CLOSET DRAMA AND STAGE FRIGHT: DIEGETIC AND MIMETIC TARGETS OF ATTENTION

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the tension between mimesis (imitation) and diegesis (narrativity) in the history of drama through the lens of closet drama and its relation to stage fright: a cognitive displacement of theatrical attention from the visible stage to the imaginative sphere. Traditionally, drama has been defined as a mimetic genre oriented toward theatrical performance, while narrativity has been regarded merely as a secondary device for unstageable events. However, from Plato’s dialogues and Seneca’s rhetorical tragedies to the Romantic and modern closet dramas, the genre has demonstrated that speech and narration can themselves constitute a dramatic world. Building on Martin Puchner’s notion of stage fright, this paper argues that closet drama does not signify a retreat from the stage but a reconfiguration of attention. By replacing immediate with delayed perception, diegetic closet drama activates the audience’s imagination through techniques such as messenger reports, descriptive stage directions, deliberate concealments, and Brechtian alienation effects. These strategies continuously redirect attention between showing and telling, generating a heightened responsiveness that rivals mimetic theatre. Ultimately, the paper contends that in modernity it is not diegetic closet drama that suffers from stage fright, but mimetic theatre itself, which fears the superior attentional power of diegesis.