chew the scenery

Its earliest reference is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang as being used by Mary Hallock Foote in Coeur D'Alene in 1894.http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001024

• "Near-synonym: camp it up"
• "The way the six stars chew the scenery is nothing compared to their abuse of one another."
• "Starring as a Great White Hope police commissioner sent to clean up Washington, D.C., Nelson displays a set of pipes barely hinted at in his years on "Coach," spending the long pilot hour barking, bloviating, singing(!) and generally chewing the scenery."

• ham it up
• melodramatize
• overact
• tear a cat
• camp it up