Abstract
Over the last century, the field of acting has evolved in many instances. In the course of evolution, there has there has also been a number of alteration in the peoples perspectives of acting. The fact that today acting has become a part of our lives as either a career objective or as an entertainment channel, make acting an interesting topic to study. All cultures all over the world are in one way or another spectator of plays either sacred functions, or narratives done on stage for the single purpose of pleasure. Acting can be defined as pretending to be someone else without any purpose to mislead, and for delight and teaching ourselves and others. The following document reviews the history of western theatre and the impression it left on people including acting as a career and survey of the famous theater actors.
Acting: An overview
The account of theater performance in the type of enacted rituals is almost certainly as old as the most primitive humans on earth. All communities are directly or indirectly involved in acting. Sacred rituals and narrating of folklore, many of which resembles theatrical performance, are also a core part of most cultures. The role of acting was mostly religious in the ancient time contrary to contemporary world where acting has extended to entertainment. The actors in the olden times bear little comparison to the actors we regularly see on television, theatre, and movies. The intent of this document is to scrutinize the history of western acting, the traces it left in people’s lives, exciting facts about acting, famous theatre actors, and reasons as to why people should consider acting as a career, and express my own opinion about acting.
In this perspective, the word theatre is derived from Greek meaning seeing places. Acting is where people come to experience the truth about social situations and life in general. Acting is believed to have begun in Greece in the 6th century B.C. by Greek actor, Thespis, who is the renown as the founder of acting. Perhaps this is the reason why actors are referred to as thespians. Thespis separated himself from the chorus and began to act the story as a character within the story, rather than narrate the story. The Greek plays are the oldest western plays in history and continues to be performed today. The great philosopher Aristotle distinct the theater as the correct regulation of the tone to articulate an assortment of emotions and affirmed it to be an innate talent that is inborn hence can’t be conveyed to others through teaching. Among the ancient Greek actors are Aechylus, Sophocles, and Euripides who were able to survive all acting history and performed in large theaters. The ancient Greek plays were mostly performed in large outdoor theaters. In these performs, various costumes were worn which mostly consisted mostly padded clothes and artificial phalluses.
In the era of Christian rule of Rome, acting revolutionized from art and liturgical drama to be performed all through middle ages, but the custom was kept alive by acrobats, jugglers, and mimes since they used to entertain large crowds at town fairs. Eventually, the gesture and inflection of actors started to be mastered through spiritual dramas performed in churches. Then the acting took a big step towards the 16th century where contemporary acting commenced through the Italian comedy, William Shakespeare.
Accordingly, the realization of acting brought about various changes of how people approach various aspects of life. One eminent trace is how people approach conveyance of messages. For instance if one wants to pass information to children he or she tend to use something fictional either through acting or writing. Today, teachers use different king of imaginations to teach small children and demonstrate new concept to adults. Moreover, over the years, people have become increasingly sensitive to acting and have used it as a means to convey messages be it political or religious. People have grown from the sole perspective of religious to entertainment and have still extended the performance of acting to the political aspect. Also, acting may leave different implication on different people on the basis of the tribe or origin. Hence, acting might be misunderstood in controversial subjects including politics and war. Negative implication includes topics on sexism and transgendered associated topic due to varied perception of the same in various states.
Accodingly, the following are some of the amazing facts about the Elizabethan actors who were the earliest famous theatre actors. The acting station was set fully by the Elizabeth actors. Some of the famous actors among Elizabeth actors are William Shakespeare, Henry Condell and Edward Allen. However, among them only William Shakespeare well reputable in the field of acting. William did various works such as writing poetical plays and wrote a number of sonnets. Moreover, he was involved in the contraption of new words and vocabularies. In all around the world, Shakespeare is the most renowned world poetic and playwright of his time. In this time only men were allowed to play act, women could be only spectators, until 1160 when they were allowed to be involved. The actors wore clothes according to nobility and role. For instance noble actors wore costumes of prepared of silk, fur, cotton, and velvets. Some colors such as purple were a symbol of loyalty. What was amazing about the Elizabethan actors were that each color had its own specific meaning which was easily understood by the spectators. More so, the main themes were centered on royalty and dignity of the people territory.
In the contemporary, the sector of acting as a career objective has proved to be one of the lucrative careers one can ever embrace. With various award winning events which are very rewarding to top television, movies, and play actress, actors have all the reason to focus their attention in acting as a career. Student looking forward to joining acting industry should be widely involved in such activities as student films so as to obtain extensive knowledge and experience in the field of acting. The key to be a successive actor is to persistently participate in several comedies or plays so as to create a name for him or herself. Also, actors should embrace such strategies as online networking to boost careers and promote their plays worldwide.
However, I do not entirely agree that acting can be a sole dependable job. I believe an actor has to have an additional job to supplement the earning gain through acting. However, I personally agree that ac ting is amazing since it makes a dull day seem bright in the event of a comedy. It is also an effective way of communicating political, spiritual, and customary ideas. The acting sector is not just for everybody since it requires talent and hard work to develop those talents. Therefore, acting schools should provide various measures to notice and develop acting talents.
In a nutshell, based on above discussions above, it would be appropriate to say that acting has revolutionized over time to be recognized as the one of the highest paying careers. The roots of acting stems from the Greek culture and over time the practice has spread out to the entire world. Acting can be use to pass dissimilar information either religious, traditions, and politics. This is made possible by the various costumes and emotional attachment the actors use. However, the field is full of challenges and, therefore, requires hard work and dedication to being fully lucrative.
Bibliography
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Cohen, R. & Calleri, J., 2009. Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting. Philadelphia: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hill, E., 1986. Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors. New York: University of Massachusetts Press.
Kuritz, P., 2002. The Making of Theatre History. New York: Cengage Learning.
