What literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot is the play "Mousetrap" known for using?
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The Mousetrap The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. "The Mousetrap" opened in London's West End in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. The longest running West End show, it has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on 18 November 2012. The play is known for its twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre.
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Plot twist A plot twist is a literary technique, introducing a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist or surprise ending. It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it. There are a variety of methods used to execute a plot twist, such as withholding information from the audience, or misleading them with ambiguous or false information.
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Agatha Christie Memorial The Agatha Christie Memorial is a memorial to author and playwright Agatha Christie, located at the intersection of Cranbourn Street and Great Newport Street by St Martin's Cross near Covent Garden, in London, United Kingdom. It is located in the heart of London's theatre district. This was chosen to pay homage to Christie's contribution to theatre: her murder mystery play "The Mousetrap" is the world's longest-running show, and she was the first female playwright to have three plays performing simultaneously in the West End.
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Lehrstücke The Lehrstücke (plural form; singular: "Lehrstück") are a radical and experimental form of modernist theatre developed by Bertolt Brecht and his collaborators from the 1920s to the late 1930s. The "Lehrstücke" stem from Brecht's epic theatre techniques but as a core principle explore the possibilities of learning through acting, playing roles, adopting postures and attitudes etc. and hence no longer divide between actors and audience. Brecht himself translated the term as "learning-play", emphasizing the aspect of learning through participation, whereas the German term could also be understood as "teaching-play". Reiner Steinweg goes so far as to suggest adopting a term coined by the Brazilian avant garde theatre director Zé Celso, "Theatre of Discovery", as being even clearer.
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Mediated stylistics Mediated stylistics is a new and still emerging approach to the analysis of media texts (e.g. news programs, newspaper articles). Its aims are twofold: first, to take seriously the idea that media texts (e.g. news programs, newspaper articles) involve 'the construction of stories by other means'; and second to take seriously the idea that in an age marked by digital connectivity, media texts are inherently interactive phenomena. To meet these aims, mediated stylistics has brought together the analytic toolkits of discursive psychology—which is finely attuned to the contextual specificities of interaction—and stylistics—which is finely attuned to the grammatical/rhetorical/narratorial specificities of texts as texts. Recent research in which mediated stylistics has been put to work, for instance, has shown that and how mediated representation of issues like sexism, sexualisation, alleged rape and violence against women can differ, and differ in rhetorically consequential ways, from the original un-mediated source material.
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Reverse chronology Reverse chronology is a method of story-telling whereby the plot is revealed in reverse order.
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Lysistrata Lysistrata ( or ; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη , "Lysistrátē", "Army Disbander") is a comedy by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BCE, it is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. Additionally, its dramatic structure represents a shift from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career. It was produced in the same year as the "Thesmophoriazusae", another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition. At this time, Greek theatre was a profound form of entertainment, which was extremely popular for all audiences as it addressed political issues relevant to that time.
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Character (arts) A character (sometimes known as a fictional character) is a person or other being in a narrative work of art (such as a novel, play, television series, or film). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made. Derived from the ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ, the English word dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in "Tom Jones" in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed. Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person." In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase "in character" has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers, has been called characterisation.
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Tom Thumb (play) Tom Thumb is a play written by Henry Fielding as an addition to "The Author's Farce". It was added on 24 April 1730 at Haymarket. It is a low tragedy about a character who is small in both size and status who is granted the hand of a princess in marriage. This infuriates the queen and a member of the court and the play chronicles their attempts to ruin the marriage.
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Characterization Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons (or other beings or creatures) in narrative and dramatic works of art. This representation may include direct methods like the attribution of qualities in description or commentary, and indirect (or "dramatic") methods inviting readers to infer qualities from characters' actions, dialogue, or appearance. Such a personage is called a character. Character is a literary element.
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Theatre technique Theatre Methods are procedures that facilitate a successful presentation of a play. They also include any practices that advance and enhance the understanding the audience brings to the action and the acting by the cast
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Metatheatre Metatheatre, and the closely related term metadrama, describe aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance.
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Mimesis criticism Mimesis criticism is a method of interpreting texts in relation to their literary or cultural models. Mimesis, or imitation ("imitatio"), was a widely used rhetorical tool in antiquity up until the 18th century's romantic emphasis on originality. Mimesis criticism looks to identify intertextual relationships between two texts that go beyond simple echoes, allusions, citations, or redactions. The effects of imitation are usually manifested in the later text by means of distinct characterization, motifs, and/or plot structure.
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Oedipus (Voltaire play) Oedipus (French: "Œdipe" ) is a tragedy by the French dramatist and philosopher Voltaire that was first performed in 1718. It was his first play and the first literary work for which he used the pen-name Voltaire (his real name was François-Marie Arouet). In adapting Sophocles' Athenian tragedy "Oedipus Rex", Voltaire attempted to rationalise the plot and motivation of its characters. In a letter of 1719 he indicated that he found it improbable that the murder of Laius had not been investigated earlier and that Oedipus should take so long to understand the oracle's clear pronouncement. Voltaire adds a subplot concerning the love of Philoctète for Jocaste. He also reduces the prominence of the theme of incest.
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Black box (fiction) A black box is a literary technique to provide a device solving a complex problem, hiding the whole complexity and providing a result.
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The Rats (play) The Rats is a stage drama in five acts by Gerhart Hauptmann, which premiered in 1911, one year before the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unlike other Hauptmann plays, such as "The Weavers" (1892) and "The Assumption of Hannele" (1893), this one does not seem ever to have been performed on Broadway.
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Political fiction Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction, such as political novels, often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". It overlaps with the social novel, proletarian novel and social science fiction. Highly influential earlier works include "Gulliver's Travels" (1726), "Candide" (1759), and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852).
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First-person narrative A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a narrator relays events from his or her own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first person protagonist (or other focal character), first person re-teller, first person witness, or first person peripheral (also called a peripheral narrator). A classic example of a first person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" (1847), in which the title character is also the narrator telling her own story, "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me".
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Melodrama A melodrama is a dramatic or literary work in which the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Characters are often simply drawn, and may appear stereotyped.
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Audience immersion Audience immersion is the result an actor or performer uses with their own ability and technique, to draw the audience further into the story through direct interaction. It is especially used in theatre. It is also known as "going beyond the fourth wall".
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Blocking (stage) On theatre, blocking is the precise staging of actors in order to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera. Historically, the expectations of staging/blocking have changed substantially over time in Western theater. Prior to the movements towards "realism" that occurred in the 19th century, most staging used a "tableau" approach, in which a stage picture was established whenever characters entered or left the stage, ensuring that leading performers were always shown to their best advantage. In more recent times—while nothing has changed about showing leading performers to best advantage—there have been changing cultural expectations that have made blocking/staging more complicated. There are also artistic reasons why blocking can be crucial. Through careful use of positioning on the stage, a director or performer can establish or change the significance of a scene. Different artistic principles can inform blocking, including minimalism and naturalism.
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Dramaturgy Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The word "dramaturgy" was coined by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his influential work "Hamburg Dramaturgy", which was written while employed as the world's first dramaturg at the Hamburg National Theatre. Dramaturgy is a distinct practice separate from play writing and directing, although a single individual may perform any combination of the three. Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturg, to adapt a work for the stage.