Nicholas Dromgoole – författare

Until the beginning of the 20th Century, when naturalism began to assert its powerful influence on western theatre, acting was a very different business indeed. Rather than attempting to reproduce realistic behaviour, actors conveyed their characters' feelings and intentions by using a vocabulary of minutely prescribed and highly stylised movements and gestures, each with it's own meaning and significance.In this wide-ranging, illustrated survey, Nicholas Dromgoole traces the origins and evolution of this lost 'language of gesture' from ancient Greece to the contemporary stage, and asks what it would actually have been like to watch the great plays - and the great actors - of western theatre in their own day.

Tells the story of performance, describing the development, from ancient Greece to contemporary stages and film, of western Europe's variety of acting styles. Using the idea of a culture's shared 'language of gesture', this work explores the growth, evolution and impact these languages have had on our engagement with and understanding of theatre.