During
the 1920s, a wave of postwar ebullience exploded into the Jazz Age, bringing
a new and unprecedented accent on youth and a generation that cast
off
the vestiges of Victorian culture and embraced new trends in art, music,
dance, poetry, fiction, and drama. The way was open for an actor who could
recapture and redefine the glamour, skill, and galvanizing presence of
an earlier day.
John Barrymore was such an actor, and his Richard III and Hamlet, first
seen in New York during the 1919-20 and 1922-23 seasons, stand as high
water marks of twentieth century Shakespearean interpretation. Many conventions
of modern practice can be traced to Barrymore's performances: he was the
first actor to bring the vocal and physical manner of a postwar gentleman
to Shakespeare's tragic protagonists and was the first to reinterpret time-honored
roles in light of Freudian psychology. His dynamic portrayals and the groundbreaking
innovations of his production team, the director Arthur Hopkins and the
designer Robert Edmond Jones, helped to revitalize Shakespearean acting
and production in America and Great Britain and changed the direction of
subsequent revivals.
This
illustrated site, based on
the book of the same title, is devoted to Barrymore's Shakespearean portrayals,
his illustrious theatrical family, and his predecessors and successors
from the time of Edwin Booth and Henry Irving to the age of Laurence Olivier
and John Gielgud. Barrymore was an original, capable of electrifying audiences
with the force and subtle brilliance of his acting. A colorful, complex,
mercurial figure, his legendary performances made an extraordinary impression
upon the playgoers of his generation. Welcome
to those with an interest in the theatre, Shakespeare, and the art of acting--I
hope you will enjoy exploring the John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor Web
site.
Click here to see more than thirty photographs of John Barrymore, his Shakespearean predecessors and successors, his famed theatrical family, and his artistic associates.
Click here for a biographical article about
John Barrymore's life and times.
Click here to check out the book's reviews.
Click here
to hear excerpts from Barrymore's acclaimed Hamlet.
About the author\E-mail.
Links
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