In VCE Drama, a convention is an agreed-upon theatrical device or technique that signals meaning between performers and their audience. Every performance style has its own vocabulary of conventions. Mastery of these conventions — and the ability to manipulate them intentionally — is central to both the creation and analysis of drama.
A convention is:
- Agreed upon — both performer and audience understand its theatrical function.
- Stylistically specific — conventions carry the aesthetic identity of their parent style.
- Purposeful — every convention should serve the work’s intended meaning.
- Manipulable — conventions can be exaggerated, subverted or hybridised for effect.
Epic Theatre (Bertolt Brecht)
- Verfremdungseffekt (V-Effekt / Alienation Effect): techniques that prevent emotional immersion to encourage critical thinking.
- Direct audience address (breaking the fourth wall).
- Placards, projections and narration to provide commentary.
- Gestus: a single gesture or attitude that encapsulates a social relationship.
- Episodic structure (scenes that stand alone rather than building to a climax).
- Visible scene changes; exposed theatre machinery.
Physical Theatre (including Lecoq-influenced work, DV8, Complicité)
- Ensemble unison and canon movement.
- Transformation: rapid shifts between characters, objects and locations using the body.
- Use of objects as multiple, metaphorical entities.
- Spatial storytelling: the stage space itself carries meaning.
- Movement scores (repeatable physical sequences).
Expressionism
- Distorted, exaggerated movement and facial expression.
- Non-naturalistic, stylised vocal delivery.
- Environments designed to reflect psychological states.
- Subjective staging (the world seen through the protagonist’s distorted perception).
Commedia dell’arte
- Fixed stock characters (Arlecchino, Pantalone, Il Dottore, the Innamorati).
- Half-masks and full masks.
- Lazzi: repeated comic routines or gags.
- Exaggerated physical laziness or quickness associated with each character type.
- Direct audience engagement (knowing winks, asides).
Absurdist Theatre (Beckett, Ionesco)
- Circular or repetitive structure (the action returns to its starting point).
- Non-sequitur dialogue and illogical cause-and-effect.
- Archetypal or anonymous characters (e.g., names like “A” and “B”).
- Waiting and inaction as a primary dramatic device.
Documentary / Verbatim Theatre
- Exact reproduction of real speech patterns, including hesitation and repetition.
- Direct address of audience as witnesses.
- Projection of factual material (dates, quotes, video).
- Multiple voices narrating a single event.
Contemporary VCE performances often draw on multiple styles simultaneously. A performance might use Brechtian direct address alongside physical theatre transformation. When hybridising:
- Each convention must serve a clear purpose.
- The combination must be coherent rather than arbitrary.
- Students should be able to articulate why specific conventions were selected from each style.
COMMON MISTAKE: Students often confuse a convention (a specific, repeatable theatrical device) with a general technique (e.g., “the actors moved slowly”). A convention carries recognised meaning within a style system. Always name the convention precisely and explain its function: “The use of direct address, a Brechtian convention, positioned the audience as critical observers rather than emotionally immersed participants.”
Conventions become most powerful when they are manipulated — applied in unexpected ways, subverted, or contrasted with other conventions. For example:
- Using commedia lazzi at a moment of genuine tragedy creates dark comedy and unsettles the audience.
- Interrupting a naturalistic scene with an expressionist distortion disrupts the audience’s comfort.
EXAM TIP: In written responses about your ensemble or solo performance, always specify which convention you used, from which style, and what effect it had on the audience. Avoid vague language like “we used theatrical techniques.”
A convention works because both performer and audience participate in an agreement about what it means. This agreement is theatrical — it is not the same as real-world communication. A performer who steps forward and says “I am now playing the mother” is not lying, even though they are clearly the same person who played the daughter a moment ago. The theatrical convention of transformation makes this true within the world of the performance.
Understanding conventions as agreements (rather than tricks or illusions) is fundamental to VCE Drama. It explains why the same convention can be used in radically different styles without contradiction: direct address is used in commedia dell’arte, in Brechtian epic theatre, and in contemporary physical theatre — but its function and tone differ in each context.
Advanced devising practice involves creating conventions unique to a specific performance — a physical action, spatial arrangement or vocal mode that the audience learns to read as meaningful within this particular work. These emergent conventions are the mark of a company or practitioner developing a distinctive theatrical language.
In your VCE ensemble or solo performance, consider whether you have developed any unique conventions — devices that the audience learns to read through repetition within the performance itself.
EXAM TIP: When discussing conventions in written responses, always acknowledge the stylistic tradition the convention comes from, even when you have adapted or subverted it. Subversion only has meaning against a background of convention — the examiner needs to know you understand what you are subverting.
