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Part of the book: The Appearance of Character

Melissa Percival

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 47

W. S. Maney & Son Ltd for the Modern Humanities Research Association

EnlightenmentFrenchPhilosophyopen

Abstract.  The actor's performance has three main components: voice, gesture and facial expression. Of all these, facial expression has probably been given the least consideration by dramatic theorists and historians of theatre; however, in eighteenth-century theatre, the face had a particularly active role in conveying information and emotion to the audience. Contemporary accounts of acting repeatedly talk of the jeu de physionomie, by which was meant the rapid play of facial parts, the feats of physical agility and mercurial swiftness by which the actor expressed the manifold passions, an operation which often took place independently of the body.

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