Susanna Dye, By Jove artistic associate for movement, dropped in on a physicality workshop for ‘Pride & Prejudice: The Panto’ and has discovered some most fascinating facts about how to flaunt it, Regency style…
As an artistic associate of By Jove and movement director for our upcoming Pride & Prejudice: The Panto, I recently attended a Regency movement workshop led by Dr Elaine McGirr, head of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a specialist in the literature and culture of the long 18th Century. Appropriately, the workshop began with a lesson on how to make an entrance: the art of the curtsey and bow. It turns out that this simple movement exchange has the potential for theatrical material particularly for comic effect and strong visual gags.
Let’s start with the bow and curtsey. Both are strictly coded movements and can tell the audience a lot about a character, their status and their attitude. It can set up a character’s intentions before they even begin to speak.
Step forward Sinead Costello, the actor playing Caroline Bingley. In this staging of Pride and Prejudice, Caroline Bingley is a character who couldn’t be more ruthless when it comes to preying on wealthy bachelors. She asked, “How would Caroline Bingley curtsey to Darcy in the sluttiest way possible?” To answer this question, Dr McGirr walked right up to the actor playing Darcy, stopping almost nose to nose. She then very slowly lowered herself (in a curtsey) down his torso until she stopped, crotch level, staring for quite some time. She then suggestively lifted her gaze to meet his, as if to say “how charmed I am to have made the introduction to your girth, I do hope we will become more intimately acquainted in due course…” Yes, this period movement workshop has taught me how Regency women could get down and dirty at a ball. The little performance that Elaine gave here was genuinely outrageous flirting, a perfect fit for Pride & Prejudice: the Panto, yet not so far-fetched as one might imagine. Lowering the gaze would be the respectful thing to do when bowing or curtseying in Regency society; meeting someone’s gaze was a great way to proposition them. A daring woman on the prowl may well have made use of the curtsey as a tactical show of seductive intent.
From hot under the collar to red in the face, not only could a curtsey be a conveyor of flattery, but on the flip side this social exchange could potentially leave someone feeling deeply humiliated. The longer the bow or curtsey, the more admiration it conveyed. The ultimate insult here, would be for the recipient of a bow or curtsey to swan off and leave its executor hanging. Ouch! (This is a slight, we imagine, that might happen to poor old Mr Collins rather too often!)
What about our Darcy and Wickham- how might they bow? Elaine explained that a man’s bow was intended to attract the attention of the room and show off their fine physique, wealth and alpha male status. This is my favourite version of the Regency slut drop! (NOTE: this term is problematic and I use it to describe coquettish Regency noblemen in an attempt to undermine its loaded sexism rather than to re-affirm it.) First, I want you to picture the moment in Legally Blonde where Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, is teaching a lesson in how to drop a pencil – “bend and snap!”; the move designed to flaunt a woman’s ‘assets.’ If you watch a nobleman’s bow from the early 19th century you will see an uncanny parallel. Elaine even suggested a man might go so far as to instruct the onlooker’s gaze around his richly adorned body with a gesturing hand, while ‘snapping’ up from his bow, a slightly more subtle way of saying “check out my bod!”
The bigger and frillier a man’s gesticulations, the better. A man could claim space; arms held open, chest puffed high. Elaine also demonstrated the ‘correct’ way for a man to walk, first pointing the toes forward, then putting the feet down in a turn out, again demonstrating openness and assertiveness – there are parallels with the macho culture of manspreading on public transport – but with added Regency formality and elegance. However, a Regency woman would always aim to be as still and statuesque as possible, keeping her hands and arms across her body, small and contained, and standing with turned out feet – think ballet, first position.
Thomas Rowlandson’s image of the waltz in 1806. (Source: Jane Austen’s World)
Dr McGirr also took us through some typical dances that Jane Austen might have participated in at parties and balls. One of the things that really made us all giggle was the way lots of these routines involve a clap which acts like a caesura between moves. Whether it is because it brought back childhood memories of doing the hokey-cokey or reminded us of playground clapping games, I certainly felt a sense of childlike amusement at these Regency dances. The other big thing I observed was how the dances were designed with lots of partner swapping so that the men can rotate around the dance floor, and as Elaine put it “go shopping for pretty, young spouses.” She did emphasise that they really were ‘pretty young’ – girls would be ‘out’ in society by the age of 15. If you were over 21, you would really be past it! As a movement director, I can see that there is huge potential in these routines for getting actors around the stage in a clever and creative way. It would be wonderful if one could choreograph ongoing movement sequences, calculating the partner swapping sequences to accommodate different exchanges in the script happening with different people while keeping the scene fluid and full of movement.
Simplicity is an archetypal value of Regency society – I’m thinking about the symmetrical, classical architecture and fashion that was in vogue in the period, and the desire for order and knowledge. It delights me how these simple dances, and the simple act of giving a bow or curtsey, are such rich signifiers of cultural, social and sexual politics. The physical language I learnt in the workshop has given me a fantastic tool kit to use to set up characters, to find ways of expressing their intentions and to establish the world of Regency society. See how our bows, curtseys and period dances are used for affect to charm and entertain a 21st century audience, when Pride & Prejudice: The Panto arrives at the Cockpit on the 8th December.
