Significance of Signs in Theatre Performance

Name of Author : Pradnya Chandrashekhar Chaudhari, Dr. Vikas Raskar

Abstract: Theatrical performance is one of the richest and complex forms of communication due to which it becomes an important field of semiotic studies. Theatre, in the performance arts has a lot of privilege because of its production of signs. In theatre, signs take the form of words, actions, sounds, emotions, gesture, movement, make-up, decor, costume, acts or objects, but such things have no essential meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. Theatre semiotics is an application to theatre signs. As theatre is a sign system, everything that happens during the performance is a signifier, and it is used to express a particular concept. Jiri Veltrusky in his book, An Approach to the Semiotics of the Theatre (1940. p. 84) has said, All that is on the stage is a sign. This paper explores the significance of sign during the theatrical performance with several elements of the theatre. Through the elements, it is possible to examine the ways in which a performance generates meaning and the types of meanings it is generating.

Keywords : Semiotics, Signs, Signifier, Theatre, Performance

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