P.B

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-186).

Overview: a Brief History of Restoration England -- The Court and World of Charles II -- Plays and Playwrights -- The Theatre, Its Actors, and Audiences -- Some Basic Acting Concerns -- Character Types -- Achieving Objectives Through Externals -- Flaunting As an Objective -- Masking Emotion -- Interaction As a Game to Be Won -- Scenes for Practice -- Scene Analysis -- The Language in Restoration Comedies: Background, Types, Styles, and Modes of Speech -- Purveyors and Annihilators of Wit -- Conventions of Public and Private Discourse -- Devices and Components of Wit -- Scene Analysis -- Using the Voice -- Understanding Operative Words -- Working Imagistically: Utilizing Laban's Components of Movement for the Voice -- The Vocal Variables of Pitch, Rhythm, and Tempo -- Putting It All Together: Experimenting with Pitch, Tempo, and Rhythm -- Playing the Sounds -- Scene Analysis -- The Physical Lives of Characters: Movement, Fashion, and the Details of Deportment -- The Mask of Fashion -- A Consideration of Rehearsal Costumes -- Fashion and Movement: A Brief Consideration of Space -- General Physical and Movement Concerns -- A Laban Approach -- Postures Delineated -- Integrating Movement with Text and Voice -- Bows and Curtsies -- Gestures With and Without Props -- Exercises for Integrating Gesture with Movement and Text -- Scene Analysis -- Acting, Text, Voice, and Movement: A Synthesis -- Character Analysis/Worksheet -- A Vocal Warm-Up -- A Partial List of Writings on the Art of Deportment in the Restoration Era.

"Restoration comedies of manners are at once bitingly true-to-life and deceptively artificial. Their style, elegance, grace, and wit provide the kind of challenge actors continue to love. Now Suzanne Ramczyk offers both directors and actors the tools they need to perform these popular plays."--Jacket.