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Specifically in a proscenium theater, the term fourth wall applies to the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a theater through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play . In an arena theater, or theater-in-the-round, all four walls are in effect "fourth walls." One also speaks of a fourth wall in fictional realms, in literature, movies, television, radio, comic books, and other forms of entertainment. The term signifies the suspension of disbelief by the audience, who are looking in on the action through the invisible wall. The audience thus pretends that the characters in the story are real "living" beings in their own world, and not merely actors performing on a stage or studio set, or written words on the pages of a book. In order for the fourth wall to remain intact, the actors must also, in effect, pretend that the audience does not exist, by staying in character at all times and by not addressing the audience members directly. Most such productions rely on the fourth wall.
The term breaking the fourth wall is used in film, theater, television, and literary works; it refers to a character directly addressing an audience, or actively acknowledging (through breaking character or through dialogue) that the characters and action going on is not real.
Examples of breaking the fourth wall include:
1 Theater
- In ancient Greek comedy, the chorus would sometimes address the audience and give them reasons to give the play first prize. An example is Aristophanes' The BirdsThe Birds Ornithes is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes in 414 BC, and performed that year for the Festival of Dionysus. Background Unlike most of Aristophanes' plays, The Birds doesn't attack any specific person or event., in which the chorus of birds threaten to defecate on the heads of audience members if they vote for another play.
- In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. The full text of A Midsummer Night's Dream is available at Project Gutenberg. Aside from The Tempest, it is the only other play Shakespeare did not base on an older play or story., the character PuckPuck also known as Robin Goodfellow is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream''. A bit of a troublemaker in the play, but a loyal servant of Oberon, king of the fairies. At Oberon's command, he puts love-in-idleness juice on t addresses the audience, asking for forgiveness if the story was offensive. Shakespeare's Richard IIIThe Tragedy of Richard III is a play by William Shakespeare, in which the monarch Richard III of England is unflatteringly depicted. Synopsis The play opens with Richard standing in "a street, delivering the beginning, : Now is the winter of our disconten has asides to the audience also.
- In Francis BeaumontFrancis Beaumont ( 1584 1616), was an English dramatist most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher. Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace-Dieu, a justice of the common pleas. He was educated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke Coll and John FletcherJohn Fletcher was born December, 1579 (baptized December 20) in Rye, Sussex, and died in August 1625 (buried August 29 in St. Saviour's, Southwark. After William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, John Fletcher was the most gifted and influential of the Jacobean's The Knight of the Burning PestleThe Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (likely almost entirely by Beaumont) first published in 1613 which is notable as the first parody play in English. The play is a satire on chivalric romances in general, simi, a grocer and his wife in the audience interrupt the play and insist that their apprentice, Ralph, be allowed to be in the play. He is then made the character of Ralph the Grocer Errant.
- In William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes, the character Holmes is supposed to be sealed in a box. He taps the walls of the "box", including the fourth wall, where sound effects are supplied offstage to indicate the solidity of this imaginary wall.
- Bertolt Brecht's alienation, or Verfremdungseffekt, which was intended to constantly remind the audience that they were watching a show, with the idea that their response would be more thoughtful.
- Thornton Wilder's stage play Our Town includes the character of the Stage Manager, who stands at the side of the stage and addresses the audience directly. The other characters in the play cannot see or acknowledge the narrator's existence. The play is presented on a bare stage with rudimentary props, such as a balcony scene played on a stepladder.
- In Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, the fourth wall is not even there to be broken down. Some actors are getting ready for rehearsal when six characters whose author has died, leaving them incomplete, enter the room. The director decides to include the characters in the play they are rehearsing and soon all the lines between fiction and reality have disappeared.
- In Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, two actors who play critics sitting in the audience and reviewing the play as it progresses ultimately become involved in the plot.
- At the end of Branislav Nusic's The Cabinet Minister's Wife , the protagonist orders the audience to get out so that they would not watch her misery.
- In pantomime, characters frequently address remarks to the audience, and sometimes encourage the audience to become directly involved in the unfolding of the story, as in the rescue of Tinker Bell (see below).
- There is a style of comedy in which comedians act out a play but "ham it up" pretending to make mistakes, have out-of-character arguments, have accidents and interact with the audience. The audience is left uncertain as to what is really accidental and what is real.
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