Conventions in Theatre The Rules by Which the

Conventions in Theatre The Rules by Which the Play is Performed

Definition • Specific actions or techniques the actor, writer or director has employed to create a desired dramatic effect/style. • Each dramatic style has its own unique theatrical conventions. • There also stock conventions employed over a variety of styles.

Conventions set up logic • Conventions set the degree of abstraction the play will have. Some plays try to replicate reality, while some do not. • Conventions should be consistent, as adding or taking them away half through a show throws the logic of the play.

Presentational Devices A deliberate attempt to be “theatrical” • Use of Narrator or Chorus • Script written for actors to play multiple roles • Seeing Actors change costumes and sets in view of the audience • Personification • “Theatre Magic” is shown or obvious

Representational A definite attempt to look or feel realistic • Use of the 4 th Wall • Realistic settings and costuming • Logical sequence of time • Actors play one role throughout • “Theatre Magic” is hidden

Conventions used by Playwrights • • Narration Flash Backs/Forward Song and Music The passage of stage time vs. Plot time

Conventions Used by Directors • • • Suggestive Scenery or costuming Pantomime Stylized movement Deliberate tempo of scenes Split scenes / Conversations

Conventions used by Designers • Sets that are cut away to reveal the interior • Use of light and sound to replicate reality • Illusion that beyond the set there is more • Creation of set pieces that can become many things. • A set piece or costume that is symbolic.

Conventions Used by Actors Use of the 4 th Wall Endowment Sense Memory Direct Audience Address Aside

Conventions Create Style • Plays of a type with have conventions that serve that type – Realistic, Abstract, Era • Plays can have realistic and abstract conventions creating their own style. • Some conventions work with some audiences, some do not – direction is important.

Stock Conventions

Flashback • A time-shifting technique that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached.

Lyrical • Achieved by the use of verse, heightened language, song or movement; including the use of poetic imagery.

Montage • Juxtaposition of dramatic images and/or vignettes, often presented in rapid succession. • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=x. Npc 2 72 PHzg • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=F 2 bk_ 9 T 482 g

Freeze Frame • A frozen moment of a scene. • During a performance the actor freezes action and sound at a premeditated time to enhance dramatic tension and/or to highlight an important moment in a scene. • It can be compared to pressing ‘pause’ on a video at a significant moment in the narrative.

Stylized Conventions

Elizabethan Conventions • Soliloquy: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be…” is literature’s most famous soliloquy. A single character talks aloud inner thoughts, but not within earshot of another character. Typically, a soliloquy is lengthy with a dramatic tone. • Aside: An aside is a convention that usually involves one character addressing the audience “on the side”, offering them valuable information in relation to the plot or characters that only the audience is privy to.

Shakespeare Conventions • Teichoscopy: – One of the oldest techniques – “Viewing from the wall" – Actors observe events beyond the confines of the stage, such as a distant battle, and discuss it on stage while the battle is taking place – Opposed to the event being reported by messengers at a later time after the event has happened.

Brecht Conventions • Epic Theatre: One of Brecht’s primary goals was to emotionally distance the audience from the action on stage, commonly referred to as the alienation technique.

• narration • direct address to audience • placards and signs projection spoiling dramatic tension in advance of episodes (scenes) • disjointed time sequences – flash backs and flash forwards – large jumps in time between episodes (scenes) • historification – setting events in another place and/or time in order to distance the emotional impact, yet enhance the intellectual impact for the spectator (audience) • fragmentary costumes – single items of clothing representing the entire costume • fragmentary props – single objects representing a larger picture (or setting) • song – like parables in the Bible, songs are used to communicate the message or themes of the drama

• multiple roles – actors commonly perform more than one character in a drama • costume changes in full view of the spectator (audience) • lighting equipment in full view of the spectator (audience) • open white lighting – due to its emotional impact, colored light on stage is eliminated – instead, the stage is flooded with white light • alienation technique – a complex term translated differently by scholars from the German “verfremdungseffekt”, involves the use of many of the above conventions, with the ultimate aim of distancing the audience emotionally and increasing their intellectual response to the drama