Character role

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Character roles (as a subject also character subject ) were in the acting practice of the 18th and 19th centuries. Century roles for older actors from around 30 years. Character roles allow traits of a character to emerge through to typification or exaggeration , such as the rumbling of the old soldier. They deviate from the ideal of the beautiful and even. Actors who specialize in serious character roles are called character actors . Specialized in comic roles were character comedian . Sometimes a distinction is made between “funny” and “serious” or “easy” and “difficult” character subjects.

Hero , father and mother roles as well as villains are the most common character roles. A lover is generally not a character, but a schemer . Problematic, "difficult" characters that stand between good and evil are also character roles.

The younger character roles include the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet , the older Philip II in Schiller's Don Carlos and the set Bolingbroke from Shakespeare's Henry IV.

Recent uses

Since naturalism in theater from the end of the 19th century, the term has become less common. With reference to naturalistic acting, he occasionally refers to a character whose mental state is studied with great sophistication and portrayed, such as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? .

Sometimes the term character role is still used today (especially in film) in its original meaning: a role with conspicuous behavioral characteristics for actors who are no longer very young - or in an exclusively positive sense: a role that requires a great personality from the actor . The "change to character subject" cited to this day with increasing age can mean an appreciation (change from comic to serious roles or from external to internal advantages) or a devaluation (from main to secondary roles).

Musical theater

In opera , which in the 19th century was not as far removed from acting as it is today, the character roles are distinguished from the lyrical, the dramatic and the coloratura roles (see vocal subject ). Lyrical voices often get a dramatic impact over the years or develop a more dramatic technique. For example, there is the character tenor and the character baritone . - In ballet there are roles for facial expressions that do not require technical perfection, but require great expression.

literature

  • Eduard Devrient: History of German Drama , 5 vols., Leipzig 1848–1874