Theatricality: A Definition

Theatricality is a term we playwrights throw around quite a bit. It seems to be a catch-all phrase for describing the degree of "theater-ness" a play or production has. There should be a more concrete definition of theatricality.

Like all good little theorists, I'll start by reaching back to Aristotle. In the Poetics, Aristotle defines drama as a species of imitation. There is a lot of argument about what exactly he meant by mimesis but for these purposes, I propose that imitation is the process of representing a reality in such a way that the audience can make the connection between the representation and the reality.

Support for this definition can be found in the Poetics: "First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood… and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.… The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure... Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.'"

So there is a distance between the representation and the thing represented. It is this distance that the audience crosses when they learn or infer the connection between representation and reality.

In American Realism, it appears as if the goal is to make the distance between the representation and the object of representation as small as possible. Certainly, mainstream television and film strive to minimize that distance. Even in fantasy and action films reviewers comment on how "real" the effects are.

Note: I am not one of those playwrights who look down their collective nose at television and film. If a television or film producer is reading this: please, back-up a dump truck of money to my door.

In theater - often due to lack of resources or the limitations of live performance - we can't always make things as "real" as American Realism might demand. Too often, we try to get as close as we can, and hope our audience will forgive crowbars that bend when you swing them, lakes represented by trap doors and mis-timed splashes of water, and other ridiculous semi-real attempts to make the impossible happen on stage.

On the other hand, there are productions that engage the physical limitations of the theater space, and implement creative solutions to represent the impossible on stage. In those productions, we start talking about theatricality.

If realism is an attempt to minimize the distance between reality and the represented, theatricality embraces that distance. Theatricality celebrates the distance between the represented and real with a tenuous bridge of creative solutions.

I'm not speaking here of something like the helicopter in Ms. Saigon. Yes, a creative engineering feat was leverage to get that helicopter on stage. But in that case, the creativity was focused on hiding the mechanics from the audience. In a theatrical solution, the mechanics are visible. In a theatrical solution, the visible mechanics help generate meaning in the play.

A recent example would be the House Theater's Production of The Sparrow. In order to represent Emily's trip back to town, two actors sat in chairs as other cast members walked slowly past them, bearing framed pictures of the countryside. As an audience member, I found great pleasure in making the connection between the moving landscape pictures and my own cross-country trips. The motif of framed portraits came up again and again, and the production was able to build a sense of community (and its associated loss) with the used of these carried pictures. In this way a theatrical solution to "how do we get a car on stage?" becomes a way to build meaning in the work.

When I discuss a show's theatricality, I'm speaking of bridging the distance between the represented and the real with creative solutions that 1) do not pretend the distance doesn't exist and 2) use that distance as on opportunity to build an additional layer of meaning into the show.