Definition
The imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.
Origins
A reference to the three walls of a box set, with the fourth wall being the imaginary wall separating the performers from the audience. Coined by philosopher and art critic Denis Diderot in 1758 and thus a calque of French quatrième mur.
In Context
- "This is a flat, unnecessary, and strangely disturbing denial of the fourth-wall convention, that unwritten agreement between playwright and playgoer whereby you think of yourself at the theatre as a privileged, exonerated, comfortably seated eavesdropper."
- "There's been a convention in the theater world to think of the division between audience and spectacle as a fourth wall, a wall that the playwright tries to eliminate through the force of his drama."