Theatre as Semiotic Practice

To consider theatre as semiotic practice is, initially at least, to refer to the gestural, visual or auditory communication which accompanies discursive communication on the stage. From this perspective, the term semiotic practices is used to designate all semiotic processes other than "verbal practices," which, when considered from the point of view of language, are basically semantic practices. Yet, I hope to demonstrate that theatre can be a "semiotic practice" at the level of speech when language becomes discourse. And the specificity of theatrical discourse, of discourse inscribed in dialogue, is its inherent capacity to articulate a semiotic dimension in perhaps much the same way as do rituals and ceremonies. My purpose, therefore, is to attempt to define theatricality at the level of the production of verbal discourse. However, it is important not to isolate verbal discourse from other "pragmatic'" processes which function syncretically, but rather to examine the discursive operation when the verbal is linked to other forms of semiotic construct, such as theatrical forms.