Role is a sentence in creative life? Background

Even in the days of the ancient Greek theater, a division into certain types of characters arose. Thus arises the role of the actor - the distribution of roles in accordance with external data, as a result of which, until the last century, throughout the whole life, the actors were forced to embody only one image.

In ancient Greece, dramatic works were divided into two main types: tragedies and comedies. Accordingly, there were two types of actors - tragedians and comedians. Hit in any group was determined largely not by the style of the game, but by the external data of the actor. Tragedies were people who were tall, well-built, with a low voice. Their opposite is the actors are low and full, speaking in a high voice. They could perform only comic roles.

Medieval Italian Comedy del arte expanded the ancient images and created a new role. These are servants, gentlemen, and also heroes-lovers. A distinctive feature of comedy del arte - a leather mask, a mandatory attribute of the character. At the beginning of the theatrical career, each actor chose a mask for himself, and then almost all his life he played only one role. Theater historians number more than one hundred different masks, but most of them belonged to similar characters, which differed from each other only by names and small details. Actors performed female roles without using masks.

In the 17th century, in the era of classicism, the French theater continued to create the main sustainable images in drama and cemented the distribution of roles for the actors of certain psychophysical data. At that time, the notion of role emerged, a term derived from the French word "emploi", which translates as "role", "position", "use".

In order to get a role, the actor must meet a certain set of requirements, among which, as in ancient times, include growth, physique, timbre of voice, type of face. But the role is not only the appearance of the character, but also the declamatory and plastic features, the behavioral line. The transition from one role to another was not approved, therefore, as in the medieval theater, the actors performed monotonous roles throughout their theatrical career, improving their skills and trying to add a certain zest to the character. The only exceptions were age roles, for which the management of the theater was translating older actors.

In the French theater in the XVIII century appear such an actress role as an engineer - a sincere but naive and simple-minded girl. Heroes-young men of such a character warehouse were called simpletons. The subretret (male variant of the servant) is distinguished by merriment, fervor and brisk temper, often this character renders his masters invaluable help in love affairs. The concept of travesty appears Meaning that the female role is played by the male actor, and vice versa.

So the actors would have played the same role all their lives, if in the last century Konstantin Stanislavsky and Mikhail Chekhov did not make a statement that theatrical roles are stamps that hinder the development of acting talent and do not allow it to manifest itself to the full. This opinion was received with disbelief, but now, watching the amazing reincarnation of modern actors, we see that the great directors were right.