OCT
14

Acting in the Past

By Charlie Lovett 

Charlie Lovett got his first big writing break when his play Twinderella won the 2004 Shubert Fendrich Playwriting Award.  His plays with Pioneer Drama have been seen in over 3000 productions worldwide.  His 2013 novel The Bookman’s Tale was a New York Times Bestseller and was featured in People, Parade, and USA Today.  It has been translated into a dozen languages.  The follow-up to this success is First Impressions:  A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen, published this week by Viking.  First Impressions has already been recommended by Good Housekeeping as one of the four “Hot New Novels” of October. 

Sooner or later, every actor is going to end up in a period piece.  Whether it’s Shakespeare or Pride and Prejudice, a play set in the 1660s or the 1960s, acting like someone from a time period different from our own presents a unique set of challenges.  I have acted in a lot of period drama, and I’ve also written both plays and novels set in particular historic eras.  My new novel, First Impressions, is partly set in 1796 in the world of a young Jane Austen just starting to become a novelist.  There are several ways I help myself understand the past so that — through my acting or through my words in a script or novel — I can inhabit the lives of those who lived in the past.  Here are a few tips to help you the next time you find yourself “acting in the past.”

• Read.  When I was writing Jane Austen as a character the first thing I did was not read her biography, but read her novels.  If you are acting in a time period, read a novel or story written in that time period.  Try to get a sense of speech rhythms.  Is the writing formal or informal?  Reading a novel may be the best way to get a sense of what living in a particular period was like.  If the period was in the twentieth century, you might also try reading newspapers or magazines from the period.  Many of these are available online, and they can help you understand the past in a more direct way than reading a history book.
• Look at pictures or videos.  How did people dress?  How did they stand and walk?  How did they interact with each other?  For the past century or so we can get a good idea about this from watching videos on YouTube or elsewhere.  For earlier time periods, you may need to rely on paintings, photographs, or even book illustrations.  Remember, though, that portraits are usually more posed and formal than real life.  And early photography required such long exposure times, that the subject’s head was often placed in a vice.  That’s why the Victorians all look so unhappy!
• Wear the costume.  The best way to learn how people moved in an earlier time is to wear their clothes.  Get your costume as early as possible and rehearse in it whenever you can.  Even if your full costume is not ready, try to wear a rehearsal version (women especially should wear rehearsal skirts for period drama).  Pay attention to how the costume restricts or allows you to move, sit and stand.  Can you slouch in it, or does it force you to sit up straight?  Don’t just rehearse in your costume, but take the time to walk around in it, sit and stand, dance, run.  Even if your character doesn’t do all these things, by engaging in a variety of movements in costume you will begin to understand the movements of people who wore that hoop skirt or those breeches or even those hippie beads.
• Stow your cellphone.  Be aware of what was and was not available in a particular time period.  As an actor you need to know different things than you need to know as a history student.  You need to know what daily life was like for your character.  You don’t want to glance at your wristwatch if you are performing in Julius Caesar, and you can’t look at your smart phone if your play is set in the 1960s.  If your character wants to know what time it is, figure out how she would have found out or even how accurately she could have determined the time.  What sort of transportation was available?  How were letters or messages sent?  Even if your character never rides in a carriage or writes a letter with a quill pen, knowing more about the world in which he lived will help you make that world real.  I used a great book by Daniel Pool called What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.  You can probably find similar resources with the help of your librarian or history teacher.
• Look at objects from the era.  Just as wearing the costume can help you learn how to move in a period, looking at ordinary objects from that time period will help you understand how to interact with props.  Is there a museum nearby that has objects from the period of your play?  Holding a real object (rather than a created prop) can help you understand the weight and balance of a teapot or a pocket watch or a walking stick from the right time period, and that can help you work with props in a way that enhances the historical accuracy of your performance.
• Study the language.  This is something I do all the time when writing in the past.  If I use a word in 1796, it’s important that I understand not what that word means now, but what it meant in 1796.  Meanings change over time, and your speeches will make a lot more sense if you understand the words in a historical context.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a great tool for this.  Your library probably has access to the OED online.  The entries in this dictionary will tell you not just what words mean, but when they acquired that particular meaning.

With some hard work, all of these techniques can help you more fully inhabit a character in a period piece.  Your goal is not just to move and talk like someone from another time period, but to think like that person.  The world of the past was very different from the world we know, and the more you understand the period in which your play is set, the better equipped you will be to become your character on stage.  It’s hard work, but in the end it’s also fun.  I had a great time writing Jane Austen, and I know you will have a great time “acting in the past.”  After all, there’s a reason they call it a “play!”