The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in aproscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The idea of the fourth wall was made explicit by Denis Diderot and spread in nineteenth-century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism, which extended the idea to the imaginary boundary between any fictional work and its audience.
The presence of the fourth wall is an established convention of modern realistic theatre, which has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comedic effect when this boundary is "broken", for example by an actor onstage speaking to the audience directly.
The acceptance of the transparency of the fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events. Although the critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible screen that forever separates the audience from the stage," postmodern art forms frequently either do away with it entirely, or make use of various framing devices to manipulate it in order to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the production, according to the artistic desires of the work's creator.
Speaking directly to the audience through the camera, in a film, play or television program, is referred to as "breaking the fourth wall."
Some examples of "breaking the wall":
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
- Wayne's World.
- Pantomimes.
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