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Slartibartfast wrote:So I keep hearing the expression "chewing scenery" or "there were teethmarks in the scenery". It has something to do with actors, so what the heck does that mean?

to chew the scenery
usage: Very informal
part of speech: Verb phrase
definition: Make an ostentatious and inappropriate display of emotion.
source: Theatrical metaphor for overacting.
example: Has anyone ever chewed the scenery like that?

Chew (up the) scenery means 'to act melodramatically; overact'. Usually, it's in the context of a play or movie, but it can refer to an aunt of yours who is a frustrated actress. The connotation, either positive or negative, depends on whether the overacting is appropriate to the role or occasion. Here's a recent review from the Topeka Capital-Journal: "Jeff Montague was surely Captain Hook in another life. He minces and chortles, preens and roars and chews the scenery. He is wonderful. It is the best work I have ever seen him do. It is, most likely, the most fun he has ever had on stage --- and it shows." And here's a review of the 1994 film Interview With a Vampire: "While Tom Cruise chews the scenery as the irredeemably evil vampire Lestat, [Brad] Pitt quietly infuses the picture with a powerful melancholy."

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Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and a couple of other sources attribute chew the scenery to Dorothy Parker, the writer and humorist. In a 1930 review she wrote: "...more glutton than artist...he commences to chew up the scenery." But Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang has a much earlier (1894) example from Coeur D'Alene, by Idahoan novelist Mary Hallock Foote....