upstage
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From up- + stage. The figurative uses “haughty” and “to draw attention away” derive from actors moving to a higher and thus more visible position on a sloped stage.[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]upstage (uncountable)
- (theater) The part of a stage that is farthest from the audience or camera.
- Coordinate terms: center stage, downstage, stage left, stage right
Adverb
[edit]upstage (comparative more upstage, superlative most upstage)
- Toward or at the rear of a theatrical stage.
- The actor turned and walked upstage.
- Away from the audience or camera.
Adjective
[edit]upstage (comparative more upstage, superlative most upstage)
- At the rear of a stage.
- The minimalist play used no upstage scenery.
- (figurative, obsolete) Haughty, aloof.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:arrogant
- 1929 December, Betty Boone, “The Price of this Stardom”, in Screenland, page 22:
- If she hasn't time for this or that, if she refuses to make or keep appointments, if her face does not greet all comers with a sweet and charming smile, then the word is passed around that ‘So-and-So is getting high-hat and up-stage.’
Verb
[edit]upstage (third-person singular simple present upstages, present participle upstaging, simple past and past participle upstaged)
- (figurative, transitive) To draw attention away from others, especially on-stage.
- Synonyms: eclipse, overshadow
- She only wore that dress to upstage everyone.
- 1987 August 17, “Peace Moves”, in Newsweek, volume 60, number 7, page 1:
- Ronald Reagan’s peace plan for Nicaragua, which would have worked to his domestic political advantage even if it had failed, is upstaged by a surprise initiative by five Central American countries.
- (transitive, theater) To force other actors to face away from the audience by staying upstage.
- (transitive, by extension) To treat snobbishly.
- (medicine, transitive) To restage upward; to restage (a case of a disease, usually a cancer) to a higher stage than that found at last assessment.
- Antonym: downstage
- 1999, “Mismanagement of ovarian cancer by laparoscopy and laparotomy”, in Laparoscopic surgery in gynaecological oncology, Blackwell Science, →ISBN:
- Almost one-third of patients were upstaged after re-exploration, three-quarters of whom actually had stage III disease.
Translations
[edit]to draw attention away from others
|
to force other actors to face away from the audience by staying upstage
to treat snobbishly
References
[edit]- ^ Martin Harrison (1998) “upstage”, in The Language of Theatre, New York: Routledge, →ISBN, pages 296–297:
- Used as a verb, actors upstage someone if they focus attention on themselves (and away from other performers), generally at a point in the production when that is not artistically desirable […] This usage is derived from the fact that a position upstage on a raked staged was the one which attracted most attention.
Further reading
[edit]rake (theatre) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- “upstage”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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