From a Rhetorical to a ‘Natural’ Art of Acting: What the Networks of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Achieved

Abstract

They had long been accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite admiration, and to entrap applause. To the just modulation of the words, and concurring expression of the features from the genuine workings of nature, they had been strangers, at least for some time. But after he had gone through a variety of scenes, in which he gave proof of consummate art, and perfect knowledge of character, their doubts were turned into surprise and amazement, from which they relieved themselves by loud and reiterated applause. […] Mr. Garrick shone forth like a theatrical Newton; he threw new light on elocution and action. 13