Impersonation is strong in exhibition; it is communication only by indirection.

Impersonation aims chiefly to entertain, though often in public address it helps drive home a truth by enhancing the point of narratives and humor.

b. Method:

Every character is given distinctness: Irishmen are Irish, old men are old, kittenish maidens are maidens and kittenish.

The impersonator uses all of himself; more bodily
action than the interpreter.

He uses even extremes of voice, posture, movement,
and gesture.
Attending strictly to the interpretation of words, he
then adds the necessary actions and voice to make
each character seem distinct and understandable.
He uses courage, daring, and what the French call
abandon the letting go of self and the willingness
to launch out into the new and the untried.
Impersonation in general omits costuming and make-
up, getting its visual effects more by action than
by "properties."

The impersonator aims to suggest a stage with people
on it, placing himself in the picture.

4. Acting

a. Objectives:

The actor plays a part in a play with others.

The actors, the playwright, and the director combine to create an illusion: an illusion of reality and naturalness, but not reality and naturalness themselves.

Acting is communicative only indirectly; it is chiefly exhibition. It communicates to the audience only by inference or in retrospect. The actors communicate one with the other, but only for purposes of exhibition.

Make-believe, pretend, even deception, are frankly avowed and studied, in the interest of good exhibi

tion. Everything must seem what it is not-actors,
furniture, properties, setting.

Nothing is used for its "natural" and "real" uses.
All is calculated pretense, illusion.

b. Method:

The actor retains one part throughout the action.
Acting calls for costuming, wigs, make-up.

Each actor is a cog in a machine: he but obeys orders
and takes his part as directed.

Acting is governed by rigid conventions: exaggeration, elaboration, distance, stage pictures, timing, movements, gestures, inflections.

The actor ignores his audience and devotes his attention to the other actors on the stage; at least he must seem to do so: he conducts himself as if unaware that an audience is present.

Any possible action, movement, gesture, tone of voice, degree of loudness, length of pause, range of pitch, is permissible if it fits with the character portrayed and the mood of the play.

The actors amplify and project everything-movements, make-up, voice, gestures-so that to those on the back row they may seem to be normal people talking in a small room; actually they shout and move with a vigor which in a truly small room would be regarded as senseless and absurd. They must of necessity idealize voice and action.

Actors carefully study out beforehand just how to create the illusions they have planned to create. Accuracy is the keynote: of timing, movement, distance, stage pictures, action, and voice.

Pantomime.-Acting without words, while not speech, is a form of communication closely allied and governed by the same rules as acting. It differs chiefly in a certain overexaggeration. Lacking language to help carry the meaning, it amplifies and elaborates action to a maximum. Its objective is chiefly to entertain and its method is that of complete bodily participation.

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Give representations, with such knowledge and ability as you possess at present, of each of these types of speaking:

(a) Conversation.

(b) Informal speaking.

(c) Formal public address.

(d) Oratory.

(e) Reading.

(f) Interpretation.

(g) Impersonation.

(h) Acting and pantomime.

2. Observe such speakers as you can hear and take notes as to their success in adapting their speaking style to their purpose. Use the following questions as the basis for comment:

(a) Is there present the proper degree of communicativeness? (b) Does the display element overtop the communicative? If so, in what way?

(c) Is there lack of the communicative element necessary to carry the intended message?

(d) Is there lack of sufficient display to hold the eyes and ears of the audience?

(e) Did the occasion put a premium upon easy conversation or upon large and ample formal discourse?

(f) Did the audience seem to respond to the speaker's desires? How was the attitude made manifest?

(g) From what you know of the occasion, what would you say the situation required in the way of balance between communication and display?

(h) Was the speaker at ease in the method he chose? If not, how did he show his lack of adaptation?

3. Describe the balance of communicativeness and exhibition in the following classic addresses:

(a) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
(b) Wilson's War Message.

(c) Washington's Farewell Address.

(d) Everett's Life of Washington.
(e) Ingersoll's Vision of War.
(f) Phillips' Toussaint L'Ouverture.
(g) Beecher's Liverpool Speech.
(h) Mark Twain on Babies.

(i) Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech.
(j) Proctor Knott's Duluth Speech.

4. Observe effective public speakers and note how much of their power in quotation depends upon good interpretation and how much of their success as effective narrators depends upon good impersonation and acting.

5. Tell a "funny story," making sure to give proper impersonation to character parts, dialect, and intense emotions. Note how flat such stories are without adequate impersonation.

6. Commit to memory a dialect poem or story and deliver it "in character" with both voice and action. Elaborate the oddities. Forget self and live the character.

DEPARTMENT OF DRAMATIC ART

CHAPTER III

THE APPROVED SPEAKING MODE

Argument of the Chapter.-The norm, or standard, for sensible and effective speech is conversation. This makes it a standard commonly called direct, as opposed to speaking that is for show, exhibition. The test of directness, or convincingness, is a matter of communicativeness, of carrying the thought, of clearness of meaning. There are modes of speaking in which exhibition detracts from communicativeness; others in which effectiveness is lost by lack of color and vigor. A good test of the manner suited to public addresses is found in the concept of idealization, or amplification, the basis of all art.

I. CONVERSATION AS THE NORM

Meaning of the "Conversational Mode."-It has been pointed out that the various types of speaking and reading have in common what is called the "conversational mode." This arises from the fact that most men get their earliest and most important lessons in communicating under free, comfortable, unembarrassing conditions, with no one present as formal audience. The kind of speech that listeners ordinarily understand with the least exertion is spontaneous, free from display, and unconstrained. It is this element of ease, of genuineness, of naïveté that constitutes the quality we call the conversational mode. Though most conversation is quiet, well modulated, and gentle, still it must at times, if it is to serve all the needs of active men and women, permit of heat, energy, and even intensity. So there is nothing in the concept of the conversational mode to outlaw speech of the more energetic kinds; for any style of speaking can, within reasonable limitations, find a counterpart in the manner of a successful speaker somewhere.