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Fourth Wall

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.

The concept is usually attributed to the philosopher, critic and dramatist Denis Diderot.The term itself was used by Molière. The fourth wall illusion is often associated with naturalist theatre of the mid 19th-century, and especially with the innovations of the French director André Antoine.

The restrictions of the fourth wall were challenged in 20th-century theatre. Speaking directly to, otherwise acknowledging or doing something to the audience through this imaginary wall – or, in film, television, and video games, through a camera – is known as "breaking the fourth wall". 

As it is a penetration of a boundary normally set up or assumed by works of fiction, this is considered a metafictional technique. In literature and video games, it occurs when a character acknowledges the reader or player. Breaking the fourth wall should not be confused with the aside or the soliloquy, dramatic devices often used by playwrights where characters on stage are delivering inner monologues, giving the audience insight into their thoughts.

Fifth Wall

The term "fifth wall" is often used by analogy with the "fourth wall" for a metaphorical barrier in engagement with a medium. It has been used as an extension of the fourth wall concept to refer to the "invisible wall between critics or readers and theatre practitioners." This conception led to a series of workshops at the Globe Theatre in 2004 designed to help break the fifth wall.

The term has also been used to refer to "that semi-porous membrane that stands between individual audience members during a shared experience." In media, the television set has been described metaphorically as a fifth wall because of how it allows a person to see beyond the traditional four walls of a room. In shadow theatre the term "fifth wall" has been used to describe the screen onto which images are projected.




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