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 are 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 4th Wall
• Realistic settings and costuming
• Logical sequence of time
• Actors play one role throughout
• “Theatre Magic” is hidden
Conventions used by Playwrights
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Narration
Flash Backs/Forward
Song and Music
The passage of stage time vs. Plot time
Conventions Used by Directors
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Suggestive Scenery or costuming
Pantomime
Stylized movement
Deliberate tempo of scenes
Split scenes / Conversations
Conventions used by Designers
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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 4th 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.
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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