Ravishing Strides: Signs of the Peripatetic in Early Modern Performance

Abstract

Actors' feet are accepted as part of their expressive equipment – but doubts are often expressed that this has always been so. The evidence of early English theatre history is adduced to suggest otherwise, while recent treatments of the peripatetic in literary studies argue that the ‘visible walk’ attains prominence only in the Romantic period. But David Roberts argues that, from the emergence of permanent theatres, walking offered a metonymy for performance which persisted throughout the seventeenth century. Cross-dressing highlighted the expressive potential of the feet, while close examination of play-texts implies evolving styles of the peripatetic in performance, and the scenic theatres of the Restoration frequently portrayed walking as a cultural activity bound up with the status of both actors and scenery in post-revolutionary London. David Roberts teaches English and Drama at University College Worcester, and has published widely on theatre and literature from 1550 to 1789. He leads an AHRB-funded project on theatre criticism.