Publication details
The role of mute characters and muteness in the first English melodramas
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Abstract: The form of melodrama arrived in England from France at the beginning of the nineteenth century and soon became a well-established and popular genre among many strata of the society. Originally a working-class entertainment, it flourished within the aesthetic limits of the Licensing Act with its emphasis on music, pantomime and gesture, rather that the spoken word. The form was inaugurated in England by Thomas Holcroft who adapted René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt’s melodrama Coelina; ou, l'enfant du mystere as A Tale of Mystery in 1802. In this play, following the example of Pixérécourt, Holcroft introduced the mute character Francisco, whose tragic fate and visual means of communication excited a strong emotional response from the audience. In my paper, I will discuss the historical and social conditions that enabled the spread and vogue for the genre, and reasons why muteness became a language of the stage. Then, I will analyse the first English melodrama and show how the different manifestation of muteness in the form of postures, gestures, silent tableaux and music intensified the theatrical appeal of the play. Finally, I will argue that the legacy of the first melodrama reverberated in the English theatre of the nineteenth century and the first silent films, illustrating this by the example of the first adaptation of Frankenstein with its mute Creature. |