18th Century British Theatre

British theatre was forever changed in the eighteenth century. It started to evolve and started creating works that are still well know today. Women were finally allowed to have roles on stage and different acting styles were starting to be used. With these changes some performers became very popular and were celebrities of their time. The reason why these masterpieces are still well recognized today is not only how well they were written, it was because of the great actors and actresses who performed. Without these celebrities of their time theatre would not have been as popular as it still is. So this essay is going to inform the readers on the British performers of the eighteenth century. These actors and actresses in the late eighteenth …show more content…
So start off actors would be assigned too many different parts with different acting types to see which ones they would continue to do. These new actors would often become part of that theatre after a trial period. During this trial period they would be learning from all the experienced actors and the theatre would then predict if the new actors would be a valuable asset to the acting group. The experienced actors were basically acting as teachers to the potential new ones and would ultimately decide if these actors should stay around. When this method is used is also when actor ranks started forming. The experienced and quality performers would have leading roles and in some cases secondary roles. The potential actors in the trial period would sometimes become a secondary role but would mostly be casted as a third-line part. Third-line parts could just be someone that would just have to walk across the stage. These actors in the trial period would also sometimes just have to help with the operating of the theatre. Being part of the highest rank usually made those actors or actresses become the hero of the play so their image wasn’t tarnished. Others that were not in this rank would be casted as the villain in most cases and would also take parts that were not essential to the …show more content…
Once he became a patent holder he started working with the management of the theatre. During his time in management he put together a very distinguished acting company. This is when Sarah Siddons who eventually would become one of the more popular actors started her career. This is also when Macklin became more popular using his different but loved acting style mainly based off of how Garrick acted. Macklin’s greatest works was when he performed as Shylock in Shakespeare’s “The Mechant of Venice”. This role was much more serious than roles he had in the past, before this he was mostly known for his comedy work. He portrayed Shylock differently and his audience loved how he changed things for the