Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Sarah Siddons and Natural Acting in the Eighteenth-century
Abstract
This thesis claims that Sarah Siddons developed a sys- tem of natural acting closely akin to modern natural acting. Her life spanned modes of naturalism from the Macklin-Garrick school of the mid-eighteenth century to the beginnings of Kean's and Macready's in the early nineteenth century. She was born in a transitional period when events culminated to force a change in acting style; and she was driven by person- al and family pressures to push herself to the limits of her talent. She utilized all her powers of imagination and study to put into effect her concept of the best style of acting. Records show that critics and audiences idolized her without having a full understanding of the implications of her inno- vations. Operating without help from knowledgeable teachers or critics, the incomparable Siddons combined her talent with techniques of natural acting to prove it an incomparable meth- od; she was perhaps the first great contributor to modern natural acting.
Subject Area
Theater
Recommended Citation
MCLELLAN, EVELYN JEANETTE HUEHN, "Sarah Siddons and Natural Acting in the Eighteenth-century" (1974). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI7423922.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI7423922