Thoroughly define the term “convention” as it applies to the theatre. How does this term apply to the relationship between the audience and the performers? In addition, provide at least three (3) examples of theatrical conventions and describe how these work in the theatre.
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an established practice—whether in technique, style, structure, or subject‐matter—commonly adopted in literary works by customary and implicit agreement or precedent rather than by natural necessity. The clearest cases of the ‘unnatural’ devices known as conventions appear in drama, where the audience implicitly agrees to suspend its disbelief and to regard the stage as a battlefield or kitchen, the actors as historical monarchs or fairy godmothers; likewise author and audience observe an unwritten agreement that a character speaking an aside cannot be heard by other characters on stage. But conventions are, in less immediately striking ways, essential to poetry and to prose fiction as well: the use of metre, rhyme, and stanzaic forms is conventional, as are the narrative techniques of the short story (e.g. the neat or surprising ending) and the novel (including chronological presentation and point of view), and the stock characters of both fiction and drama. Some dramatic and literary forms are clearly composed of very elaborate or very recognizable conventions: opera, melodrama, kabuki, the pastoral elegy, the chivalric romance, the detective story, and the Gothic novel are instances. In these and other cases an interrelated set of conventions in both form and content has constituted a genre. Since the advent of Romanticism and of realism in the 19th century, however, it has become less apparent (although no less true) that literature is conventional, because realism—and later, naturalism—attempted as far as possible to diminish or conceal those conventions considered unlifelike while Romanticism tried to discard those that were insincere, thus giving rise to that pejorative sense of ‘conventional’ which devalues traditionally predictable forms. As much modern criticism has to argue, such rebellions against conventions are fated to generate new conventions of their own, which may be less elaborate and less noticeable in their time. This does not render innovation futile, since the new conventions will often be appropriate to changed conditions, but it does mean that while some literary works may be ‘unconventional’, none can be conventionless. Literary theorists (notably those influenced by structuralism) tend to confirm the inevitability of conventions by appealing to modern linguistics, which claims that languages can produce meanings only from ‘ arbitrary’ or conventional signs.
I've been a professional actor for 26 years and an amateur for six years before that. Whatever I learned about theatre academically, I have either embodied automatically or ignored and forgotten.
Every walk of life has its conventions. Trial and error has overlaid all human endeavor with rituals that have been proven to work.
The convention overriding all others is that the audience must be prepared to suspend disbelief. Every bone in their body tells the audience that that is not Julius Caesar in front of them, but an actor.
It is the actor's job to make it very easy to believe that he really is, for at least a little while, actually Julius Caesar.
Then there is the "Fourth wall." That means that the cast behaves as if it were in a room and nobody is watching them. Any glance or gesture that indicates that the actor is aware of the audience is a breach of the contract to permit the suspension of disbelief.
Then there is the convention of genre. In a comedy, an actor will freeze after delivering a zinger in order that the laughter will not mask what he has to say next. This breach of reality is understood and accepted by the audience. Similarly, in a pantomime, the audience will approve of an actor "breaking the fourth wall" in order to take the children in the audience into his confidence.
I could go on and on. I don't know what your teacher is looking for; but I'm too busy doing it to understand it.
Philosophically speaking, one should not distribute the wealth of nation and deposit all the money only in Swiss Bank. I mean the common citizens should enjoy such freedom. The people who run the Government should not try to sell the country as if it is a free commodity. Government is not for squeezing the citizens rights and making their daily life miserable.
Thoroughly Define