theatricity

English

Etymology

From theatric +‎ -ity.

Noun

theatricity (uncountable)

1. The quality of being theatric.

   Synonyms: theatricality, theatricalness

   • 1910 January 16, “Teresa Carreno, Called Queen of Pianists, Will Play Here”, in The Oregon Sunday Journal, volume VI, number 42, Portland, Or., section 6 (Dramatic and Sports), page 3, column 2:

     Madame Carreno’s fleet fingered manipulation of the chords and rapid passages did much to make the hearer forget the theatricity of the work.

   • 1910 October 9, “[Public Opinion.] Eloquence. (Philadelphia Ledger.)”, in The News, Lynchburg, Va., page 4, column 3:

     The power of the human tongue to sway the human reason is probably not so great as it was in the days of Demosthenes on the Crown, or Cicero against Catline,^[sic] but mankind, still dearly loves the polished sentence, the well-turned period, the graceful theatricity of the trained orator.

   • 1911 January 11, “Box Parties for Schubert Night Are Being Arranged—Special Rehearsal of Chorus This Evening”, in The York Daily, York, Pa., page 2, column 2:

     One of the solos to be given by Mrs. [Clara Yocum] Joyce will be “Farewell to the Forests” from [Pyotr Ilyich] Tschaikowsky’s “Jeanne d’Arc.” In speaking of her rendition of the number recently a critic says: “[…] Her singing is effective not by virtue—or by vice—of any stentorian power, but through the sincerity of its appeal, the entire freedom from the theatricity in the interpretation, the innate refinement and sound discernment of the artist.”

   • 1911 March 16, “[The American Press] Philadelphia Ledger”, in The Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Pittsburgh, Pa., page 4, column 6:

     The unthinking may applaud a [Lord] Byron who goes to Missolonghi to draw his sword in foreign quarrel; to some it savors of theatricity and quixotism when a man goes up and down the earth looking for a fight he may take part in.

   • 1924 March 15, F. L. W., “[Music News and Reviews] Hulda Lashanska Sings Under [Leopold] Stokowski’s Baton”, in The Christian Science Monitor, volume XVI, number 92, Boston, Mass.: Christian Science Publishing Society, page 8, columns 4–5:

     The aria in question was the song of Pamina’s lament for Tamino, from Act II of “The Magic Flute.” She sang it, not with the self-conscious and pretentious theatricity of a prima donna striking an attitude and aiming to electrify, but with such naïveté as we may imagine [William] Wordsworth encountered when he listened enraptured to the song of the Solitary Reaper.

   • 2021, Jan Stasieńko, “The Teleprompter and the posthuman repositioning of the gaze”, in Media Technologies and Posthuman Intimacy, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Academic, published 2022, →ISBN, part 2 (Tele-visions), page 138:

     The Teleprompter as a posthuman apparatus has a number of qualities reinforcing the relationship that forms between the human subject and the text through the prompter’s mediation. One could say that both the prompter’s method of application and the device’s historical provenance result in theatricity being its most prominent characteristic. For it introduces a mystification into the gazing order by definition – ‘I am looking at you, but in truth I am not.’

Translations

quality of being theatric — see theatricality