range.
They drew from the domestic nature of the conflict in the story and setting to portray their characters. The acting styles of the actors served more than just a vehicle for expressing the story, but communicated the emotions, subtleties, and nuances as well. In the end, the acting style communicates more than just the story but the ideas the play intend to impart.
