Dramatic convention and decorum

Abstract

Because so much study of Shakespeare — and, indeed, of all dramatists — is done from the printed text, mainly, sometimes entirely, divorced from the play in performance, a distorted, partial view of a dramatic work becomes only too common. This applies as much to critics as to students. The inverse can also, unfortunately, occur: theatre people may ignore or even be contemptuous of scholarship and criticism. It ought to be obvious that the most intelligent and satisfying understanding of a drama will marry scholarship and dramatic practice. Even as formidable a critic as A. C. Bradley had, as Helen Gardner put it, ‘a defective feeling for the stage. He took insufficient account of the distinction between characterization in a novel and characterization in a play.’ The former creates characters who ‘come to life in our imagination’; the latter, those ‘an actor is to bring to life on the stage’ (ShS 21, p. 81). It is nowadays much more common to appeal to theatrical experience. This can take two forms: reference to what has happened in performances over the years, and research into dramatic conventions.