... few people, historically speaking, have seen a Shakespeare production that sought to fully and faithfully reproduce the sensory and psychological experience of an Elizabethan theater—and we must remember, as the Shakespearean scholar Sir Stanley Wells pointed out, that Shakespeare was, “supremely, a man of the theater..., a man immersed in the life of that theater and committed to its values.” We learn from Coleridge that in a theater of Shakespeare’s time, “the circumstances of acting were altogether different from ours; it was much more of recitation”; thus, “the idea of the poet was always present.” What we call acting today is often a rather boisterous and busy affair; for Shakespeare, acting was fundamentally recitation, poetry, oratory. There was little need for extravagant scenery; ornamentation was achieved through language and music, with some help from what must have been exceedingly fine costumes and elegantly coordinated movements. The overall aesthetic was one of visual gravity and decorative simplicity offset by consummate verbal artistry; the mind was drawn, thereby, to the essence of the thing....
That's part of an essay in which the author compares/contrasts the Novus Ordo v. the Vetus Ordo. We're not sure that the compare/contrast holds up in every detail, but it certainly and rightly condemns the "Dramatic Reading" penchant of many lectors/ettes and celebrants.
Hmmmmmm.
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