Representational nature of theater

[breakinglight11]

One of my favorite things about theater as a medium is the conventions that are peculiar to it. I particularly love that it is acceptable for theater to be highly representational as opposed to strictly literal in its portrayals. For example, a single tree on stage can be understood to stand in for a whole forest, a woman dressed and carrying herself like a man is understood to be playing a male character, or a puppet with the puppeteer clearly visible can be accepted as a child or a dog or a spirit. Due to that conventions, audiences will go in to see a piece of theater with the willingness to suspend certain disbelief and buy more readily into the conceits of the representation. You'd never get that in a medium like cinema a higher degree of literal realism is expected, and people constantly complain about effects that look fake. I tend to really enjoy pieces of theater that make use of this. I could see myself leaning towards writing a lot of things that require an interesting representation to depict something that is not easily exactly imitated onstage.