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Use By Modern Actors and Orators
Less of practical value can be learned of
sign language, considered as a system, from the study of
gestures of actors and orators than would appear without
reflection. The pantomimist who uses no words whatever is
obliged to avail himself of every natural or imagined
connection between thought and gesture, and, depending
wholly on the latter, makes himself intelligible. On the
stage and the rostrum words are the main reliance, and
gestures generally serve for rhythmic movement and to
display personal grace. At the most they give the
appropriate representation of the general idea expressed by
the words, but do not attempt to indicate the idea itself.
An instance is recorded of the addition of significance to
gesture when it is employed by the gesturer, himself silent,
to accompany words used by another. Livius Andronicus, being
hoarse, obtained permission to have his part sung by another
actor while he continued to make the gestures, and he did so
with much greater effect than before, as Livy, the
historian, explains, because he was not impeded by the
exertion of the voice; but the correct explanation probably
is, because his attention was directed to ideas, not mere
words. Gestures of Actors To look at the performance of a play through
thick glass or with closed ears has much the same absurd
effect that is produced by also stopping the ears while at a
ball and watching the apparently objectless capering of the
dancers, without the aid of musical accompaniment. Diderot,
in his Lettre sur les sourds muets, gives his
experience as follows:
"I used frequently to attend the theater and I knew by heart
most of our good plays. Whenever I wished to criticise the
movements and gestures of the actors I went to the third
tier of boxes, for the further I was from them the better I
was situated for this purpose. As soon as the curtain rose,
and the moment came when the other spectators disposed
themselves to listen, I put my fingers into my ears, not
without causing some surprise among those who surrounded me,
who, not understanding, almost regarded me as a crazy man
who had come to the play only not to hear it. I was very
little embarrassed by their comments, however, and
obstinately kept my ears closed as long as the action and
gestures of the players seemed to me to accord with the
discourse which I recollected. I listened only when I failed
to see the appropriateness of the gestures.. There are few
actors capable of sustaining such a test, and the details
into which I could enter would be mortifying to most of
them."
It will be noticed that Diderot made this test with regard
to the appropriate gestural representation of plays that he
knew by heart, but if he had been entirely without any
knowledge of the plot, the difficulty in his comprehending
it from gestures alone would have been enormously increased.
When many admirers of Ristori, who were wholly unacquainted
with the language in which her words were delivered,
declared that her gesture and expression were so perfect
that they understood every sentence, it is to be doubted if
they would have been so delighted if they had not been
thoroughly familiar with the plots of Queen Elizabeth and
Mary Stuart. This view is confirmed by the case of a
deaf-mute, told to the writer by Professor Fay, who had
prepared to enjoy Ristori's acting by reading in advance the
advertised play, but on his reaching the theater another
play was substituted and he could derive no idea from its
presentation. The experience of the present writer is that
he could gain very little meaning in detail out of the
performance at a Chinese theater, where there is much more
true pantomime than in the European, without a general
notion of the subject as conveyed from time to time by an
interpreter. A crucial test on this subject was made at the
representation at Washington, in April, 1881, of
Frou-Frou by Sarah Bernhardt and the excellent French
company supporting her. Several persons of special
intelligence and familiar with theatrical performances, but
who did not understand spoken French, and had not heard or
read the play before or even seen an abstract of it, paid
close attention to ascertain what they could learn of the
plot and incidents from the gestures alone. This could be
determined in the special play the more certainly as it is
not founded on historic events or any known facts. The
result was that from the entrance of the heroine during the
first scene in a peacock-blue riding habit to her death in a
black walking-suit, three hours or five acts later, none of
the students formed any distinct conception of the plot.
This want of apprehension extended even to uncertainty
whether Gilberte was married or not; that is, whether
her adventures were those of a disobedient daughter or a
faithless wife, and, if married, which of the half dozen
male personages was her husband. There were gestures enough,
indeed rather a profusion of them, and they were thoroughly
appropriate to the words (when those were understood) in
which fun, distress, rage, and other emotions were
expressed, but in no cases did they interpret the motive for
those emotions. They were the dressing for the words of the
actors as the superb millinery was that of their persons,
and perhaps acted as varnish to bring out dialogues and
soliloquies in heightened effect. But though varnish can
bring into plainer view dull or faded characters, it cannot
introduce into them significance where none before existed.
The simple fact was that the gestures of the most famed
histrionic school, the Comédie Française, were not
significant, far less self-interpreting, and though praised
as the perfection of art, have diverged widely from nature.
It thus appears that the absence of absolute
self-interpretation by gesture is by no means confined to
the lower grade of actors, such as are criticized in the old
lines:
When to enforce some
very tender part
His left hand sleeps by instinct on the heart;
His soul, of every other thought bereft,
Seems anxious only—where to place the left!*
Without relying wholly upon the facts above mentioned, it
will be admitted upon reflection that however numerous and
correct may be the actually significant gestures made by a
great actor in the representation of his part, they must be
in small proportion to the number of gestures not at all
significant, and which are no less necessary to give to his
declamation precision, grace, and force. Significant
gestures on the stage may be regarded in the nature of high
seasoning and ornamentation, which by undue use defeat their
object and create disgust. Histrionic perfection is, indeed,
more shown in the slight shades of movement of the head,
glances of the eye, and poises of the body than in violent
attitudes; but these slight movements are wholly
unintelligible without the words uttered with them. Even in
the expression of strong emotion the same gesture will apply
to many and utterly diverse conditions of fact. The greatest
actor in telling that his father was dead can convey his
grief with a shade of difference from that which he would
use if saying that his wife had run away, his son been
arrested for murder, or his house burned down; but that
shade would not without words inform any person, ignorant of
the supposed event, which of the four misfortunes had
occurred. A true sign language, however, would fully express
the exact circumstances, either with or without any
exhibition of the general emotion appropriate to them.
Even among the best sign-talkers, whether Indian or
deaf-mute, it is necessary to establish some rapport
relating to theme or subject-matter, since many gestures, as
indeed is the case in a less degree with spoken words, have
widely different significations, according to the object of
their exhibition, as well as the context. Panurge (Pantagruel,
Book III, ch. xix) hits the truth upon this point, however
ungallant in his application of it to the fair sex. He is
desirous to consult a dumb man, but says it would be useless
to apply to a woman, for "whatever it be that they see they
do always represent unto their fancies, and imagine that it
hath some relation to love. Whatever signs, shows, or
gestures we shall make, or whatever our behavior, carriage,
or demeanor shall happen to be in their view and presence,
they will interpret the whole in reference to androgynation."
A story is told to the same point by Guevara, in his
fabulous life of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. A young Roman
gentleman encountering at the foot of Mount Celion a
beautiful Latin lady, who from her very cradle had been deaf
and dumb, asked her in gesture what senators in her descent
from the top of the hill she had met with, going up thither.
She straightway imagined that he had fallen in love with her
and was eloquently proposing marriage, whereupon she at once
threw herself into his arms in acceptance. The experience of
travelers on the Plains is to the same general effect, that
signs commonly used to men are understood by women in a
sense so different as to occasion embarrassment. So
necessary was it to strike the mental key-note of the
spectators by adapting their minds to time, place, and
circumstance, that even in the palmiest days of pantomime it
was customary for the crier to give some short preliminary
explanation of what was to be acted, which advantage is now
retained by our play-bills, always more specific when the
performance is in a foreign language, unless, indeed, the
management is interested in the sale of librettos.
Gestures Used by Modern Actors and
Orators
If the scenic gestures are so seldom
significant, those appropriate to oratory are of course
still less so. They require energy, variety, and precision,
but also a degree of simplicity which is incompatible with
the needs of sign language. As regards imitation, they are
restrained within narrow bounds and are equally suited to a
great variety of sentiments. Among the admirable
illustrations in Austin's Chironomia of gestures
applicable to the several passages in Gay's "Miser and
Plutus" one is given for "But virtue's sold" which is
perfectly appropriate, but is not in the slightest degree
suggestive either of virtue or of the transaction of sale.
It could be used for an indefinite number of thoughts or
objects which properly excited abhorrence, and therefore
without the words gives no special interpretation.
Oratorical delivery demands general grace—cannot rely upon
the emotions of the moment for spontaneous appropriateness,
and therefore requires preliminary study and practice, such
as are applied to dancing and fencing with a similar object;
indeed, accomplishment in both dancing and fencing has been
recommended as of use to all orators. In reference to this
subject a quotation from Lord Chesterfield's letters is in
place: "I knew a young man, who, being just elected a member
of Parliament, was laughed at for being discovered, through
the key-hole of his chamber door, speaking to himself in the
glass and forming his looks and gestures. I could not join
in that laugh, but, on the contrary, thought him much wiser
than those that laughed at him, for he knew the importance
of those little graces in a public assembly and they did
not."
Indian Sign
Language
* Transcriber's
Note: The verses in the
section on Gestures
of Actors on p.
309 are
loosely quoted from "The Rosciad" by
Charles Churchill, which more
accurately reads:
"... When to enforce some
very tender part,
The right hand slips by
instinct on the heart,
His soul, of every other
thought bereft,
Is anxious only where to
place the left;..."
Notes About the Book:
Source: Sign Language among North American Indians compared with that among
Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes, by Garrick Mallery, 1881, First Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology, Government Printing Office, Washington.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and
then ocr'd. Minimal editing has been done, and readers can and should expect
some errors in the textual output.
This site includes some historical materials that may imply negative
stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place.
These items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
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